The Sindh factor-I
This is the FIRST in a series of articles on the subject)
One of the greatest mass migrations in history started in 1947 and has continued since. Initially the flight of Muslims from India took place to both the wings of then Pakistan, Hindus (and Sikhs) from both West and East Pakistan crossed over into the adjacent areas of bordering India. This migration been most concentrated in the Province of Sindh, particularly to the major urban areas of Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and to a lesser extent, Mirpurkhas. In areas of Punjab and Bengal, the refugees blended in with the local surroundings, speaking the same language they had no identity problem. People tend to forget that the Mohajirs in Sindh do not have a monopoly over the refugee-status, the most complete exodus took place from East Punjab to West Punjab and vice versa. Today’s Mohajirs in Sindh still have relations in Behar, UP, etc, in Indian Punjab there was not one single Punjabi Muslim left. Refugees in almost the same numbers came in from other areas of India to Sindh, Punjabi Muslim from East Punjab into West Punjab. In Sindh Province the migrants were mostly Urdu speaking from UP, Behar and Hyderabad, they tended to settle down in the urban centres. As new canal-fed land was commissioned, hardy Punjabi settlers (some of them from East Punjab and Rajputana) tended to settle in Sindh rural areas, Hindu-abandoned land being available, many ex-servicemen were allotted evacuee property and government land in Sindh. As residential areas and factory buildings came up in Sindh Urban centres, skilled Punjabi craftsmen came to Karachi, hardy Pathan, Baloch and Kashmiri moving in as manual labour. Enterprising small businessmen, the Pathans eventually controlled public transportation. This was the first influx and it lasted for over 15 years, slowing down slightly because of the shifting of the capital from Karachi to Islamabad.
The second great influx started in 1971, as those Mohajirs who had migrated to East Pakistan, mostly from Behar, started shifting to West Pakistan (now Pakistan) during and after the emergence of Bangladesh. The former East Pakistanis flooded into Karachi mainly, the job market became scarce and economic hardships became more acute because of the lack of infrastructure. These refugees were augmented by Burmese Muslims fleeing their own problems in Arakan. At the same time, the Gulf fever, “Dubai Chalo”, was catching on and Karachi had a large transient population, up-country Pakistanis spending months in Karachi before getting a chance to go abroad. In this state of affairs, outright cheats and frauds got into the act and for each individual who did find a job in the Middle East, three to four expatriate aspirants were stranded in Karachi, most losing their family’s entire savings to unscrupulous travel and recruiting agents. Very few left Karachi to go back home, destitute they turned to any job they could find and they came from all over Pakistan, even from the interior of Sindh. One still finds them in droves outside the Saudi and other Arab Consulates in Karachi. Jobs have become scarcer and scarcer. In the period of nationalisation by the first PPP Government, the investment climate took a nose-dive having a further dampening effect on the job market.
The third great influx started with the exit of the Shah of Iran. Pro-Shah Iranians flooded into Karachi, very few stayed in the major point of entry, Quetta. This migration was mostly of the affluent, the very wealthy went onto USA and/or Europe, over 90% or about 250,000 stayed back in Pakistan, over 140,000 in Karachi, the rest mostly in Quetta or Islamabad. With the arrival of Russian troops on a “peace” mission to Afghanistan, the Afghans rose in open revolt, over 3 million refugees flooded into Pakistan, over 250,000 found their way to Karachi, they may go to visit Afghanistan one day but they will never leave the cities of Karachi and Lahore where they have settled permanently. With the Afghan came drugs and Kalashnikov Rifles in abundance and a new culture was born. With the advent of Iranians and Afghans, the law and order situation took a turn for the worse. One migration went unnoticed, the movement of Bangladeshis into Karachi, meant as a transit stop initially on the way to the Middle East. Almost none of the affluent houses is now without a Bangladeshi domestic servant. At the same time in order to avoid union problems most of our factories employed contract labour mainly of Bangladeshi origin. A half-million Bangladeshi refugee contingent is the result, from time to time small numbers go ahead to the Middle East.
The original Sindhi who welcomed the wave of immigrants in 1947 with open arms, with some studied caution in 1971 and with open resentment in 1979-80 have thus unfortunately become a minority in their own Province. In Karachi one can say that the Sindhi is an “endangered species” because except for a few outlying localities and villages, they are non-existent. In major Urban areas, they have seen the available jobs going to others, in his own Province the Sindhi is at the bottom of the scale in any priority. As job aspirants, particularly the college graduate, they find themselves frustrated at being spurned for employment, real or imagined, there certainly is discrimination. For the past few years the Mohajir has also very rightly raised his voice against disparity, this has been symbolised by the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). In real terms, this discrimination is inadvertent and economic, loss of job opportunities translated into misery for the poor parents who may have spent their entire fortunes to educate their scions to graduate level. In a sense they are victims of development, in the concentration of schools and colleges in Karachi rather than an even spread all over the country, more graduates compete for a smaller number of jobs. The lack of job opportunities is not due to any conspiracy against the Mohajir, it is simply the apathetic state of the economy. This frustration has come as a cruel blow. The Mohajir is still able to find both white and blue-collar jobs in urban areas of Sindh, the ethnic Sindhi finds himself denied this to the most extent, exception being the rule. With a democratic government in power dominated by Sindhis, the Mohajir see every appointment as discrimination against their rights. This is simply the Client-Patron relationship of politics at work, the spoils to the victors. In mainline commercial business except for a few enterprising waderas, among them the late Pir Mahfooz and Rafi Kachelo, the native Sindhi is also extremely scarce. In the present era some have gone overboard trying to correct this position. While it can be argued that this was mainly due to dearth of enterprise, it is a combination of that and lack of opportunities, mainly the latter. The Mohajir has a right to feel aggrieved at the blatant discrimination against him but he must also accept that the ethnic Sindhi has much more basic grievance.
For a sound basis for the Sindh problem to be settled therefore, we must have a national recognition that the ethnic Sindhi has a valid complaint, that he has seen himself gradually outnumbered in his hearth and home, particularly in Urban areas, by new immigrants. We must recognize that he has been placed in an economic Catch-22, without any real means for redemption. Critics may say that from 1972 to 1977, a Sindhi ruled Pakistan and from 1985 we have had Sindhi PMs why did they not/do not improve the lot of the native Sindhi? The answer is not for want of trying, the will is there, the means have been insufficient. Moreover, certain unscrupulous characters have jumped onto the bandwagon at the drop of a hat. The Sindh problem is very much there, a natural reaction to decades of callous neglect! We must really address ourselves to ameliorating the economic lot of the ethnic Sindhi, giving due deference to his basic grievances. Unless we face upto the hard ugly face of our mistakes and publicly acknowledge them to be an accepted factor we are going to go nowhere in our efforts.
At the same time, the existing realities cannot be reversed. After all, the Mohajir has no place to go, four decades and two generations later, he is as much a native of Sindh as the ethnic Sindhi, his forefathers have given a tremendous sacrifice of blood in making their way to Pakistan. While it is not the fault of the ethnic Sindhi that the Mohajir did not assimilate with the existing population, learning the language and merging with the indigenous population, it is not the Mohajir’s fault either, he was as much discriminated against, if not more. This discrimination was not really race against race, more of the affluent against the impoverished. The circumstances of young Pakistan, the early deaths of the Quaid and Shaheed-i-Millat, the utter avarice of the bureaucracy, the elongation of the first martial law, the concentration of schools, colleges and jobs in the cities and towns ensured that even the farmers of UP, Behar and Punjab became urban citizens. The successive governments followed uneven policies dictated out of self-preservation rather than any national purpose, Sindh interior became an area of benign neglect.
Sindh was a festering problem waiting for opportunists to exploit. Failed politicians and disgruntled extremists in Sindh saw Z A Bhutto’s emergence as the leader of a truncated but democratic Pakistan as the final nail in the coffin of Sindhi extremism. The language disturbances of mid-1972 was a direct effort to destabilize the PPP regime, conflagration became quite widespread, misinformation led to rumours, rumours translated into violence, for the first time Sindh became a house divided. Coming so soon after the emergence of Bangladesh, it carried many of its overtones. The 1972 situation was superbly handled by Bhutto, true he had advantages, he was a Sindhi himself and a consummate politician, he played the carrot and stick policy to perfection. Those who witnessed his visits in August and September 1972 to the riot-torn areas saw him evoke bipartisan adulation, in short order he sent the extremists into a form of self-imposed brooding internal exile. During his rule till July 1977, a full five years, they were never again a potent force.
The extremists got their first chance with the exit of their one-time nemesis in 1977, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, from power. In a quick reversal of facts, they quickly picked up Bhutto as a symbol of their resistance. For Bhutto, who actually rode to power because of the great support from the heartland of the Punjab, this pyrrhic support must have been galling indeed because his ascent was inspite of the Sindhi extremists in the first place. While Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution was a cruel and tragic incident for a myriad number of reasons, for the causes of national unity it was a total disaster.
Around his daughter then coalesced the Opposition to Gen Ziaul Haq. The MRD movement of 1983 was hijacked by Sindhi extremists in the absence of Ms Benazir Bhutto. When you go up against an immovable force one suffers and the army’s reaction in putting down the 1983 movement was predictable, it succeeded in getting even the moderates into the extremist camp. Consummate politician that he was, Gen Ziaul Haq, read the writing on the wall and a direct result of the 1983 agitation was the 1985 partyless elections. While Gen Ziaul Haq was a master of the delayed reaction and may have any number of reasons for partyless politics, in the face of extreme polarisation that had afflicted the body politic of Pakistan along ethnic and sectarian lines it was a sheer disaster. The only good thing that came out of it was that Gen Ziaul Haq recognized the need to assuage Sindhi sensitivities and thus orchestrated the emergence of Mohammad Ali Khan Junejo from a seemingly colourless politician and appointee of Pir Pagaro into a Prime Minister of some stature, a man of some honour who ultimately did stand up to his mentors on points of principle and suffered the fate of all recalcitrant followers in rebellion against the powers-that-be. Junejo was essentially an interregnum to the rule of Z A Bhutto’s daughter. Gen Ziaul Haq would have never permitted the elections in the manner in which they were ultimately held, the result would have been a disaster of the greatest magnitude, even a split in our wonted army which by now was showing the strains of perpetuating one-man rule. It is now clear that they were literally chaffing at the bit, frustrated at being the target of abuse for a role which they did not want to sustain.
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