Back to Sindh’s Future
The PPP’s decisive majority in Sindh is rural-based except for the National Assembly where because of the MQM boycott it shared the MQM’s urban seats with the PML (N). Bouncing back strongly from their strategic blunder which took away their king-maker status at the national level, the MQM took the second largest majority of 27 PA seats, a true reflection of its vote bank among the Mohajir community in the major urban areas.
Compartmentalised into Provincial role, a culmination of the process that started less than two years ago with Operation Clean-up, a sense of deprivation and persecution is endemic among the Mohajir community. Though Operation Clean-up was primarily directed at restoring the rule of law in Sindh in both the urban and major rural areas, their overwhelming urban presence meant that the MQM became the only political party so targeted. In the period pre-Operation Clean-up some of MQM’s militant elements had far exceeded the parameters of civilized behaviour and were openly baiting the army. Having cogent reasons for not being enamoured with the MQM, the Army called their bluff but in their success they need to be magnanimous in the greater interest of national integrity. As seen in their tolerance of the present “democracy”, they can be patient if they have to be. The sins of a handful cannot be visited upon the millions of their innocent kith and kin, Mohajir public opinion is already estranged and getting more bitter by the day.
Before Operation Clean-up, rural Sindh was not well-disposed towards the Pakistan Army. With the RAW fanned secessionist movement combining with the political terrorism of Al-Zulfikar, a situation existed which was being assiduously exploited by a virtual dacoits kingdom ruling the rural roost. Unemployed Sindhi youth flocked for recruitment to various gangs as the only way of earning a livelihood, risks notwithstanding. With Sindh’s rural police either collaborating or passive because out of terror-filled awe of the dacoits, the prime imperator was in the hands of outright criminals and their collaborators. Most major landowners became accessories out of the sheer necessity of survival, if not willingly in some cases. With easier and greater pickings available in Karachi, the rural dacoits gravitated towards the city lights, joining the militant groups of the various political factions as well as the urban criminal gangs already spreading terror in Karachi by armed robberies, kidnappings and snatchings. In all this they are actively aided by criminal elements within the police and the bureaucracy.
The Pakistan Army faced an awesome task in pursuing separate tactics in coping with the differing requirements of restoring the rule of law in the urban and rural areas. The Corps Commander given this unenviable mission, Lt Gen Nasir Akhtar, proceeded with a mature and deliberate two-pronged strategy. The Sindh Administration was more of a handicap than a help, given the additional requirement to the Army of propping up the non-representative and thoroughly corrupt Muzaffar Shah regime, itself involved in criminal activity at every level of its unholy composition. Except for a brief bloody skirmish between the MQM and its dissident group, the Haqeeqis, which the Army used as a sort of a “Trojan Horse” shield to move into the MQM strongholds, Commander Corps Reserve Maj Gen Malik Saleem Khan’s tactics of “winning a war without bloodying swords” (Sun Tzu) worked to perfection. For the short term the swift occupation of areas where MQM militants had promised resistance was eminently successful, for the long-term the keeping of the mailed fist of the army gloved laid the foundations for dialogue. Decisive action was taken against many criminal gangs, bringing the crime rate down drastically. However, the army action was incomplete without being accompanied by a socio-economic package. The combination of MQM leaders going underground and the failure of the intelligence agencies to drop the Haqeeqi potato once it had lost its utility value was complicated by the high-handedness of certain greedy and immature elements within the intelligence agencies. Using physical torture and other humiliations, these rogue elements sowed the seeds of continuing dissension. What was won in the field was lost in the hearts and minds of the urban masses, deeply alienating the Mohajir community from the Army, an unfortunate schism in a natural alliance. To their credit, both Lt Gen Nasir Akhtar and Maj Gen Malik Saleem Khan, made their severe reservations known about the remote-controlled men in mufti, albeit quietly. It was not till the present COAS took over and carried out sweeping changes that command and control was restored under the respective Commanders.
On the other hand, both Maj Gen Lehrasab Khan and Saleem Arshad, had a clear-cut military objective in the rural areas, to eliminate the dacoits infesting the countryside. Lehrasab, being in the Hyderabad area, was more in the eye of the storm and went at it with gusto, with far-reaching and positive implications for the integrity of Pakistan. In this respect, the arrogance of the dacoits in giving physical resistance to the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) was a bonus as it obviated the necessity of going through the judicial process. Within weeks and months, entire areas were rid of dacoit infestation. Since they had held the entire civil populace as hostages, robbing them at their pleasure while dishonouring their womenfolk, the dacoits had alienated the rural masses who responded wholeheartedly with information about them and their hideouts. In a sea-change of attitudes and perceptions, the Sindhi masses now perceived the Army as their saviour rather than their persecutors. The simultaneous urban action helped to foster the perception of neutrality, that Lehrasab and subordinates were scrupulously fair helped. The overall effect has been both historic and stupendous, the reintegration of the ethnic Sindhi into the national mainstream. The day of the Sindh card is finally over, it will rear its ugly head from time to time but it ceases to be the major problem that it once was. One cannot doubt that this was further consolidated not only by the large majority that voted for PPP but as well for the PML (N) in the rural areas, where Mian Nawaz Sharif’s political foray into interior Sindh was the most significant political development since the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto phenomenon.
Bereft of its role in the Centre, the MQM pragmatically looked to an amicable partnership in the Province by voting for the PPP’s candidate for President, hopes which were soon dashed as the PPP spurned the MQM’s efforts for conciliation. Given that as a long-term strategy to deny Pakistan transit-trade potential for Central Asia in preference to Indian ports and roads transit, RAW has been active in keeping Karachi politically destabilized and fostering criminal activity to the already complicated situation, this has force-multiplied the problems. As Kamran Khan has lucidly detailed in a recent article, part of the RAW game plan is to keep the Army at odds with the MQM, leading to a bloody confrontation if possible, as nearly happened in a recent incident. One hopes that the same, mature leadership of the Army will analyse the dangers inherent in this fluid situation and bring the MQM from the cold back into the national mainstream.
Potentially the most dangerous schism is within the PPP, blood has already been spilled in the confrontation in the brother-sister feud between Murtaza and Ms Benazir. The bone of contention is technically the ideological soul of the Party, though the real reasons seems to be “tainting” of the Bhutto purity by the Zardari factor and the more material division of the family assets. During the last PPP regime Asif Zardari confined himself mainly to the province of the Sindh. As the only person among the PPP hierarchy to suffer almost 2 years in jail since 1990, he is now exerting his own personality in a commanding political role in national affairs. His influence in government affairs being so pronounced and dominating that he is virtually running the country in all but his wife’s name. As can be seen from the political events and appointments to lucrative posts, he is very much his own boss, the public perception increasingly seems to be that Ms Benazir is looking like a future figurehead. One cannot shove this fact of life under a convenient rug and look the other way. While this transfer of governmental authority to a spouse may trouble constitutional purists, it has not gone down well with either Murtaza or the PPP dissidents who are doggedly loyal to the Bhutto name but are not prepared to pass this on to a Zardari. To be fair to Zardari, he has built up a coterie around him that is far more effective in governance than the PPP originals or diehards, but by boldly opting to take Murtaza head on, Zardari has split the family and the Party (particularly in Sindh) wide open. A “PPP classic” compromising “the originals” may be in the works post-Eid. Though within rural Sindh Murtaza Bhutto is now taken as the real Bhutto heir, the political legitimacy of Ms Benazir cannot be denied. While Murtaza went the nether-world route of terrorism, Ms Benazir braved the political world and carried it by sheer force of spirit, personality and political acumen despite suffering the many tribulations of authoritarian rule. To the people of Pakistan, she comes across as a more potent political leader than Murtaza, who has yet to answer many questions about his anti-Pakistan activities, particularly in the post-1988 period when there was no need for him to persist with his actions. It seems quite strange that the Army is content not to explore this mine of information about RAW.
The talk of dividing Sindh does not help, it exacerbates the situation but one may well ask after the Malir District initiative of the Shah regime, what are the options left open to the cornered and the desperate? Even an animal will fight back in such circumstances. While all over Pakistan, things are effervescent on the 1993 pattern (if not the scale as yet), the simmering fire in Sindh cannot be contained for long, it is a powder keg waiting to explode in our faces. While someone has to come up with a coherent socio-economic package, whether they like it or not and despite their constitutional qualms, the Army has to take some initiative in Sindh, sooner rather than later. Otherwise it will remain bogged down in the Sindh quagmire well into the future.
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