A City without Leadership
For a person who led a relentless struggle in the 80s decade for the restoration of unadulterated democracy in Pakistan, Ms Benazir displays a remarkable obduracy in refusing to recognize the ground realities of the increasingly anarchical situation in Karachi. Though it is true that fate intervened rather fortuitously to her advantage, one cannot take the credit away from Ms Benazir’s struggle against dictatorship (and vestiges thereof) with respect to the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. The then Establishment tried to stop her in her tracks by the cobbling together of the IJI by Maj Gen (later Lt Gen Retd) Hameed Gul, the then DG ISI, but the people of Pakistan gave her enough NA seats to be the prime contender to form the Federal Government. Skepticism notwithstanding, enough MNAs lined up behind her in non-grudging support to translate her lead into a majority in Parliament by the flawed means that is acceptable to us presently as the Constitution of the land. Even when the sizeable MQM bloc changed sides in late 1989, she survived a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly, mostly because both the intelligentsia and the masses continued to believe in her recurring song of democracy.
During her long stint in the cold, Ms Benazir had repeatedly pointed out that with drugs and Kalashnikovs flooding into the urban cities of Pakistan, particularly Karachi, there was a dire necessity to usher in democracy immediately to “counter the dangerous vacuum created by Martial Law and dictatorship at the grassroots level because of the lack of leadership duly elected by the people.” Her contention rightly was that a mixture of ethnic and sectarian bigots along with mobsters, drug barons, foreign-trained terrorists etc, would flood into this void, anybody who could wield power through the power of forcible suggestion, more potently, through the barrel of a gun. Ms Benazir Bhutto had very rightly advocated that the only solution to avoid apocalypse was to have free and fair elections at every tier of government so that credible, authentic leaders would emerge, with their roots in a rock-solid base because of the peoples’ confidence in their abilities and person.
It is ironic that today the same pillar of democracy that most believed was the ultimate in commitment to the people, is now looking at every other possibility as a solution for Karachi except the one most obvious and logical for restoration of peace, the democratic right of the citizens of Karachi to choose their own leaders. Without going into debate about how and why the MQM abstained from the NA vote in 1993 and thus threw the political balance Ms Bhutto’s way, the fact remains that the present elected representatives from Karachi at the national level do not really represent the electorate for the most part. This is not as critical as the failure to conduct Local Bodies elections in the urban areas, particularly Karachi. History is witness that selected Mohalla Committees cannot be foisted on the people, they will invariably be given a short shrift. Credibility can only be ensured by the leadership being chosen by the people. In the absence of elected leaders in Karachi’s localities, youth (both guided and misguided) have fostered ethnicity and sectarianism on the strength of the barrel of a gun. The fabric of an orderly society that is the essence of any civilization has degenerated into parochial and motivated groupings at war with each other, this has led to disintegration of that particular glue of reason and compromise that holds society together.
To delay due process of adult franchise any further will lead to disaster of the greatest magnitude. The PM must not be waylaid by the fears that her Advisors and the intelligence agencies daily feed her (as they did her predecessors before her) that allowing the MQM to regain power in Karachi would be a calamity. Her response should be the same democratic mores she repeatedly urges on the Opposition, the verdict of the electorate must be paramount and must be respected. Given massive support in Karachi, the MQM will come into power in most city areas as surely as night follows day, let the MQM bear the responsibility of restoring peace in their respective areas in the city. It is unthinkable that leaders who have a genuine commitment to the people who have exercised confidence in them in the past and one daresays will do so in the future, will stand by and allow their respective electorates to be massacred or their localities to be destroyed. That accountability is the essence of democracy. Unless elected leaders exist in Mohalla Committees to coordinate and exchange information from the street level upwards that would pinpoint terrorist and saboteurs in our midst, credible facts to counter such people will remain lacking. Artificial leadership thrust by government fiat can never be a credible alternative as the people will never trust them.
One of the major lessons of Vietnam and Afghanistan was that military means usually cause great casualties and massive destruction but can never overcome the will of the people. Another fact to emerge was that as the violence escalates, all enforcement agencies, military, civil or para-military, universally keep asking for more men and material to overcome the problem at hand till one day they themselves become a State within a State and thus the greater problem. What do Armoured Personnel Carriers in the city’s posh areas as a “show of force” accomplish? Will they serve to scare hardened terrorists from striking mercilessly at random at places and times of their choosing (and thus act as a deterrent) or by this show of force do they simply instill terror in the hearts of the innocent populace they are supposed to protect? For that matter, what do bunkers achieve? For professional soldiers, bunkers are a symbol of Maginot Line immobility that is anathema to the concept of urban warfare where mobility must be the only logic. Except for the necessity of guarding vital installations, bunkers exist only as symbols of the impotence of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to enforce the law. In essence, the LEAs adopt a defensive posture, they accept that instead of taking the initiative they can at best only react. The Army extricated itself (very rightly) from the proverbial blanket of the Karachi morass by bringing in para-military Rangers as credible replacements. However, in the few weeks after the lifting of the strong (and commendable) restraint exercised by the local Army leadership on their subordinate officers and men, the rather over-bearing attitude of the Rangers rank and file with the civil population has caused their credibility to rapidly become less than zero. To a wary populace they increasingly seem to be a reincarnation of (late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — vintage) Federal Security Force (FSF). While this labelling may not be fair at all, the fact is that the populace that had lost all confidence in the local police seems to have rapidly reached the same stage of skepticism at the effectiveness and commitment of the Rangers. While the Army hierarchy had been repeatedly requesting the civil administration for better equipment for the Rangers for the past 2 years, suddenly post Nov 30, 1994 (the day the Army unilaterally withdrew from the urban areas of Sindh, particularly Karachi), the Rangers have been bombarded with Federal Government largesse in money and material. A spectacular rise in terror acts has been directly proportional to this. Money would have been better on the Sindh Police who have borne the brunt of the casualties and whose job it is in the ultimate analysis to keep the peace. While one may disagree respectfully with the present IG Police Sindh Mr Afzal Shigri as regards his rather extreme views about the MQM, he does happen to be a professional law enforcement officer of known integrity who has competent subordinate officers serving under him for the most part. The funding and upgrading of the Sindh Police, particularly Karachi Police, should have been a greater priority. In a sense, therefore, the people may be getting a wrong perception of the creation of an FSF-type entity for future oppression, dedicated to the desires of the rulers rather than the requirement of the laws they are meant to uphold. It is amazing how people who theoretically should be dedicated to ideals find it convenient to sacrifice conscience at the altar of one’s career and/or the glitter of gold. During the Nuremberg trials in 1946, Sir Hartley Shawcross answered the monolithic legal defence by the Nazi elite about obeying their oath to the Fuhrer and the German State by saying that “There comes a point where a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his conscience,” unquote.
One may have elections today or maybe it happens tomorrow. One may even wait till Grozny-ized Karachi galvanises them into action (depending upon how much callousness the rulers have been able to inculcate in themselves as to being impervious to the horrors happening around the city). In the end it is only by the return of democracy at the grassroots level that Karachi can survive as a city. One gives credit to both the Shia and Sunni sects in the city, in particular their leadership, despite grievous provocation they have been able to distinguish the crass villainy of third forces in trying to pit them against each other, how longer will we keep testing fate from encroaching bloodily on the patience of brothers-in-faith? As much as Karachi cannot be governed by remote control, how much longer will people who matter avoid facing the fact that some of the people running amok may well have been trained by RAW and were formerly Al-Zulfiqar terrorists? If the game plan is to make MQM disintegrate on sectarian lines then a greater calamity awaits this city than that being propagated as a certainty by the intelligence agencies if the MQM should come back to power, (no matter that power is not a gift to be royally bestowed but a right acquired by the free exercise of the vote).
Karachi has a myriad number of socio-economic problems that need to be addressed, to those will be added one of environment pollution in the unlikely possibility that the new power stations being planned should ever come on-stream. Will all the power generated be able to resuscitate the carcass of a dead entity? The answer to redemption is so simple, immediate and unfettered Local Bodies elections followed by similar exercise of adult franchise up the tiers of power. Karachi is a rich city, it does not need any aid, only the ability to exploit its potential and resources in a peaceful environment. No other solution is more pressing than a return of power to the people of this city.
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