Death of a Moderate
Azeem Tariq, Chairman MQM and lately leader of his own MQM faction, was brutally murdered in his own house by unknown assailants in the early hours of May Day in a Gang land-type assassination reminiscent of the worst days of Chicago mob warfare. Remaining underground after the army action to restore law and order in the urban areas of Sindh in June 1992, he had emerged from hiding a few months ago and gradually distanced himself from his former colleague and charismatic leader of the MQM, Altaf Hussain, now in self-imposed exile in London. In the past few days before his death, Azeem Tariq had been vocally critical of Altaf Hussain, laying out facts hitherto suspected but not otherwise widely evidenced, that the MQM had been essentially a creation of our intelligence agencies and that he, along with Altaf Hussain, had been regularly receiving money from them particularly during the MQM’s formative years. In countries where democratic institutions are seldom allowed to flourish, intelligence agency sponsored political parties are not a strange phenomenon.
It had been reported in the Press a day earlier that Azeem Tariq had finally decided to eliminate the uncertainty that saw him in a state of limbo, estranged from Altaf Hussain but not allied to the MQM Haqeeqis, by moving to merge his faction with the rebel group. Taken universally as propped up by the Establishment, particularly the ISI, the MQM Haqeeqi would have obtained great credibility from Azeem Tariq’s presence, particularly in the period leading upto the Provincial Assembly elections slated for May 5, 1993. Bereft of real leadership, the loss of Azeem Tariq is a body blow to the Mohajir community. The MQM was already badly split between Altaf and the dissident Haqeeqis with a vast majority quietly sitting on the fence. Azeem Tariq was seen as a moderating influence over the mercurial, charismatic Altaf, drawing in the “great silent majority” of moderates among the Mohajirs into the party. A dimunitive figure he was openly opposed to militancy within the MQM but displayed his displeasure by silent approbation rather than any public condemnation till very recently when he confirmed what the official media had been propagating since the army crackdown, that MQM militants had been encouraged by Altaf to suppress criticism within and outside the party in pursuance of a personality cult domination of everything in sight.
Azeem Tariq’s assassination puts the whole political apple-cart in Pakistan in jeopardy way beyond the shadow he actually cast on Pakistan’s political stage while he was alive. The MQM’s edifice had been tottering under army pressure to root out the criminal elements within the MQM over the past year, the revulsion on his death may cause a mass exodus from the MQM on a “pox on all your houses” syndrome. Azeem Tariq’s murder could have been planned by die-hard Altaf activists to stop him from letting out more hometruths and joining the MQM Haqeeqis but on the other hand, having served their purpose to a great extent by moving to merge with the Haqeeqis, the rebel group could have decided he would serve a far more useful purpose as a martyr, being a much more potent Altaf-opponent in death than in life since Altaf would generally be perceived as the odds-on favourite for having ordered the hit of his former colleague in the circumstances prevailing. One must caution here that this is pure conjecture and there could be other possibilities. Unfortunately for both sides, the beneficiaries of Azeem Tariq’s elimination could be third parties, namely the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Nawaz Sharif faction of PML or the PPP. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP of yesteryear would have been much more likely to attract ex-MQM supporters than Ms Benazir’s PPP today given her desperate need to buttress Sindhi support. Nawaz Sharif may have struck a chord among Karachiites recently after his ouster but he will more likely get the support of those who cannot stomach the fundamentalism that the JI stands for. The greatest political beneficiary for the short term could well be the well organised new image JI.
Whatever way one sees it, the day of the ethnic party is over bar the shouting, this tragedy is the last nail in the coffin of this phenomenon of the 80s where partyless politics created a situation which was tailor-made for their upsurge. In the future who knows there could be another revival or a resurgence if another autocratic regime resorts to a “divide and rule” policy. In the meantime, we must brace ourselves for reprisals and counter-revenge if the authorities do not move swiftly to apprehend those responsible for this outrage, whatever their backing or influence. India is learning a bitter and bloody lesson from the backlash of RAW adventures in having lost two PMs because of it. Indira Gandhi fell because of the fallout of Operation “Bluestar” to suppress the originally RAW-sponsored Sikh activist Bhindranwala and Rajiv Gandhi becoming a suicide-bomb victim to the revenge of the LTTE, another RAW-created monster that turned on their Indian sponsors after the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF)’s misadventure in Sri Lanka. We must exercise great maturity and moderation in the forming and sponsoring of individuals and groups who may turn hostile and damage the fabric of the nation other than the fact of their engaging in internecine urban warfare.
It is said that those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword, not so in the case of Azeem Tariq who was known to shun the sword but had the misfortune to perish by it. It is indeed a tragedy that a man who had so much to give to his immediate community and to the nation at large should meet such an untimely death in so brutal a fashion.
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