The Sindh Cauldron-II Untangling a no-win Situation
Given that Gen (Retd) Aslam Beg, formerly COAS and lately PML (J) recruit, has recently said that the Army and the MQM are not in a state of confrontation in Sindh, one may well ask, where is the beef? After two years of “chasing shadows” (a direct phrase from the ex-COAS circa 1990), the Army hierarchy remains seemingly convinced that the MQM leadership prefers its own narrow ambitions in preference to the greater national interest, this suspicion has been further heightened because of the Human Rights initiative taken internationally by MQM. Conversely, why should not the MQM get that feeling that the Army is out to do them in, given that all urban area operations seem to be focussed on them? In 1990, the then COAS Gen Beg declined to take army action to quell criminal elements in Sindh unless he had sanction under Article 245 of the Constitution, with its refusal Ms Benazir regime punched its own time clock to extinction. Two years after stepping into the Sindh cauldron, other than the fact that Gen Beg and PPP are now uncomfortable but nominal allies because of the Wattoo factor, the Army has achieved spectacular results in the interior but in the urban areas their success has been of mixed blessings for a myriad number of reasons. Cleansing the MQM of its militants, the Army’s continued presence has become a media disaster, not unsurprisingly given that most welcomes tend to wear off in due time. Forced into a role that was not in keeping with their prime mission, the Army has performed a thankless task with increasing apprehension that the situation has taken on the life of a hydra-headed monster, you deal with one urban problem, other problems crop up in its place.
Mohajirs comprise a sizeable segment of the population in Pakistan. Though the MQM is representative of the main population blocs in Karachi and Hyderabad, a greater majority lives in various numbers in all the towns and cities of Pakistan (even upto 20-22% of the populace in some cases) while a sizeable percentage is settled in the rural areas of the Seraiki belt, a geographical reality that cannot be denied. In the 1993 elections Mian Nawaz Sharif would have swept into power with an overwhelming majority except for several political missteps, the most crucial being vacillation in the getting of active support from the MQM. That would have certainly given him a sizeable swing vote in every urban constituency in Pakistan (not that critical since he was fairly well placed in urban areas) but more importantly in the Seraiki belt that went almost solid in default to the PPP and its PML (J) allies, in many cases by narrow margin. The lack of MQM’s NA seats because of the MQM boycott also meant that the decisive bloc of a potential ally was lost to the PML (N) in the National Assembly. Lesson learnt from this exercise is that the MQM represent a segment of the populace that cannot be denied its place in the sun to whoever wants to retain Federal power. Down the line another fact to emerge is that isolating a vocal minority cannot be ever possible in a major urban city.
