Creeping Economic Anarchy
In order of priority the three major sectors of our economy are, viz (1) agriculture (2) industry and (3) services. Our planners set very ambitious targets for Financial Year 2000-01, most of which cannot (and will not) be met. Because of acute shortage of water (and other reasons including WAPDA’s shift to metered electricity in place of a flat fee), farmers were forced to reduce acreage under cultivation. The output of sugarcane and rice declined by as much as 19.1% and 11.4% respectively. Cotton registered a slight increase of area under cultivation, the overall production remained the same. Punjab harvested more wheat, it was offset by decreases in Sindh due to lack of irrigated water, even if grain production manages to reach 700,000 tons if the rains do come, it will be well short of the projected 772,000 tons. Given that cotton, rice, sugarcane, grain and wheat account for 94% of the agriculture sector, there will be an overall decline in all the levels forecasted. According to the Islamabad-based dream merchants’ optimistic predictions the people will not starve, shortages will be made up from buffer stocks but even they concede that the overall economic outlook for the year 2001-02 is exceedingly bleak. Given that acute water shortage is imminent, we are well on our way to a creeping economic anarchy.
The Thin Green Line
Gen Babar seems to have a born-again reputation in Karachi, many admire him openly, many more surreptitiously. He was derided and reviled when at a very bloody price he brought peace to Karachi and gave Ms Bhutto a tenuous respite to launch desperately needed economic initiatives. Unfortunately she only initiated cosmetic proposals, high on rhetoric, meagre in substance. The root cause of Karachi’s problems being economic, this fissure is being exploited for narrow selfish ends, mainly on ethnic basis. A major part of the populace being Mohajir face acute economic disparity, maybe in lesser quantum than in other parts of the country but in much more concentrated density. The Central District and other areas like Landhi, Korangi, Orangi etc, are at best ghettos. While other communities share similar backward localities deprived of basic socio-economic facilities throughout the country, the maximum square miles of misery are populated by Mohajirs — thus MQM fulfilled the need for raising a voice in protest, formerly Mohajir Qaumi Movement eventually became the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, change of name but no change of character. In a change of substance and direction inasfar as the leader, Altaf Hussain, seems to have made an individual transition from leader in Pakistan to gradually assuming the role of leader of all displaced Indian (and Pakistani Muslims of Mohajir origin) all over the world, particularly in UK, USA and the Middle East. Looking beyond the Pakistan identity is a most dangerous development — a subtle but deliberate cleavage created in the body politic of the Pakistani nation. Whereas the great silent majority of Mohajirs want to live in peace and harmony despite their misery, privation and travails, a vocal militant minority is hell-bent in holding both their own ethnic minority and the entire country hostage, Karachi being the economic jugular vein of Pakistan.
The MQM continues to command adulation and respect amongst the Mohajir supporters. There are reservations about their militancy. There are also deep schisms with splinter groups like the Haqeeqis and Goga’s crowd (BACK) becoming quite potent, not quite the size to counter the mainline MQM but neither insignificant enough to be shrugged off as of only nuisance value. Of deep concern is the fact that a large number of MQM cadres were trained in India as terrorists, it is now an open question which master’s voice they now listen to. There is open-ended danger to the Federation in allowing them to run scot-free, a fact well-known to the PML(N) leadership. Yet the PML(N) persistently attempts appeasement to keep the political alliance intact, to keep the Sindh Government nominally a PML(N) one. For the sake of the party politics, the fate of the country has been thrown as a dice into the ring.