In the wake of the current spate of targeted killings, Karachi is once again promised the government will take strong action against the culprits, that there will soon be peace in the city, that measures are "planned" to apprehend the troublemakers etc-etc. We have heard this song many times and are destined to hear it many more times, while the law and order situation keeps on deteriorating.
Each time we think it cannot get worse, and yet it does get worse. The reason is that the promises remain just words to pacify the public. Not a single incident of trouble the city has faced in recent times resolved because every party in power has a stake in the acts of mayhem and murder. Even if they themselves have not engineered the activities of the troublemakers, they tend to sympathise with them.
None of the political parties is interested in public welfare. All of them use the public as a tool, as cannon fodder, as something that does not have blood and flesh, that does not have sons and daughters, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. They are just a statistics. Heads are counted to show how many supporters there are. That is all any politician is really interested in.
Finally, the public has lost faith in all political parties. In Karachi the PPP, MQM and ANP have lost credibility, judging from what people are saying, especially young people. The public is fed up of being used by the politicians.
I heard it from several young men and women that at the next general elections they will not vote for any of these parties. The popularity of Imran Khan is on the ascendant. Imran Khan's appeal is not because he is comparatively young nor even because the youth have any real interest in the brand of justice of his party (Tehreek-i-Insaf). They simply have had enough with the politicians who have been in power and failed in their promises.
The youth are especially disgruntled because they are the new workforce, the aspiring professionals as well as the chief victims of murder and mayhem that hits the city over and over. The coalition parties are not interested in how many die in targeted killings. They are only interested, (which is not the same as being concerned) in how many of their supporters were killed. In short, their hearts beat selectively, they are choosy about who they shall weep for and feel sorry for. This is disgusting, self-serving criminal ambition.
These parties want servile loyalty. Well, it seems those attitudes are fast fading. Any enforced loyalty is a form of dictatorship, and the public the world over is rebelling. One has only to cast a glance at the ouster of Tunisia's Ben Ali and see the voting pattern in South Sudan, which voted for secession from the domination of the north. The hold of dictators, whether military or political, is on the wane. Widespread communication through electronic media and global networks has created an awareness denied to ordinary people two and three decades ago. The slogan "We can do it," which put a coloured man in the White House in the USA is yet another indication that the old inhibitions have lost their power to coerce the public into submission.
In Karachi it is always the young who are victimised. The majority of those who lost their lives in the recent spate of targeted killings were young. Young men struggling to achieve a better future, like 20-year-old Ajmal Gul, son of a Pathan watchman Aitebar Gul who had got an education and recently managed to get a job as cable operator. He was gunned down in Khokhrapar, Malir.
How many dreams were lost in the killings? It is this that will ultimately enrage the young to distance themselves from their so-called political leaders. The coalition partners are only interested in settling their own affairs while the public is given the runaround with unfulfilled, meaningless promises.
One of these evasive actions is the ban on pillion ridding on motorcycles. That suddenly put 600 young men in the lockup. The ban did not serve to stem the tide of murder and mayhem on any occasion it was imposed in the past. The people who ended up in the lockup were one and all innocent, and the police are well aware it is so. The real culprits never get caught and if, perchance, one or two might be nabbed they mysteriously manage to escape.
The current state of unrest is entirely due to the fact that Karachi is virtually federally controlled. The Chief Minister of the province has no say in what is happening in his capital. The shots are locally called by the feudalistic Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza, who is said to be the most privileged person in Sindh government on account of his close friendship with the President. The Prime Minister comes to Karachi to visit the MQM headquarters, not to talk to the Sindh Assembly. Then there is Interior Minister Rehman Malik who drops in to pacify the coalition partners and issue ad hoc orders to calm the city, and give the public the runaround with false promises and insincere plan to right the wrongs.
The provincial home minister the federal interior minister are lone operators, even the PPP MNAs have no idea what they will do or say. Their mandate comes directly from Islamabad from the President or the Prime Minister, say the PPP members themselves, including the party's information secretary. No one is consulted, and if the Chief Minister says something or appears at a meeting, rest assured it is merely a formality to save him embarrassment.
As a result the provincial government is weak. The coalition partners, PPP, MQM and ANP, feel they have lost their grip on power and their angry reactions against each other reflect a state of panic. Karachi these days is not the capital of Sindh it is just a city functioning as a satellite of Islamabad. One possible way to end the present crisis is to stop federal interference in provincial affairs and to restore CDGK controlled by local bodies.
Karachi under the control of local bodies was, also a time of trouble, but there was a difference. The CDGK did everything to assuage the effects of murder and mayhem. It had to, because its survival depended on the goodwill of the public. Bureaucratic CDGK does not have the same motivation.