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| Alienation of Muhajirs in Pakistan | | | Ankush Verma | 3/31/2021 12:11:22 AM |
| In the more than seven decades there have been several attempts in Pakistan to persecute the most enlightened and educated, Urdu knowing and speaking community called Muhajirs. The Muhajirs who initially constituted an elite, privileged, and educated class, but over the decades, their standing amongst other ethnic groups in Pakistan diminished. In the wake of the 1947 partition, they came to Karachi from different parts of India-including Rajasthan, Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Bombay. They basically belonged to different social and ethnic backgrounds but they have a common shared history of migration from India and their Muslim identity. This population came to be known as the Mohajirs, a shared identity that would mobilise and assert the need for their cultural, economic and political recognition within Pakistan. They sacrificed their homeland to be part of Pakistan to protect their faith, they believed that the state would give them special status. But that could not happen. Since, they have a close relationship with Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his campaign for Pakistan. Soon they became part of the dominant ruling elite. But this actually earned them enemies.
Their victimization started with the killing of Muhajir Prime Minister Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan in 1958 near Army's headquarters in Rawalpindi. Next, they were economically targeted by General Ayub Khan. Mohajirs dominated politics, bureaucracy and business. Ayub Khan's arrival in 1958 set in motion the relative decline of the Mohajirs, especially after the capital of Pakistan was shifted from Karachi to Islamabad. After assuming power, he sacked many top civil servants mostly Muhajirs and in 1969 after becoming Chief Martial Administrator (CMLA), he targeted and removed remaining civil servants. Being the most educated community, Muhajirs were having considerable numbers working in industrial establishments, banking and insurance sectors. But in 1972, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became CMLA, he started nationalising banks, insurance companies and many industrial establishments which further paralysed their economic interests.
Subsequently, the policies implemented by Bhutto were a direct assault on their cultural, political and economic rights. These policies included, demotion or dismissal of over 1000 Urdu speaking officers, forceful retirement, the passage of Sindhi Language Act by which Sindhi was made as the official language in Sindhi, with equal status of Urdu, and introduction of an ethnic quota system in government jobs which gave more opportunities to Sindhis than Muhajirs. This actually gives rise to tension between different ethnic groups in Karachi. These tensions set the tone and foundation for the rise of the Mohajir/Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM).
Even Benazir Bhutto's regime fuelled the unrest. Her government allowed the security forces to plunder, terrorise the Muhajir community which further alienated the people of already disenfranchised and disgruntled Muhajirs and this disillusioned them with the very idea of Pakistan. This later became a conflict between the MQM and Pakistani government. The first conflict between the both was 1992's "Operation Clean-Up" which was basically a witch hunt against MQM. In 2002, in order to regenerate itself and end hostilities with the State, it allied with Gen Musharraf dictatorship. After the end of Musharraf's military dictatorship, Muhajirs received the backlash of other communities.
They further got alienated by census of 2011 and 2017 which shows their actual population considerably low. Muhajirs after the 2017 census got published, claimed that the population of Karachi shown in provisional results as 14.9 million is way below their estimate of 30 million. The results also show that population growth in Karachi is less than the average which again is contradictory because Karachi being an economic hub receives more internally displaced migrants.
This has fuelled Muhajirs' frustration. Muhajirs on different platforms have been demanding the State of Pakistan to declare the urban areas of Sindh province as an autonomous region within the boundaries of Pakistan to which they will call Greater Karachi. But since they have lost their political representation, there is less possibility that their demands will be fulfilled.
Muhajirs consider themselves as ideologues and creators of Pakistan. But they are considered as outsiders in their own land. Since creation of Pakistan, the Punjabi bureaucratic-military oligarchy tried their best to vitamise them and eroded Muhajirs' dominance. Subsequently, Muhajirs witnessed a slow relative decline in their political and economic status. The government played their role in weakening their political representation and also affirmed their actions to further alienate Muhajirs of socio-economically and culturally. |
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