05-15-2007, 12:49 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Mohajirs for Mush </b>
Pioneer.com
B Raman
Karachi went up in flames on Saturday when MQM cadre clashed with Opposition activists to prevent the sacked Chief Justice from addressing a 'pro-democracy' rally. In the raging war between the Opposition and Gen Musharraf, the Mohajirs are backing one of their own
At least 41 people, the majority of them believed to be workers of Ms Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), were killed and more than 100 injured in different parts of Karachi on Saturday, during clashes between Opposition activists and those of the pro-Pervez Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The clashes erupted after the abortive attempt by Mr Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhry, the suspended Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, to enter the city from the airport to address a pro-democracy meeting. It was violently resisted by the MQM, the dominant partner in the ruling coalition of Sindh.
The suspended Chief Justice, badly advised by his political supporters, decided to disregard the warnings of the MQM not to visit the city and address a meeting. His arrival at Karachi Airport from Islamabad triggered violent clashes initiated by the MQM cadres with the support of the Government and the police. He could not leave the airport and ultimately flew back to Islamabad in the evening after giving up his idea of addressing the meeting.
The political supporters of the suspended Chief Justice overlooked the fact that Karachi is not Lahore and that it would not be possible to repeat in Karachi the triumphant visit of Mr Chaudhry to Lahore on May 6, 2007. President Pervez Musharraf and his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) would be happy over what happened in Karachi on Saturday, and over the failure of the suspended Chief Justice and his followers to hold a pro-democracy meeting in the city. However, it would be over-simplistic to see the Karachi violence as solely the outcome of instigation by the Musharraf Government.
Saturday's events have brought to the surface once again the subterranean demons of violence in Karachi, which had remained submerged since Mr Nawaz Sharif returned to power in 1996. These demons of violence were born out of historic animosities, which have always been the defining characteristics of Karachi. These animosities related to the Mohajirs vs the Sindhis; the Barelvis vs the Deobandis/Wahaabis; the MQM vs the PPPP; the MQM vs the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI).
<b>The Mohajirs are Muslim migrants from India, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi. The vast majority of them belong to the more tolerant Barelvi Sunni sect. They are strongly opposed to the Deobandis and the Wahaabis. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have very little support among the Mohajirs.</b>
In the Sindh province, the Mohajirs are in a majority in Karachi. They are present in large numbers in the cities of Hyderabad and Sukkur. Wherever the Barelvi Mohajirs are present in large numbers, they have successfully driven out the JeI, which they see as an organisation of the Deobandis and the Wahaabis.
The Sindhis are in a majority in the rural areas of the province. The Mohajirs see the PPPP as essentially a party of the Sindhis. It has very little following in the Mohajir community. The Mohajirs look upon the PPPP as an anti-Mohajir party and Ms Benazir Bhutto as an anti-Mohajir leader, who represents the interests of only the Sindhis. They accuse her and her then Interior Minister, Maj Gen Nasrullah Babar, of carrying out large-scale massacres of Mohajirs when she was Prime Minister of Pakistan between 1988 and 1990 and again between 1993 and 1996.
The Deobandis/Wahaabis from Punjab and the North-West frontier Province (NWFP) and the JeI have been trying to stage a comeback in Karachi since the beginning of last year. The massacre of all the Barelvi leaders of the Sunni Tehreek by an unidentified suicide bomber during a meeting at the Nishtar Park in Karachi in April last year was viewed by the MQM as the beginning of an attempt by the JeI to stage a come-back in Karachi.
The MQM has been greatly concerned over the attempts of Ms Benazir Bhutto to stage a political comeback, possibly as Prime Minister for a third term through a deal with Gen Musharraf. It has been concerned over the manner in which the PPPP, the JeI and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr Nawaz Sharif have, in its perception, been exploiting public anger over Gen Musharraf's arbitrary removal of the Chief Justice for their own partisan political purposes.
It supports the Chief Justice in his campaign for the restoration of his honour. It has been critical of Gen Musharraf's arbitrary action against the Chief Justice. At the same time, it is not prepared to allow the PPPP and the JeI to exploit the public anger for their own political purposes in Karachi.
<b>The Mohajirs of Sindh constitute an almost monolithic community. The majority of them are descendants of converts from Hinduism. They nurse nostalgic memories of India. They painstakingly maintain their links with their relatives and hometowns in India. </b>They dislike Pakistani fundamentalist organisations such as the two factions of the JeI led by Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Samiul Haq and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JuI) Pakistan led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, which largely represent the descendants of the Muslims, who had migrated to the sub-continent from Central Asia, Afghanistan and West Asia. <b>They feel that these organisations and their Wahaabi leaders look down upon the descendants of the converts from Hinduism as inferior Muslims.</b>
<b>Gen Musharraf is a Mohajir. His family had migrated to Pakistan from Delhi. The Mohajirs are proud that he is the President of Pakistan and the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). They are grateful to him for politically rehabilitating them. Since assuming power in October 1999, he has conceded practically all the political demands of the MQM, except those relating to the withdrawal of criminal cases against Mr Altaf Hussain, its leader who lives in exile in the UK. The withdrawal of the cases is a sensitive issue since one of them allegedly relates to the murder of an Army officer by MQM cadre.
The MQM and its Mohajir followers will not like any attempt by the political forces, which have jumped into the bandwagon of Mr Chaudhry, to exploit the public anger to weaken Gen Musharraf politically and to stage a comeback in Karachi, which they look upon as their homeland.
Will the demons of the old animosities, which have been woken up, go back to sleep or will they keep Karachi burning as it was between 1988 and 1996, thereby damaging the economic stability of Pakistan? The MQM would not want a repeat of what happened then since it could weaken and discredit Gen Musharraf. But then, when demons are let loose, it is difficult to bring them back under control.</b>
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Pioneer.com
B Raman
Karachi went up in flames on Saturday when MQM cadre clashed with Opposition activists to prevent the sacked Chief Justice from addressing a 'pro-democracy' rally. In the raging war between the Opposition and Gen Musharraf, the Mohajirs are backing one of their own
At least 41 people, the majority of them believed to be workers of Ms Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), were killed and more than 100 injured in different parts of Karachi on Saturday, during clashes between Opposition activists and those of the pro-Pervez Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The clashes erupted after the abortive attempt by Mr Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhry, the suspended Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, to enter the city from the airport to address a pro-democracy meeting. It was violently resisted by the MQM, the dominant partner in the ruling coalition of Sindh.
The suspended Chief Justice, badly advised by his political supporters, decided to disregard the warnings of the MQM not to visit the city and address a meeting. His arrival at Karachi Airport from Islamabad triggered violent clashes initiated by the MQM cadres with the support of the Government and the police. He could not leave the airport and ultimately flew back to Islamabad in the evening after giving up his idea of addressing the meeting.
The political supporters of the suspended Chief Justice overlooked the fact that Karachi is not Lahore and that it would not be possible to repeat in Karachi the triumphant visit of Mr Chaudhry to Lahore on May 6, 2007. President Pervez Musharraf and his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) would be happy over what happened in Karachi on Saturday, and over the failure of the suspended Chief Justice and his followers to hold a pro-democracy meeting in the city. However, it would be over-simplistic to see the Karachi violence as solely the outcome of instigation by the Musharraf Government.
Saturday's events have brought to the surface once again the subterranean demons of violence in Karachi, which had remained submerged since Mr Nawaz Sharif returned to power in 1996. These demons of violence were born out of historic animosities, which have always been the defining characteristics of Karachi. These animosities related to the Mohajirs vs the Sindhis; the Barelvis vs the Deobandis/Wahaabis; the MQM vs the PPPP; the MQM vs the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI).
<b>The Mohajirs are Muslim migrants from India, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi. The vast majority of them belong to the more tolerant Barelvi Sunni sect. They are strongly opposed to the Deobandis and the Wahaabis. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have very little support among the Mohajirs.</b>
In the Sindh province, the Mohajirs are in a majority in Karachi. They are present in large numbers in the cities of Hyderabad and Sukkur. Wherever the Barelvi Mohajirs are present in large numbers, they have successfully driven out the JeI, which they see as an organisation of the Deobandis and the Wahaabis.
The Sindhis are in a majority in the rural areas of the province. The Mohajirs see the PPPP as essentially a party of the Sindhis. It has very little following in the Mohajir community. The Mohajirs look upon the PPPP as an anti-Mohajir party and Ms Benazir Bhutto as an anti-Mohajir leader, who represents the interests of only the Sindhis. They accuse her and her then Interior Minister, Maj Gen Nasrullah Babar, of carrying out large-scale massacres of Mohajirs when she was Prime Minister of Pakistan between 1988 and 1990 and again between 1993 and 1996.
The Deobandis/Wahaabis from Punjab and the North-West frontier Province (NWFP) and the JeI have been trying to stage a comeback in Karachi since the beginning of last year. The massacre of all the Barelvi leaders of the Sunni Tehreek by an unidentified suicide bomber during a meeting at the Nishtar Park in Karachi in April last year was viewed by the MQM as the beginning of an attempt by the JeI to stage a come-back in Karachi.
The MQM has been greatly concerned over the attempts of Ms Benazir Bhutto to stage a political comeback, possibly as Prime Minister for a third term through a deal with Gen Musharraf. It has been concerned over the manner in which the PPPP, the JeI and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr Nawaz Sharif have, in its perception, been exploiting public anger over Gen Musharraf's arbitrary removal of the Chief Justice for their own partisan political purposes.
It supports the Chief Justice in his campaign for the restoration of his honour. It has been critical of Gen Musharraf's arbitrary action against the Chief Justice. At the same time, it is not prepared to allow the PPPP and the JeI to exploit the public anger for their own political purposes in Karachi.
<b>The Mohajirs of Sindh constitute an almost monolithic community. The majority of them are descendants of converts from Hinduism. They nurse nostalgic memories of India. They painstakingly maintain their links with their relatives and hometowns in India. </b>They dislike Pakistani fundamentalist organisations such as the two factions of the JeI led by Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Samiul Haq and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JuI) Pakistan led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, which largely represent the descendants of the Muslims, who had migrated to the sub-continent from Central Asia, Afghanistan and West Asia. <b>They feel that these organisations and their Wahaabi leaders look down upon the descendants of the converts from Hinduism as inferior Muslims.</b>
<b>Gen Musharraf is a Mohajir. His family had migrated to Pakistan from Delhi. The Mohajirs are proud that he is the President of Pakistan and the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS). They are grateful to him for politically rehabilitating them. Since assuming power in October 1999, he has conceded practically all the political demands of the MQM, except those relating to the withdrawal of criminal cases against Mr Altaf Hussain, its leader who lives in exile in the UK. The withdrawal of the cases is a sensitive issue since one of them allegedly relates to the murder of an Army officer by MQM cadre.
The MQM and its Mohajir followers will not like any attempt by the political forces, which have jumped into the bandwagon of Mr Chaudhry, to exploit the public anger to weaken Gen Musharraf politically and to stage a comeback in Karachi, which they look upon as their homeland.
Will the demons of the old animosities, which have been woken up, go back to sleep or will they keep Karachi burning as it was between 1988 and 1996, thereby damaging the economic stability of Pakistan? The MQM would not want a repeat of what happened then since it could weaken and discredit Gen Musharraf. But then, when demons are let loose, it is difficult to bring them back under control.</b>
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