Karachi power plays

Nawaz Sharif must be relieved his party is an irrelevant afterthought in Karachi. For once he can sit back and smugly watch as everyone else races to the bottom. The timing couldn’t be any better for him.
Under his government’s watch, we produce less electricity than before, there is more gas loadshedding and for the first time we ran out of petrol. Now Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif has warned that we should prepare for water shortages soon.
The PML-N came into power vowing to fix the power crisis. It has made everything worse. Yet everyone’s attention is diverted by the power plays in Karachi. The only way the government could get luckier is if Pakistan beats India at the World Cup on Sunday. Then we won’t even mind that we can’t heat our homes, power our vehicles or take showers.
What is happening in Karachi has happened before and will happen again. The MQM is accused of carrying out an act of unspeakable violence. Remember May 12? The killing of Wali Babar? In the last decade alone the party has been named as the culprit in attacks of great cruelty.
The problem is the identity of those coming up with the accusations. This time the accusation is coming from the Rangers. As a paramilitary organisation it could obviously be influenced by the military. That it took three years to present this accusation in front of a court suggests one of two things: the Rangers knew the MQM was responsible for the Baldia Town factory fire and waited for an opportune moment to make this information public or the Rangers is making it up.
The first scenario doesn’t absolve the MQM but it condemns the Rangers too. Remember, in Karachi there is never any innocent actor.
The MQM has perfected the art of playing the victim that everybody fears. There is no scarier sight on television than an aggrieved Altaf Hussain because there is always a menacing policy that his wounded words will shut down Karachi at great cost not just to our economy but with the constant threat of violence. The MQM, it should never be forgotten, rules much of Karachi and it does so with an iron fist. The martyr act just shouldn’t fool anyone. We have all seen it before but we have also seen the blood that follows.
The new actor on the scene – the PTI – is learning its lines well too. In a short time it has perfected the role of the hypocrite. Imran Khan’s schizophrenic attitude towards the MQM continues. Sometimes, when it is convenient, Imran is rushing to Scotland Yard and demanding it investigate the MQM’s violence. After the 2012 elections he even managed to get his supporters to flood Scotland Yard’s helpline number asking it to look into Altaf Hussain’s violent rhetoric. The party was accused of murdering activist Zahra Shahid.
At other times, such as when the PTI was concerned with overthrowing the government and needed to hold a successful rally in Karachi, the MQM becomes benign and cuddly and unthreatening. For now Imran is back to his MQM-is-a-villain phase. No one should be buying anything he says.
The PPP pretends to be above the fray. It urges caution, tries to create consensus. It speaks from the stars – and then jumps straight into the gutter. The PPP, it should be remembered, differs from the MQM in Karachi only in scale, not tactics. It is as ruthless in enforcing its power in its areas of influence as the MQM. Its problem is that it has fewer areas of influence.
Now the PPP has welcomed the MQM back into the provincial government. Like a couple that just cannot get along but can’t quit each other either, we know how this relationship will play out. The tempestuous love affair will be swiftly followed by an acrimonious breakup. Everyone else will be swept into its whirlwind.
That the political actors in the city look out for themselves is not remarkable in any way, although one wishes they would not do so quite so violently. What they do need to be judged for is how little regard they have for the victims of their political machinations.
Nearly 300 people were killed in the Baldia Town factory fire. They died of smoke inhalation, suffocation and stampede. Nearly three years later we still don’t know why they died. We have a good idea the factory owner bears much of the responsibility for shutting the workers in a death trap. But we do not know if the fire was caused by a short circuit, a political party or some other criminal. The workers were poor and no one knows what their political affiliations were. They ceased to matter.
The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. Email: nadir.hassan@gmail.com