Women against ‘gang war’

A material and symbolic battle: The graffiti along the entrance walls of the Hingorabad goth of Lyari (Daryaabad Karli council) pays tribute to the recently slain community activist, Shoaib Kucch. It reads, “Shaheed Shoaib ke Qaatil, ‘Gang War’, aur Lyari intezaamiya pur laanut”.
‘Gang War’ is a personification of the collective members of criminal groups of Lyari, battling the residents for their properties through evictions, extortion, kidnappings and murders. Everyone in Lyari refers to this collective by the singular pseudonym, ‘Gang War’ and while its sounds like an abstraction, on asking the people of Lyari willingly identify and list all the members, by name. The variety of surnames range from several ‘Baloch-es’ to Ladlas even Goldens and Comrades. The women of Lyari even know the amount of head-money nominated by the government for each gang member.
Battle of symbols: Just the visuals that one crosses as entering the streets of Hingorabad are telling signifiers of Lyari politics. The multiple pictures and posters of martyred Shaheeds who have resisted the ‘Gang War’, contest for space on poles and walls. There is a merging and dissolving of ideologies represented through the array of symbols and slogans that compete for attention.
Wall-chalkings announce the Baloch separatist slogan of ‘wattan ya kaffan’ and which is interestingly borrowed by the other nationalists, of jiye Sindh, who in the spirit of conservation simply paint their own emblem and flag on the other side of the same slogan. Across the street, Sunni Tehreek advertises its reminder for a stake in whichever community decides to dominate in the eventuality. Some walls carry freshly painted tributes to another recently slain member of the Hingorabad Kucchi community, Shaheed Ibrahim Kucch. A few posters of martyrs even offer the surkh salam in memoriam.
Also visibly clear is the role of the law-enforcement. The dozen police officers around Hingorabad are seen to be either sleeping or clowning around on carts that stand empty in the streets. In one of the inner alleys, from the sanctuary of their vans, the policemen are too lazy to bother with discretion and openly bargain with a young man walking by, over how much bhatta he is willing to give to cross the street. The women of Hingorabad testify that such payment of a ‘toll’ is a gender-equal requirement. If women want to cross the street and the police happen to notice, they will settle for even Rs20 as toll.
These are the milder harassments that the women of Hingorabad Goth and adjoining UC 2 neighbourhoods face . Women from other neighbourhoods and councils (Mandira Mohalla, Choona Masjid, Bihar Colony, Nayaabad, Moosa Lane) have also come to Hingorabad temporarily as their councils face worsening conflict. These are only some of the affectees. Admittedly, it has been even worse for those in other colonies who have suffered this for several years and not just the past year.
In the Jamaat Khaana where they collect, it’s a scene of catharsis and venting, anger and weeping that keeps increasing in size and pathos as more women pour in. “No-one, not one person other than the media, has come to see us in this recent wave of deaths…to offer us help or assistance. Not one bura (leader),” they repeat over and again “The only time there has been an interruption in the cycle of violence is when the chief justice issued a judgment but even that is temporary.”
The conflict has spilled over from the other councils and escalated in Hingorabad over the last four and a half months. The women testify that the Lyari conflict intensified since 2009 when a Kucchi man and his nephew were burned alive by ‘Gang War’. Ever since, the violence has increased and in the recent wave, two young men, Ibrahim and Shoaib of the Kucchi community in Hingorabad were allegedly killed by ‘Gang War’ in retribution for their resistance to the attempt to take over the goth and to remove them as obstacles to this mass eviction plan. Kidnapping of young men has become a regular feature and this summer, the violence became murderous.
Political economy of conflict: There is no doubt that the criminalisation of Lyari is a prime example of the political economies behind conflict. It’s not just that the area is the text book example of ‘access to market’ given that transaction of trade across this location amounts to billions of rupees. It is also located along the route where Nato supplies are said to originate from. The controversial Lyari Expressway executed under Gen Musharraf’s government, already took its toll of mass demolition and evictions of settlers which, urban planners have maintained, was both unnecessary and disastrous for the city of Karachi. Despite increasing unemployment, Lyari is the hub of a huge labour market in itself and this includes women workers.
The women of Lyari are predominantly literate and several are teachers. Some even work at the nearby Citizen’s Foundation school. Others run beauty salons and work in the informal sector. They attribute this generational mobility to their mothers and grandmothers who worked as domestic workers in order to enable their daughters to gain an education.
All these factors have made Lyari a lucrative point of interest for criminal gangs and extortionists. Khurram Husain (‘Criminal Economics’, Dawn, August 28) summarises the overlap of the market, crime and law that defines Lyari in his personal observation of the office of a leader of the trader’s association in Lyari. The leader reportedly displays two framed photographs on his desk – one shaking hands with the city police chief, the other with a notorious leader of a Lyari gang.
Trade is not the only form of enterprise that has to negotiate between what has become not competing but complementary forces of law-enforcers and law- breakers. Disruption of normative sociologies affects economics in other ways. The government schools in many councils are well-gated but empty of children and many apparently serve instead as ammunition depots in the wake of criminalisation of the entire town. The women of Lyari insist the KMC school is weaponised and ask why the government doesn’t carry out an operation on these weapon storages.
The conflict by ‘Gang War’ means children are being driven out of the public schools and having to enrol into private schools instead. Apart from the opportunity costs entailed, this phenomenon is directly affecting the state’s role in providing basic security of life as well. The private schools are easily penetrable and report receiving threatening inquiries asking for identification of the children of those who resist the criminal designs of the ‘Gang War’.
The article is based on observations during Women’s Action Forum’s (Karachi) recent visits and meetings with some of the women residents of Lyari.
To be concluded
The writer is part of the Lyari peace committee team formed by WAF – a non-funded activist and pressure group. Email: afiyazia@yahoo.com