The paradox of Mohajirism

Why do Urdu-speaking migrants living in Lahore speak fluent majhe ki Punjabi & are part of mainstream Punjabi chores?

Recent events in urban Sindh have once again pushed the MQM towards the politics of ‘Mohajirism’. The consequences of the move are still to be seen, but the phenomenon will have a far-reaching impact as so many other social groups are in the process of searching for their roots as well. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, in a recent talk show, discussed the Mohajir antecedents of the president and prime minister, and also put forward his case as a scion of a Kashmiri family, which had migrated from the valley. For a while, even I did not feel insulated from all the heat generated by this debate, as a fifth-generation migrant to the plains of Punjab. I reflected on my antecedents who had migrated here 80 years before MQM chief Altaf Hussain's elders migrated to Sindh. My elders, however, lost their ethnic trappings in the urbanity and melting pot of Punjab in due course, and I, along with my children, owe every bit to this soil.

Migrants, as a special social group, are distinguishable from the rest of the population in many ways — a union of people that rallies around a linguistic pattern, religion, geographical proximity, familial and racial connections. Such a union is rooted in a collective consciousness, giving birth to group loyalty, which is strengthened through cultural and political means. Such a consciousness separates the group from the rest.

In this process of change, migratory movements across political boundaries are fuelled by a feeling of insecurity and inadequacy at the original setting of the migrant. Circumstances force the migrant to make a move to the promised land to secure his future. While relocating to his new abode, he passes through a process of re-socialisation. His dilemma compounds as he does not find the new place in consonance with what he had left behind. He is constantly at war for a share in the pie and is trying to adjust to the changed ecology.

The partition of India threw up interesting patterns of hijrat. The migration of Muslims from east Punjab to west Punjab consisted of movement to a familiar social and cultural ecology, but this process for these migrants was more violent and traumatic than for those in other parts of India, and is viewed by many historians as retributive genocide. The whole of Punjab was up in flames, with the complete severing of ties with roots. Migrants from other parts of the subcontinent did not face problems of such magnitude as in many cases, if not all, they migrated as a matter of choice, with a much stronger connect to their places of birth as a sizeable swathe of Muslims stayed back in these parts of India. Punjab went through a bloody ethnic cleansing with Sikh princely states of Patiala, Nabha and Faridkot acting as staging posts for attacks on Muslims in adjoining districts.

With regards to Punjab, there has not been enough research on migratory patterns in the wake of Partition. The general impression is that it was the Punjabi-speaking migrant who made a move to Punjab. However, a sizeable Urdu-speaking population from Delhi, Rohtak, Hisar, Karnal, Alwar, Bharatpur, Jodhpur, Mewat and UP also migrated to Punjab. The urban and peri-urban life, especially in south Punjab, is dominated by Urdu-speaking migrants and Punjabi settlers controlling the levers of business, trade, commerce and local municipal politics.
Sindh, today, presents an interesting picture. The MQM represents the mohajir vote bank, a social group that in many ways is ethnically diverse internally, represented through Urdu-speaking Kashmiri Mirs and Khawajas, Ghauri and Durrani Pathans, Rao and Qaimkhani Rajputs, Mirza and Baig Mughals, and Sayeds. The community does not represent a single geography either as its members came from all over India. The MQM leadership is generally not inclined to give allowance to a mohajir from east Punjab because of a lack of cultural affinity. This line of argument does not explain why an Urdu-speaking third-generation settler in Punjab is fluent in Punjabi and is involved in mainstream politics, but his sibling in Pannu Aqil prefers to call himself a mohajir. This question regarding the lack of assimilation stares both the Sindhi and mohajir leaderships in the face. What conscious and deliberate efforts were made in this regard by their leaderships, besides donning the Ajrak? Does this state of affairs mean that Sindh as a province did not provide an assimilative framework for mohajirs? Why do Urdu-speaking migrants living in Sant Nagar, Lahore speak fluent ‘majhe ki Punjabi' and are part of mainstream Punjabi chores? It is pertinent to note here that the mohajir population that settled in interior Sindh, in places like Mithi, Diplo and Mirpur Khas enjoyed a seamless existence and spoke fluent Sindhi, but with the arrival of the MQM on the political scene, this process slowed down. One also observes that renowned Sindhi writers like Sheikh Ayaz and Amar Jaleel produced some of their finest creative works in Urdu. Ayaz's poetry and Amar Jaleel's astounding short stories are a treat to read. I cannot recall any well-known Urdu-speaking writer, with proven credentials, venturing into creative writing in Sindhi.

The Urdu-speaking community for the past 150 years or so has held the mantle of cerebral leadership. This has been its forte. Playing number games and engaging in electoral flexing was never its cup of tea. The cerebral narrative put it at the vanguard of the Aligarh and Pakistan movements. This was also the case with major clerical movements that originated in Nadwa, Bareilly and Deoband, and left deep imprints throughout the subcontinent. Then there is the progressive writers’ movement, which transformed the literary and political landscape. After independence, Urdu-speaking civil servants performed yeoman's service in consolidating the newly independent state. With the realisation regarding the number game, the narrative underwent a change. The cerebral narrative was relegated to the background, and in many ways, abandoned by the new leadership, which felt that the future lied in the reckoning of their numbers if they wanted to realise their political and economic rights. There is no denying that the MQM leadership had a genuine grievance against the quota system, but in the dispensation of this system, it is easily forgotten that it was actually Punjab that was hit the hardest. Having said that, I would still speak in favour of affirmative action for under-privileged regions and groups. The biggest challenge for the Urdu-speaking leadership living in Sindh is to revert to its original cerebral narrative, and make use of it along with its relatively recently gained political strength. There are some brilliant individual examples of this within the Urdu-speaking community, but my allusion is towards overall institutional failure. Can the community rise to the role which, historically, belonged to it? Considering the current frame of thought that occupies the mohajir leadership, one does not have a clear answer to this question.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd,   2015.

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