The violence in Karachi has roots deep into the grounds and the issue merits serious consideration.
KARACHI: This refers to your editorial “Violence in Karachi” dated June 23, 2011. Before endeavouring to write about the complex problem of violence in Karachi, it would have been pertinent to bring home the genesis of the violence in the first place. Karachi is inhabited by over 20 million people from different ethno-linguistic and cultural background, but the majority of the population comprise Urdu-speaking people who settled here after Partition. Unfortunately, these people, who had come to Pakistan in search of the ‘promised land’, were soon made to realise that they were outsiders and hence not welcome. Ever since the Urdu-speaking majority began to assert itself politically through the formation of their representative political party, the MQM, the establishment and the ruling clique busied themselves in nefarious conspiracies to dilute their political strength.
The most dangerous conspiracy that we have heard in recent years is to change the demography of Karachi. If this were to happen, a majority of people in the city would be deprived of their legitimate rights and aspirations. It is this conspiracy that is causing a new type of violence in Karachi. We hear of about land grabbing happening on a large scale. This has created insecurity in the minds of the Urdu-speaking people, who view the issue as one of life and death.
Your editorial says that “the MQM distributed to the media a recording, purportedly showing a Pakhtun cleric preaching hate and violence.” The video was distributed to journalists at a press conference in order to highlight the gravity of the situation. It was never intended to incite violence against any community. While you condemn the distribution of the video, you fail to condemn the hateful announcement coming from the pulpit of a mosque. It does not suffice to say that pulpits of mosques have been used like this in the past as well. In this case, an entire community was termed as belonging to the Jewish race and this could have resulted in gory violence, keeping in view the religious ignorance and bigotry of people.
The violence in Karachi has roots deep into the grounds and the issue merits serious consideration. Without diagnosing the disease, a cure will never be possible. I hope that your newspaper will probe deep into the problem.
Wasay Jalil
Member Co-ordination Committee, MQM
Published in The Express Tribune, June 26th, 2011.
