Oh! Karachi!

Kenneth Tynan’s 1969 Oh! Calcutta! was great fun, far too much so to ever be revived for audiences wishing a break in the grim lives as lived in the Islamic Republic that is Pakistan. Oh! Karachi! would be far more in tune with the national mindset and with the dirty (there is no other apt adjective) doings of the rulers in various days and ages.

Following the latest PPP inspired above-normal spate of murders through what is popularly known here as target killings, after deals had been done, headlines in the press proclaimed that Karachi was limping back to ‘normal’. Now, as far as this city is concerned, ‘normal’ represents a daily tally of bullet-ridden dead bodies, extortion, kidnapping, power riots, water riots, general mayhem and discontent all round with life as it is lived, and public ire and contempt for anything and anyone political.

The possible has happened — in politics we are told that anything and everything is possible. So those of us who stupidly thought that this time round the MQM-PPP break would be approaching finality were terribly wrong. Resignations in this land are a laugh because they are rarely tendered seriously, without an angle, and are rarely accepted because of the angle (at this point in time the State Bank governor being a total exception and the ISI chief’s feeble offer being in the laugh category).

Anyhow, for very solid reasons, one being that the MQM is unhappy when out of power and its active unhappiness makes Karachi even more unhappy, it has come back into the fold, far from crawling but rather in triumph if Ishratul Ebad’s public welcome back to Karachi is anything to go by. Also telling was his immediate glad hand visit to the centre of power, the unapproachable to ordinary mortals, container-barred, road-blocked segregated fortress of Bilawal House which is the bane of citizens living in its environs as the fear of one man has overtaken any semblance of democracy or moderation.

The other main reason for the return is surely the power-infused lifeline provided to London to keep and maintain the party’s leadership in exile.

Governor Ishratul Ebad is a record breaker. He has been with us in his mansion since December 27, 2002. His party, of course, has been around since the mid-1980s and has the distinction of being the first political party to publicly brandish Kalashnikovs in the air as happened in one of its first mammoth public gatherings in Karachi. As far as the city is concerned, it has never looked back either when in power or when, for relatively short and infrequent periods, it has been out in the cold.

Ebad’s governorship has been remarkable. In the aftermath of the quashing by former president General Pervez Musharraf, of all and various criminal cases registered against him by anti-MQM governments, no one has been able to raise even a murmur against him. His record as governor has been impeccable — fully protected.

There was one minor glitch when an unfriendly press, The Telegraph (London) reported on June 12, 2005 that during his time in office, the governor had received British state benefits, including income support, to which he was obviously not entitled (his wife also received benefits). For 10 months he had, apparently due to an oversight, received £1,000 per month plus £244 per week for the rent of his Edgware house. Ebad reportedly “insisted” when “confronted” by The Sunday Telegraph that he had paid back the money. He had sought asylum in Britain in 1992.

Caution has to be exercised when commenting on the MQM as its reactions tend to be unpredictable, as many have learnt in the past. However, in the latest case of the PPP-inspired verbal insults, it obviously adheres to the old adage: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2011.