We gave identity to our people: MQM-P

Recalls students deprived of medical college seats due to quota system formed the movement

KARACHI:

M u t t a h i d a Q a u m i Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui while addressing the graduate forum said the movement gave an identity to the people who had migrated from the then Hindustan to the present day Pakistan.

Different people are fighting for the rights of the children of the people who gave up everything for the newly born country in 1947, he said. "We came here under an international agreement from an area whose people formed Pakistan. We were the need of the people here.

We brought industry, education, business and civilization with us. Before and after Pakistan was formed we were needed and as the need dissipated we were deprived of every aspect of life," Siddiqui lamented. "When our ancestors came to this country, they left their regional identity there.

They thought that the two identities were enough for them; a religious identity in the name of which this homeland was created and another Pakistani identity. Our ancestors set up industries here, opened banks and took over the bureaucracy, but all of it was feudalised in the name of nationalism," the MQM leader said.

"The fact is that these two identities would have been enough if the country had remained ideological. But on leaving India, an intellectual stood on the steps of Jama Masjid Delhi and said that you are leaving but you will be asked for your identity and it took us 40 to 50 years to establish our identity," he said.

"The urban areas of Sindh where we live, the foundation of MQM was laid by the youth who got first division in their intermediate examinations and the third division holders were being given admissions in the medical college. So first the Student Action Committee was formed, then the All Pakistan Muhajor Students Organisation (APMSO) and later the MQM came into being," Siddiqui explained.

"When the MQM won from the urban areas of Sindh in 1987 and 1988, people voted for people they did not even know and were not fully acquainted with the leadership of the party.

The people who were on the streets did not come out on the call of MQM but on their own," he said. "Now whether MQM is there or not, it is strong or weak but the fact is that MQM's ideology is very strong," he added. Rabita Committee members Dr Abdul Qadir Khanzada, Ahmed Saleem Siddiqui, educationists, technocrats and people from various walks of life were also present on the occasion.