Sons of the soil: Young PPP blood fighting party policy but perhaps therein lies their loyalty
The next generation draws the plough over the bones of the dead, as the saying goes. And Sindh’s politics may very well be witnessing an imperceptible and fleeting but rare shift in thinking. These young men are different because their fathers never opposed any party policy. Today this huddle of MPAs are defying it and are being hauled up on why they are consorting with Mirza at a time when it is being forbidden. Mirza’s political statements against a coalition partner have already put him out in the cold. Their departure from blindly following a tradition of acquiescing, even though it is landing them in trouble, is what makes them different.
They argue that they are working on the principle that they don’t want to compromise on the interests of Sindh. “We are supporting Zulfiqar Mirza because he is following the manifesto of our party,” said Javed Shah, commonly known as Javed Mosvi. “We have to go back to our constituency for votes where people are against the SLGO 2001 and support the commissionerate system.”
The next election would be on his mind. This is his second term as an MPA. He is a landlord by profession and chairs the standing committee of the Sindh Assembly on Excise and Taxation. Shah has the street cred too. He began his political career from the PPP’s student wing in Rohri and went on to lead it in Sukkur district. He’s even been to jail.
These young men may have done their part for the party but they are also aware of what the party has done for them. One of them is Dadu MPA Fayaz Butt, an agricultural engineer and a law graduate from a land-owning family of Mehar taluka. “I cannot forget the moment when BB nominated me for membership of the Sindh Council of the party before her assassination,” he recalled. He won the last elections by defeating the most influential man of the area, Sadaqat Ali Jatoi, a former senator, MPA and brother of Liaquat Jatoi, former chief minister of Sindh.
Fayaz also cut his teeth at the PPP student wing and his father Munwar Ali Butt was also a founding member. Today Fayaz Butt is backing Mirza despite the fact that he is said to be close to the chief minister, Qaim Ali Shah, who as the chief of the party in Sindh, persuaded Benazir Bhutto to allot him an MPA ticket. “Mirza is a diehard worker and we are really impressed by him,” he explained. “He is still a member of the central executive committee and we follow him on his stand against SLGO 2001, which is a blot on the face of democracy.” Fayaz claimed that more than 25 PPP MPAs were with Mirza and the number would go up.
Another MPA who was served notice is 37-year-old Sindh University graduate Imdad Pitafi of Tando Allahyar, a landlord by profession whose father-in-law and uncle Manzoor Ali Pitafi is one of PPP founding members. “We are not causing any harm to our party policy, but we are echoing the wishes of our leaders Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto,” he said, adding that he would continue to oppose the 2001 local government system. “I assure you that the government cannot pass this bill because all PPP MPAs and those belonging to Awami National Party, National Peoples Party and PML-F will vote against it.”
Imdad too is well aware that it was Benazir Bhutto’s largesse that allowed the elder Pitafi to stand because he was not a graduate.
Also indebted to the PPP is Hertfordshire University graduate Imran Zafar Leghari of Dadu, who is one of the dissenting MPAs who recently accompanied Mirza on a meeting with PML-F leader Pir Pagara. Leghari’s family has a long association with the PPP and his father Haji Zafar Leghari is one of its founding members.
His father Zafar Leghari was president of the Dadu district council and was later elected an MNA and joined the first cabinet of Benazir Bhutto as a federal minister for railways. Later, the PPP made him a member of the party’s Central Executive Committee. In 1993, he contested the provincial assembly elections and joined the cabinet of then chief minister Abdullah Shah as minister for irrigation and was later appointed as minister for communication in the same cabinet. After that he was elected senior vice-president of PPP Sindh and is now a member of federal council of the party.
“When I was in primary school we used to visit our father who was in Hyderabad jail,” he said. “My father spent most of his life in different jails during the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in the 1980s. As children, we were worried and used to ask our mother why our father was always in jail. But now we have realised the sacrifices rendered by our family for the party.”
These links perhaps signify more loyalty and not less when these very men disagree with party policy. In fact, Leghari refuted the impression that they were making any forward bloc. They were just supporting Mirza on his stand against “the politics of blackmail”.
It is likely that these MPAs will continue to meet Mirza, as has Kotri MPA Dr Sikandar Shoro. This MBBS graduate from Jamshoro comes from a family from which his grandfather Muhammad Siddique Shoro was elected four times. After he retired, his son Ghulam Nabi alias Preen Shoro stepped up, prompting the PPP to allot him before passing away in 206. The party then turned to his nephew Dr Sikander. He went on to defeat Sindhi nationalist leader and former deputy speaker Jalal Mehmood Shah. The question is now whether they will win this battle with their party. But if their words are anything to go by, they aren’t interested in fighting, unless it’s the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2011.
COMMENTS (3)
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More evidence that most of the politician are Landlords by profession. How would they understand the miseries and hardships faced by the common man. Also, how will they move towards land reforms if they will be the biggest losers of those reforms.
PPP has always been the party of the previledged, The founder was a Zamindar who had party members mostly belonging to the same class of people, The reason the poor people of Pakistan supported them was because of the tall promise made which to this date hasnt been fulfilled. The New generation of PPP are no different then their founding members, Its the the junior members of the same clan trying to make room for themselfs. Pakistan has yet to produce a True son of the soil who would carry the nation forward with him
Confused. You seem to be making the case that these young, educated men are PPP loyalists because their fathers/uncles/relatives were PPP family members. That’s a flawed argument. Loyalty is not inherited. They may have followed party discipline when they toed the line set by the leadership. Now that they’re not, let us be clear: They Are Violating Party Discipline. If they fail to understand reconciliation, brinksmanship, and nonviolent strategy to defeat the enemy without actually appearing to fight, they’re failed politicians, and more rabble-rousers like their ringleader. Gutsy; not smart.
And let’s use your flawed argument for moment, Tunio Sahib. If loyalty is a measure of a good politician, and a good PPP one at that, who is more loyal than the Chief Minister? You seem to set a lot in store by the fact that these ‘bachas’ were born to PPP founding members. Guess the only founding member and ZAB cabinet minister still calling the shots within the PPP? Qaim Ali Shah. The dissenting members are a minor issue. In the long run, after this media circus dies down, they’ll fizzle out and become political non-entities, like everyone else who has left the PPP. Here’s history for you: “Ghadari” or disloyalty to the PPP Is Political Suicide.