At Kotri rally, MQM accepts feudal landlord into fold

Pir Syed Zaman Shah Jilani is a follower of the gaddi nasheen of Syed Bakir Ali Shah Jilani.

HYDERABAD:

Ahead of its public meeting in Sukkur on January 20, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) organised a rally in Jamshoro’s Kotri and welcomed a bigwig of the town into its fold – a feudal landlord.

To a crowd of several hundred men, MQM’s deputy convener Dr Farooq Sattar announced that Pir Syed Zaman Shah Jilani, an influential player on the local scene, had joined the party.

Pir Syed Zaman Shah Jilani, who is a cousin of Federal Minister Pir Aftab Shah Jilani, assured the MQM while addressing the public meeting that all his mureeds, friends and supporters would back the party. “Our life and death is now with the MQM,” he declared.

He took the opportunity to request MQM chief Altaf Hussain to help work on the development of Jamshoro just as the party had done in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Although Jilani has never been elected, he bagged over 30,000 votes on a Pakistan Peoples Party ticket in the 1997 elections on a National Assembly seat. Jilani is a member of the gaddi nasheen (caretaker) family of Sufi saint Syed Bakir Ali Shah Jilani’s shrine at Thano Bula Khan.

The area has traditionally remained a stronghold of the PPP, MPA Malik Asad Sikander and the Shoros. In the last general elections, the MQM’s candidate won only 3,938 votes.

Before joining the MQM, Jilani was with the Pakistan Muslim League-Q but used to support Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah of the Sindh United Party (SUP) in the elections. He is said to be a big landlord, a class which the MQM leadership despises.

Earlier on, the MQM rally led by Sattar received a warm welcome at different spots in Kotri. “The self-styled leaders only talk about change, but we bring it about,” he said while speaking in inarticulate Sindhi.

He urged the people to  guard against conspiracies which divide people from different backgrounds in Sindh. “Altaf bhai has been razing the wall of hatred which is repeatedly erected. Now, it is time to raze those who erect it,” he said. “The popular support which I witnessed today was unimaginable ten years ago,” Sattar added while referring to linguistic divides.

Sattar said Pakistan’s development and prosperity was not possible without Sindh which is why he demanded that complete control over its natural resources and ports be given to the province.

“Prosperity in Sindh is also not possible unless poverty and ignorance are eradicated from [rural] Sindh,” he said, reiterating the need to end the influence of feudalism.

The MQM leader, who has been vociferous in the National Assembly about the creation of new provinces for the Hazara and Seraiki people, only briefly reiterated the party’s demand.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2012.