MQM: A reverse order party in Pakistani political culture

Since the advent of strong vibrant media, the voice of common man is being heard, loud and clear. Common people desirous for a change, are now speaking for the change. From one corner of the country to another, they are now flocking out from their hide outs, as they can see and hear others speaking the same tone and music. Common man is gathering around to form a big mob and political parties are now clearly in perplexed mode, as so far they have not delivered what was required from them.

Previously, a voice of agitation or discontent was easy to be dumped down, in isolation, by force, without any news to others as the news medium was very much under control of few. The perception of numb and dumb common people, easily seduced by chants and slogans in past, is fading away. After the media advent, the common man is awakening and coming out from his deep coma sleep. Now he needs the political parties, bureaucrats, high wealthy officials of government, army, etc., either to deliver immediate solution of his problems or get ready to be eradicated from the political scene, forever, if possible, alive and with respect, what so ever they are left with.

Keeping in view this desire of change, by the now most powerful, common man, the existing larger political parties has smelled the uprising around them and has started sloganeering in favor of the change, again oblivious that now the common man has got enough information of their credibility, their willful incompetence and can not lured upon again, ever.

The wind of change is positive, yet scattered, but gaining pace. Awareness is spreading and fast abolishing the long traits of mere political associations, which was to the level of prejudices due to region, language, cast or culture even the fake religionism by mere naming a party on religious grounds and heading it with few mullahs. Now the common man, to live and exist, understanding the dire need of change in his status of living and thinking beyond such prejudicial elements. Such a change is evident in many countries thereby throwing out the rotten old political system along with the ruling parties by the lower and middle class common man.

If we evaluate all the existing political parties that have the tendency to bring about change, we see vast spaces filled with dark matter as the dominating percentage of members is not at all associated with the roots of common man.

Is MQM treading over the dreams of existing political system?

From the conspiracies of intelligence agencies, suffering a massive manslaughter in the beginning, which caused Urdu speaking people to gather together, first in Hyderabad and then in Karachi, to safeguard their existence and rights. Initially the movement was massively dominated by directionless lower middle class extremist youth from the streets, which left a bad patch on the movement at large, commonly using force and coercion to snatch and plunder. By time, MQM evolved itself into a better position by bringing in the literal middle class, thereby representing themselves as a separate identity within the province of Sind by participating in general elections emerging as a new political party. Due to population domination in twin cities and massive emotional history and language affiliation, the party succeeded in achieving all the seats. Soon after this, MQM stretched its presence in all Sind especially urban areas, where the Urdu speaking population is more dominant than in rural areas.

Since long, the movement (rather than as a party now) was/is taken as a hostile movement of criminal street power and was true, as since the beginning, the criminal elements of street, did entered into the movement which fueled the hatred against the movement as a linguistic separatists, looters and plunderers. Such elements were hard to be kept apart from the main movement, as such elements are always kept within, by political parties, to keep the fear in air to sustain existence and to suppress the opponent. They can be leashed or restrained, some how, to some extent, but can not be eliminated. Indeed, our social and political culture demands keeping the element of fear, within and outside, the area of political operation. Even after the successful achievement of placing itself as a political party, MQM has failed to eliminate the negative impression of coercion and looter elements within, which is still there to haunt the future career of the party in other provinces.

A significant element of MQM, right from the beginning, was the selection of electoral candidate from the very streets, a very common man. Initially the candidate was void of any experience of a crude politics of Pakistan but the years of evolution and political experiences, MQM did survived with and is now emerging as amongst a large political party, to be feared upon by existing political parties, ‘owned’ by the 2% of the elite group in Pakistan since decades, as their family inherited property.

MQM did remained, ‘just another political party’, for long and failed to achieve significant success as envisaged, for the people they have represented. The education level went drastically down as the party did nothing to promote education amongst the die hard followers of MQM, even colleges and school’s examination centers were always stormed by activists by force. This act was always denied by the top hierarchy but was actually present and still on at many places where MQM existence is at large. This act has done nothing other than deterioration of education level of two complete generations. Weapon culture went up immensely, resulting in an inter city arm race. Coercion money, armed robberies, abductions and armed political clashes between rival groups have resulted in serious unrest in both the twin cities since years, thereby collapsing the economic and security conditions vigorously. It was all due to the monster of that criminal elements, that was intentionally being carried with for some purpose and later on was failed to be leashed by MQM itself, which stained MQM for years and the blot is still on.

MQM last decade has become more prominent due to the team struggle and a man who was just made ‘yet another ordinary mayor’ of Karachi (a middle class common man) and he successfully performed the task of real, tangible development which has never been achieved and performed by the collective measures of all political parties in 62 years. This was achieved, of course by the support and initiative of all MQM workers. This act of one person is really an act of the whole party who stood up to support him and is a mile stone to abolish the blot on their credibility to some extent.

This success is also due to the reason that still now, MQM offers the party ticket to a middle class common man and that middle class common man is really representing the party very well.

The question is, will MQM survive in other provinces, without the coercive factor, it had/has in Karachi ? Is MQM, yet another party promising the heaven to the common man ? Will they be able to deliver the same as they tried in Karachi and other areas and accredited world wide ? Will the 2% extremely powerful and forever ruling kind of sector, allow MQM to impose ‘common man supremacy’ over them ?

These questions may need time to answer, when MQM will bring itself into the main stream of politics in ‘all Pakistan forum’.

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