Pakistan: A Hard Country (44 page)
Al this has led to fears among Western observers and Pakistani liberals alike that in government the PML(N) wil turn Pakistan away from the al iance with the US, and towards a much more Islamist system at home, akin to that introduced by General Zia. There are nevertheless limits to how far the party can go in either of these directions. More perhaps than any other group in Pakistan, the industrialists who support the Sharifs know the disastrous economic costs of a radical break with the US.
Businessmen also know how dependent Pakistan wil be on US aid, and, although they wil undoubtedly try for greater distance, in the end their policies towards the Afghan Taleban are likely to be much the same mixture as those of Musharraf and Zardari. The Sharifs’
business and ‘feudal’ support also means that unlike the Jamaat and the Taleban they cannot even flirt with ideas of Islamist social and economic revolution.
When they come to power, the Sharifs wil also probably continue a tough line against the Pakistani Taleban, along the same lines as their past toughness with sectarian extremists in Punjab (as described in the next chapter). This is not so much a matter of ideology as of a passionate commitment to being in charge and suppressing revolts against their government. When I asked a senior PML(N) figure about whether the party would show any toleration to the spread of Islamist extremism in Punjab, he barked at me: This is our province, and we mean to keep it that way. We are responsible for government and development here. Apart from anything else, our whole image is built on order and good administration. Of course we are not going to al ow any terrorism and disorder by miscreants here, no matter if they say they are doing this in the name of Islam and against America.
Final y, in terms of their personal culture, while the Sharifs are quite far from the Bhuttos, they are also very far from the buttoned-up, puritanical Jamaat, described in Chapter 4 on religion. Close associates have described them as not personal y bigoted, and general y relaxed about religion. They like good food, ostentatious luxury and above al women, for whom both brothers have a considerable appetite which they hardly trouble to disguise. They are, however, strict about not drinking alcohol.
This may wel seem a hypocritical mixture, but unlike the open Westernization displayed by some of the PPP leadership, and the strict Islamism displayed by the Jamaat, it may be rather close to the basic attitudes of a majority of male Punjabis – who, as described in the next chapter, are also far from puritanical in their basic attitudes to life, while regarding themselves of course as good Muslims and insisting on strict behaviour by their own women. Imran Aslam of Geo described what he cal ed ‘the Sharifs’ Pakistan’ as Conservative with a smal ‘c’. It is a form of religion that gives stability and comfort but is not fanatical, and is at peace with itself – unlike our psychological y and cultural y tortured liberals, and equal y tortured Islamists.32
The Punjabi conservative attitude to the Sharifs may therefore be compared to the conservative attitude of the American South to the youthful George Bush’s escapades with drugs, alcohol and women (except that the Sharifs are no longer youthful). The fact that they are nonetheless seen as part of the same conservative culture (unlike the democratic ‘liberal elites’) somehow absolves them from blame. Even Nawaz Sharif’s wel publicized affairs with Indian (Muslim) actresses wil not do him much harm among most men in a province where so much of the male population watches Bol ywood movies and – unless Punjabis are differently constructed from men anywhere else in the world – dream of sleeping with their female stars.
On the other hand, because of this luxurious lifestyle, the elite composition of most of its top leadership, and the basic realities of kinship and patronage politics, the PML(N) stands no chance either of crafting a social and economical y reformist agenda for Pakistan, or of transforming itself into a modern mass party. The Sharifs lack the openly monarchical style of the Bhutto-Zardaris, but both brothers are natural autocrats whose autocratic tendencies helped destroy their government and bring about the military coup of 1999.
As in the PPP, there are no internal elections in the PML(N), and everything comes down in the end to choices and decisions by the Sharifs and their advisers. The PML(N) is therefore yet another dynastic party, with the usual problem that the next generation of Sharifs (Shahbaz’s son is the heir apparent to the party leadership) are rather unknown quantities in terms of ability – though they are better placed in this regard than the Bhutto-Zardaris.
THE MUTTAHIDA QAUMI MAHAZ (MQM)
The fossilized nature of the PPP and PML is shown up especial y starkly by the contrast with Pakistan’s only truly modern mass political party, the MQM, which wil be further described in Chapter 8. I have included the MQM in this chapter as a counter-example to the other main parties, and because the MQM itself has aspirations to be a national party.
The MQM’s character as a middle-class party stems from its ethnic background in the Mohajir population of Karachi and Hyderabad. It has sought to transcend this identity and capitalize on its modern middle-class character to become a progressive party across the whole of Pakistan. It has appealed to the middle classes in the name of progressive (but not anti-capitalist) anti-‘feudal’ and anti-Islamist (though not of course anti-Islamic) values, against the PPP, the Muslim League and the Jamaat Islami alike.
To this end, in 1997 the MQM dropped its original name of Mohajir Qaumi Mahaz (Mohajir People’s Movement) and renamed itself the Muttahida (‘United’) Qaumi Mahaz, ‘in order to further national development and a nationwide campaign against feudal domination’.
This MQM strategy has, however, failed, partly because the social and cultural conditions which produced the MQM in Karachi do not exist in the rest of the country. The other urban middle classes have not been shaken free of traditional kinship al egiances and rural links, as the Mohajirs were shaken free by their exodus from India; and, indeed, with the very partial exceptions of Lahore and Faisalabad, there is no other modern urban centre to support modern urban politics. Equal y, the MQM has not been able or wil ing to transcend its ethnic nature and loyalty, for which it was founded and which has brought it into ferocious conflict with other Pakistani ethnicities.
The MQM’s appeal to the mass of Pakistanis may be restricted stil further by its strong stand against the Taleban, which reflects a mixture of genuine hostility to Taleban ideology, ethnic hostility to the – al egedly pro-Taleban – Pathans of Karachi, and a strong play for American and British support. The MQM has identified Karachi as an essential route for US and NATO supplies to Afghanistan and is determined to exploit this strategic opportunity to the best of its ability.
The MQM has been in and out of coalition governments, both in Islamabad and in Sindh. Having initial y boycotted elections under President Musharraf (himself a Mohajir) as a protest against his military coup (leading to a brief period of renewed Jamaat Islami rule of the city of Karachi), the party later made a deal with him and took control once again of the municipality. At the time of writing, the MQM
is in coalition with the PPP and ANP in Sindh, but given its past record there can be no doubt that it wil also be wil ing to enter into coalition with Nawaz Sharif, or indeed anyone else. This in turn means that with the help of the MQM and a sufficient number of opportunist Sindhi ‘feudal’ politicians, a new government in Islamabad can usual y succeed through patronage in putting together a provincial government in Sindh as wel .
The MQM demonstrates one of the ‘Indo-Pakistani’ political trends mentioned in the Introduction: an ethnic political movement which emerged through violence and stil intermittently uses great violence against its enemies, and which has had violent clashes with the state, but which also over time has been co-opted by the state through repeated deals and grants of patronage, and which has abandoned its most radical demands. Thus the MQM now never raises its original demand of a separate province of Karachi, knowing that this would make it impossible for even moderate and opportunist Sindhi politicians to form coalitions with the MQM.
It would be quite wrong to see the MQM as just another bunch of corrupt, opportunist and brutal ethnic politicians. They are a remarkable party by any standards, and a very remarkable party indeed for Pakistan. The loyalty of their activists is especial y impressive. One of them, Nasir Jamal, a greying, rather intense thirty-four-year-old who joined the party when he was sixteen, described to me how his family had fled first from India to East Pakistan in 1948, and then to Pakistan from the new Bangladesh, and then from the new Bangladesh to Karachi in 1974. ‘We felt that we had lost everything twice over and no longer had any country of our own at al .’
When the MQM was created, there was a crisis of identity for al those like us who had migrated from India. We felt that we had no identity because we had no land of our own, unlike the Sindhis, Punjabis or Pathans. But the MQM gave us our identity, and if I could describe it in one sentence, the MQM is a passion for us. Identity is self-respect, freedom, honour. I now feel that I am also something, that there are some things that are in my hands, that I am helping my community to solve their problems, if only in a smal way.33
Iftikhar Malik sums up the MQM’s leading features as fol ows: [A] comparatively recent, total y urban, predominantly middle-class party with a specific ethnic consciousness, characterized by wider literacy, meticulous organization, effective propaganda campaigns and an impressive level of youth organization.34
He lists their ‘inherent weaknesses’ as ‘personality-centred politicking, factionalism, intolerance towards other ethnic communities, and coercive tactics against the media’ (if the latter can be described as a ‘weakness’ rather than an ugly but effective manifestation of strength). I can confirm much of this from my own observations. Certainly the fear of the MQM on the part of journalists is very striking. Even at the height of the kil ings in Karachi during my stay in April 2009, it was very difficult to find any explicit criticism of the party in the mainstream media; and time and again, when I interviewed local journalists or analysts, they said that al their words could be ‘on the record’ – except the bits criticizing the MQM. They were ful of stories about how closely the MQM monitored their movements, including supposedly my own during my visit to the city. Some of these stories sounded to me highly paranoid, but they were certainly widespread and believed.
Dr Malik’s essay was written in 1995, and fifteen years on a couple more things need to be added. The first is that despite the factionalism of which he speaks, and which has been very evident in the MQM in the past, the party has retained an impressive public unity compared to any other party in Pakistan. One reason for this may be precisely the extraordinary cult of personality that has been created round the figure of Altaf Hussain – while at the same time his absence in London, fol owing an assassination attempt, al ows a reasonable degree of autonomy to the second-rank leadership.
The other thing about the MQM that has become more apparent since the 1980s is their capacity for effective and progressive government. Although Karachi has more than doubled in size over the past twenty years, the city has not lapsed into the shambolic misery that many predicted. It is in fact not merely the best-run city in Pakistan (with the possible exception of Faisalabad) but one of the best-run larger cities of South Asia, without the appal ing mass poverty that characterizes most Indian and Bangladeshi cities.
Communications and public services have considerably improved under the MQM’s municipal government – once again, something to set against the growing violence and misery of the Pathan areas of northern Pakistan. Final y, businessmen in the city confirm that while the MQM is not without corruption, its leaders’ corruption is both on a smal er scale and more orderly than that of the leaders of other parties, and sometimes at least is for the party rather than the individual concerned. ‘They take, but they deliver,’ as one banker put it to me.
The MQM built on its highly disciplined and ruthless student organization – both derived from and model ed on that of the Jamaat – to extend its organization throughout Mohajir society, with the partial exception of the richest and most cosmopolitan elements, which had dominated Karachi politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike any other party – except yet again the Jamaat – women are critical to the MQM’s organization, and have indeed kept the party going when its male leadership was in jail or on the run.
Women are especial y important in the MQM’s social welfare wing, the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation, which helps people with everything from repairs to their homes to the education of their children and dowries for their daughters. The party’s organization thus permeates Mohajir society. Social work and social organization, at least as much as violence and intimidation, are central to the power and resilience of the party, and its enduring grip on the support of most of the Mohajir population, which has survived al the vicissitudes of the past twenty years and many years out of office. The MQM’s professionalism and modernity are reflected in its website, MQM.org, which lists its branches and achievements, as wel as providing party videos and songs to actual or potential supporters. The websites of the PPP