Who has Cast this Evil Spell On Karachi ?

THERE was this blood-curdling report in the papers the other day, giving casualty figures in Karachi  for November. Citing Edhi Trust  sources, the report said that 104 people were killed in the Sindh  capital during the month against 84 fatalities in October. Six hundred people have loss their lives in the first eleven months of the current year with over 700 injured.

          The Edhi Trust  sources gave the following month-wise breakdown of deaths in Karachi :

January: 59

February: 13

March: 28

April: 18

May: 46

June: 62

July: 68

August: 58

September: 60

October: 84

November: 104

The number of those injured during the same period was put at 723. More than 70 policemen lost their lives. In 1993, the number of casualties was 121 killed and 431 injured. The corresponding figures for 1992 were 121 and 4,329. It is often said by those in authority that a 'foreign hand' is behind all this mayhem. Perhaps they are right but where are our own hands, dash it? Why can't we cut the 'foreign hands' that are bent upon destroying Karachi ? Can we allow Karachi to go under? And if Karachi does go under, can Pakistan  survive?

          And how did it all start? Why, once the most peaceful city in the country, if not in the sub-continent, has Karachi  become the most dangerous place to live in today? I do not defend MQM  exclusivism, but I beg of you to ask yourself as to what is genesis. I think it all started in 1964 when one of President  Ayub's sons led a violent victory procession in the city after Miss Fatima Jinnah  had been 'defeated' in the presidential elections that year. The mohajirs were the target of this violence; because they had campaigned and voted for the Quaid 's sister.

          Then, in 1972, President  CMLA Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto  took steps, which hurt the mohajir sentiments and led to language riots, which claimed many lives. I still remember a newspaper headline from that year- Bara afraad Urdu  pur nichawar ho gaey (Twelve people sacrifice their lives for Urdu.) Things have never been the same since. The MQM , therefore, was not Gen . Zia's creation or that of the ISI. It only came of age during the Martial

Law years (1977-85). The MQM  was born much earlier than that. Only it was formally christened when it was already a teenager. Altaf Bhai was not born in a vacuum. Circumstances created him; circumstances, which no one tried to analyse, and developments, which no one tried to foresee and prevent. What now, holy cow? We have to contend with the MQM. Now, I suppose, you will ask me which MQM. Your guess is as good as mine is.

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Now here is a story without comment. There is a doctor who lives in the Cantonment . He is a God -fearing man. One day, as he came out of his house he saw a bedraggled, bearded man sitting under a tree in his lawn. He went up to the trespasser and asked him who he was and what could he do for him.

          "Sir, I am poor man with nowhere to go. I'll be eternally grateful if you allow me to live under this tree. I want nothing else. I'll make my living by teaching the Quran to the neighbourhood children."

          Impressed by the man's apparent piety, the good doctor said, "No, you need not live under the tree. I'll have a shed made for you so can save yourself from the elements." This was done and the pious man began to teach the Holy Quran  to the neighbourhood boys.

          Now, it so came to pass that the doctor had to go to Britain  for higher studies. So he locked the main house and took his small family along with him, asking the pious man to look after the property while he was away. After a few months when the doctor and his family returned, they found that a sizeable portion of the lawn had been fenced off and a structure raised on it.

"What's all this?" he asked the pious man.

          "This, as you can see, Doctor Sahib, is a mosque, the house of God ," replied the pious man.

          "Nothing of the sort. I'll have the structure demolished because it has been built on my property without my permission," said the doctor.

          "You can't do that, Sir, because no-one can demolish the house of God  and get away with it," said the pious man with much feeling.

          "We'll see," fumed the doctor, went into his sitting room, and made some calls. He was determined to get his property vacated. Sensing the doctor's intentions the pious man took a round of the neighbourhood, asking the parents whose children he had been teaching to prevent the heathen man of medicine from carrying out his evil designs. Immediately, a 'save the mosque committee' was formed, and his own neighbours--some of them very powerful people--warned the doctor of dire consequences if he so much as removed a brick from the holy place.

          Terrorised by his own neighbours, the doctor had no option but to surrender a good 17 percent of his property to the pious man who has, it goes without saying, prospered a lot since. As I said, no comments.

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AS ALREADY reported, the employees of The Pakistan  Times , Lahore , have already been given a golden handshake. Many of the serving staff have got so much money that they need not work for the rest of their days. But there are hundreds of others that the National Press  Trust (NPT) has decided to ditch-the retired employees of the Progressive Papers Ltd . (PPL), which own The Pakistan Times among several other publications since defunct, such as the weekly Lailo Nehar , the monthly Sportimes  and The Morning News .

          Now, many of the PPL pensioners are among the pioneers who made The Pakistan  Times  what it used to be before it was taken over by the Ayub Khan  regime. They have an association of their own. It is called the Progressive Papers Pensioners' Association, and is headed by the redoubtable Mr. F. E. Chaudhry , the doyen of photographic journalism who started his career before most of us were born.

          I met him the other day and he was fuming. "There's no justice left in this world. We gave the best years of our lives to the PPL publications and look what they have done to us." The whole city calls him Chacha  and so do I. "You worry too much, Chacha . I am sure you and the other pensioners will get a fair deal. But Chacha is skeptical. "We have to shout or will be left out in the cold. So you write about this, and as forcefully as you can or never see me again," he warned me.

          I am not disobeying Chacha  because I fear him as I used to fear my headmaster at school. So, I have done my bit, Chacha , but as you know, Information Minister Kharal has more important business to attend to. The PPL pensioners can wait.

Sunday , December 4, 1994