There is aperception that the PTI focuses its attention on the urban centres of Punjab,but the same level of interest is missing in Karachi. Your workers complainthat a lack of focus, combined with a rigged voting process, cost the party sixor seven National Assembly seats in the city in the 2013 general elections, aswell as seats in the by-polls and Local Bodies’ elections. How do you respond?
I keep acouple of things in mind when I think about our performance in the recentelections. I don’t want to fool myself. I think that if we lost in theby-elections and in the local bodies’ polls, then we need to focus onorganisation and messaging. Organisation is like the machine that squeezesjuice out of sugarcane. The MQM and the Jamaat-e-Islami have excellentorganisations which can get the best out of their cadres, whether they do itwith force or persuasion. But messaging is very different.
Messagingmeans motivating people to vote for you. Our messaging in Karachi in futureshould be focused on Karachi’s issues rather than on being anti-Altaf, oranti-MQM. Our local leadership kept doing this because Altaf Hussain is thesymbolic bad guy of Karachi politics, to say the least. There is a precept incommunication science that if someone commits a mistake and you criticise theperson for it, he will go on the defensive. But, if the focus is on the wrongact, on the mistake rather than the person committing it, it makescommunication easier and less personal.
Would youtake the blame for the flawed party approach towards Karachi?
I was theSindh organiser when we contested the NA-246 by-elections in April 2015, andAli Zaidi was the organiser in Karachi. I didn’t interfere. I had to focus onthe other districts of Sindh and I spoke little of the issues pertaining toKarachi. But now things have changed. From being anti-Altaf andanti-MQM-centric, our politics are going to be pro-Karachi. We have decided tochalk out a pro-Karachi strategy to reach people at the grassroots level, andto take ownership, to be here to take up issues. It’s a formidable task.
Will partychairman Imran Khan, the local leadership, and your social media teams adhereto this new strategy?
Imran Khanhas been doing this, but he is over there at the centre. He has to takepositions at the national level. I have tried to explain to Khan Sahib andothers from the party that while there is an anti-MQM voter — a Punjabi,Pashtun or even a highly educated Mohajir who cannot become pro-MQM — who mightcome to you, you cannot alienate Mohajir voters.
In testingtimes, the MQM keeps reiterating that everyone is against them. TheUrdu-speaking population — the majority of Karachiites, and the descendants ofthe Mohajirs — have been fed the narrative that they have no future. Theybelieve they have been pushed to the wall, and if they don’t stand up, theywill be shoved into the sea. I have sat in their closed-door meetings andbefore I became a member of Parliament, I travelled with some MQM lawmakers.They thought since I was from the same community as them, I would have the sameissues. They would complain relentlessly about Mohajirs being baited, insulted,and treated as the ‘other.’ This is their thought process. It is a paranoidmindset.
I studieddentistry in Lahore. Over there people used to call me ‘Bhayya,’ and it didn’tbother me. I got elected as the president of the student union by defeating myopponent with a huge margin of votes. I do not consider myself a Mohajir,because it was my parents who migrated, not me. But whether you call me aMohajir, or call me by my surname, it doesn’t matter to me. But there are, ofcourse, issues of bias and prejudice that remain, and a proportionate responseis necessary.
So if wehave to engage with someone who identifies himself only as a Mohajir, we haveto take into consideration his views and thinking.
The Mohajirsconstantly reiterate that Sindhi feudals come to Karachi to make money out ofthis city and go back to their lands. They believe only Mohajirs can preserveor protect Karachi. This argument might be true up to a certain point, but thenthe man, who became the major claimant of Karachi, MQM Quaid Altaf Hussain, didthe same thing. He also took the money out of this city, and he resorted toviolence and did other things along the way which were worse than the crimescommitted by those he had been accusing of injustice.
He askedpeople to sell their television sets and buy Kalashnikovs. In the process, allthat Mohajirs were known for — education and learning — was lost.
One issuethey keep talking about is the quota system. They question us about our take onit. I believe jobs should be given on the basis of justice. People from theoppressed stratum must be given more opportunities. If I have four children, Iwill give most attention to that child who falls back in his studies. Peoplemay say, ‘give them all equal attention,’ but my love dictates that the childwho needs it most will get more attention from me. Across the world quotas areestablished, and opportunities created for those who need them. This way youtry to raise the oppressed class.
And if thatextra effort [to provide help to those in need] is dispensed with impartialityand with justice, then people will accept it. Over here, there is neitherimpartiality nor justice. Under the quota system, jobs were given in interiorSindh, but the People’s Party sold all those jobs. And nowadays, the lowestprice for a job is Rs 800,000 to Rs 900,000. That’s not justice, is it? Jobs inKarachi were also not given on merit. The jobs that members of the MQM got inthe Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, the Metropolitan Corporation, and otherdepartments, were given to the party’s sector ‘in-charges’ or criminal elementswithin the MQM ranks. Meanwhile, those who merited those jobs in Karachi,deserving people, did not receive anything.
In the quotasystem, the scales of justice are similar to the ones at home, and there can beno two opinions about that. There is no point in having a quota system if yousteal, bribe or cheat [while awarding or getting jobs]. I believe the quotasystem has not been used in Pakistan; a system of theft has been used hereinstead.
Sindh isvery deprived. It’s in a very bad condition — far worse than Karachi. RecentlyI was on a five-day trip to the interior with Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and I sawlittle children tying strips of cement sacks to their feet to run across thehot sand, and sometimes they ran barefoot. The water they drink comes fromponds, and it is so dirty and smelly that you wouldn’t even consider puttingyour foot in it.
Sindh is oneprovince, but the MQM demands that Karachi should be a separate province. Ifyou look at it from the perspective of the indigenous Sindhi, his heart breakswhen he hears such rhetoric. Sindhis welcomed the Mohajirs into their homesduring the Partition of 1947. But they paid back by demanding that the provincebe broken. This is like someone hosting a guest in a room of their house andthat person turning around demanding that the hosts bifurcate their house, anddeed that room to him as his property.
Somepolitical analysts say the MQM’s demand for a separate province stems from thefact that the powers of the local government are so clipped.
Yes, thereis the matter of ownership of Karachi, and a devolution of power. This has notbeen implemented effectively anywhere. A good attempt has been made in KhyberPakhtunkhwa where there has been effective legislation, and if translated intoaction on the ground, then that is real devolution. In Karachi there is no realdevolution of power. According to the Sindh Local Government Act which was justpassed, the minister for local governance has the power to dismiss people,override resolutions and dissolve assemblies while not giving financialresources to the district government. The Supreme Court forced them to carryout the elections, otherwise they wouldn’t even have happened.
But thetransfer of power is not visible.
The lawenforcement agencies’ targeted operations against the MQM are ongoing and theparty continues to lament this action. PTI meanwhile, does not seem ready tolend a ear to such complaints as is evident in the recent Rao Anwar case…
I agree, weshould not have supported Rao Anwar, as he owes his fame to his excessesagainst the people of Karachi. I told Khan Sahib he shouldn’t have done this.But you know our party has people of diverse backgrounds, and some of themmight have personally experienced, or at least witnessed, MQM excesses. So theyreact very strongly when it comes to the MQM. But I have spent time in jail(during the Ayub Khan era) and have firsthand experience of the way the policetreats prisoners. So I would insist that the police not be absolved of thewrongs it has done. The best way to keep the police in check is to depoliticiseit. As Zulfiqar Mirza said, in Karachi police stations have price tags attachedto them. They have sold out to the highest bidders, and then, at their bidding,employ the tactics they are notorious for.
How doesKarachi fit into your anti-corruption narrative, and how is it linked to yourfuture strategies?
If the 2013general elections had been fair, MQM would have been challenged through theelectoral process in Karachi. You know what the MQM and the PPP have done toKarachi in the last eight years. Whether there was an alliance — as there wastill 2013, or whether the MQM moved to the opposition benches — as it did threeyears ago — Karachi was abandoned by both. The ostensible tussle and verbalfurore against each other was only to deceive the public. Both sit together totake their share of the money they have plundered in tandem.
With theemergence of the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), isn’t the TI confronted by a newchallenge, since this new party is likely to carve out its support base fromthe MQM — which you surely must have viewed as your constituency.
The PSP hasresorted to doing the same thing we did in the past against the MQM. They havegone against the MQM and its supremo Altaf Hussain, but if they keep overdoingthis, as we did in the past, and also very recently in the by-polls, it willbackfire. That’s not the way to bring people close to you. Now, I would rathertalk about Karachi’s issues, go to all the city’s areas fearlessly, startmeeting and cultivating people. We have one-and-a-half years till the nextelections. It’s more than enough time to complete all these tasks.
The PSPgenesis is shadowy. If you take a survey in Karachi, you will find most peoplesaying that the PSP was pushed into the scene, that it is an unnaturalphenomenon. Karachi has a history of rejecting such unnatural phenomena. ThePSP might have some effect in the short term, but it will not be able tosustain itself for long.
The MQM willnot be decimated. The PSP might have some well-meaning individuals, but theirnarrative goes against them. And there are reports that in Karachi and inHyderabad, many criminal elements have joined the PSP. On the other hand, theMQM probably still has hundreds of people who believe Altaf Hussain is right,and I am sure there are two to three thousand people in its ranks who couldresort to violence and militancy. This can lead to chaos. I pray that I amwrong.
How would you dealwith the issues in Karachi — among them the major issue of public utilities?
Karachi has its own specific issues.Commercialisation in the city was carried out the wrong way. The entireinfrastructure has collapsed.
The problem of water shortage needs desperateattention. Karachi is sanctioned 550 million gallons of water per day; but weare only able to pump 420 million gallons of water per day at Gharro andDhabeji from the pumping stations. However, this has been a crisis mainly forthe poor and impoverished of the city. Neelam colony, a poor locality in myconstituency, has no potable water supplies, but a pipeline going through itprovides water to the uber fancy Icon Tower. Isn’t that disgusting? And this ishow the provincial government has been handling this issue. If this problem isnot addressed, it can lead to crises, or even water riots in Karachi.
When the federal budget was announced, weapproached the Federal Finance Minister, Ishaq Dar, to increase the federalgovernment funding for the K-4 project, from 500 million to six billion rupees.
Then there is the sewerage system. We arepumping approximately 400 million gallons of water into the sea. The CEO of theK-Electric told me in a meeting that if we look at Karachi on the Google map,we will see how a huge area of the sea area around Karachi has turned yellow,because of the sewage water we dump into the sea.
With all the illegal construction, the seweragesystem will get further choked. But the concerned authorities have always donethis. First, they allow the illegal construction, then after paying therelevant officials, those authorised to build two-storey buildings, build fiveand eight-storey ones.
Next the government announces that all theillegal constructions will be legitimised — and in the process gets healthybribes for the second time: first for allowing the illegal construction, andsecond for regularising them. It’s all a huge mess.
There seems to be an endless craving for eatinginto the city’s resources, and everyone is involved. Recently, newspapersreported the story of the Clifton Creek land, where land still under water wasallotted for mining by an ex-minister of mining, Agha Tariq of the PPP, to hisown wife, and the land’s status was changed. Now the government says it’slegal, the KMC says it’s legal, and the DHA has also termed it legal, but thecase is pending in the courts.
Look at the leaders of the MQM; they raiseslogans against feudalism, they keep criticising the feudal politicians, yet,for decades, they have had alliances with them, and have turned intocity-feudals themselves. They have ravaged the city along with their PPPcounterparts.
It was the MQM that sold amenity plots and theland allocated for parks and hospitals. Thanks to Altaf Hussain we learnt about“China-cutting.” So this hunger for land never ends.
The issues of solid waste management, of theinfrastructure and the public transport facilities all need to be dealt with.
The problem is, Karachi is considered as a cashcow by everyone. The land is valuable, the surrounding islands are valuable,and so far there is no scarcity of land. The city possesses a lot of resources,and everyone wants a piece of the pie. It reminds me of what the director ofthe Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), the late Akhtar Hameed Khan, told Imran Khanand I, when we went to visit him at the OPP: “Mey aksar in se kehta hun, keKarachi ek gaye hai, is ka doodh piyo, laikin isey zinda tau rehney do, iskichaanpain tau mat khao.” (“I often tell the people who are at the helm ofaffairs in the city that Karachi is a cow, milk it if you want, but please letit live, don’t make chops of its meat.”)
So how do you resolve these issues that arealmost part of our national fabric now?
During a visit to the Philippines, I came acrossthe interesting efforts by an organisation there working for eradicatingelectoral corruption; they told us that the biggest corruption is in theelectoral process. It is a vicious cycle. People get elected through corruptpractices. They approve laws which favour them, and make more money throughfinancial embezzlement. They also get people of their choice appointed on keypositions. And finally with the help of the accumulated money and help from thepeople in key positions, they get elected once again. A case in point is thePhilippines’ President Duterte, known to be Donald Trump in a cruder form.
In my opinion the solution lies in politics, anda fair election process is the foundation of politics. In the absence of thisfairness, we are condemned to have crooks like Duterte get elected again andagain. People should have to go through the criminal justice system beforecoming into the political process. When you point fingers at the PPP forcorruption and financial crimes, they respond with reference to the results ofthe elections, saying people elected these candidates. That proves they are notcorrupt. But voters may not necessarily be cognisant of the facts; they don’thave the scales to measure the level of corruption.
Why has thePTI opted to take its protest to the road again?
In a fairdemocracy, the thief and the looter would have to present himself foraccountability before he got into the electoral process. Honest people getdefeated in an unfair electoral process. They get defeated and frustrated bythe dysfunctional system.
Why have wecome out? Why have we opted for bringing people on the roads? Why will we bemarching towards Raiwind on September 30? Because they have closed all otherdoors to us. In the Parliament, the speaker of the National Assembly closed thefirst one with his response to our reference. The relevant authorities alsokept delaying the proceedings for the Terms of Reference (TORs) for theinvestigation on the Panama Leaks. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) hasdone nothing, and while the Panama Leaks is an issue in the rest of the world,the Supreme Court registrar initially refused to register our petition, termingit ‘frivolous.’ Now the Supreme Court has reversed that decision. But we aredoing this march to Raiwind to build pressure.
You canbring out 20 thousand people, but if they sit on a plot of land, they won’t benoticed and no one will bother. The system has impelled us to vent ourfrustration by coming onto the streets, block the roads, bring the system to ahalt, and then we will be heard. By their actions and the lack ofaccountability, the concerned authorities are encouraging the system to bederailed.
Link - https://newslinemagazine.com/magazine/interview-dr-arif-alvi/