By Kamran Rehmat/Doha
It has been an eventful fortnight in Pakistan even by the standard headline-grabbing proclivity associated with the country.
The ethnic-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a political party that has long held Karachi - one of the world’s pre-eminent megapolises with an estimated population of 24mn - in a stranglehold, is in the wringer.
Many pundits see the raid by Rangers on its headquarters Nine Zero on March 11 in the realm of “chickens coming home to roost”.
The party, long feared for its muscle and allegedly running armed gangs ready to take down targets and shut the city on a short notice, has struggled to hold its own in its wake.
MQM’s cause has not been helped by Altaf Hussain, its self-exiled leader, who has been virtually running the party on telephone from London since fleeing arrest in 1992. His controversial statements, edicts and name-calling — listened to in servile silence by party leaders and cadres over the years — have landed him in a right royal soup this time.
Hussain accused the army of singling out his party in a targeted operation and even planting a huge cache of weapons recovered from Nine Zero.
In a diatribe peppered with invectives broadcast on a host of private TV channels, he appeared to threaten security personnel, provoking the Rangers chief to file an FIR against Hussain.
But more significant developments are shaping the contours of a rapidly changing Pakistan, and for the better.
When both the civilian and military leaderships converge - either willingly or forced by circumstance - it leads to much needed stability in a chaotic republic.
Sharif and Sharif, for instance, are way more critical to the country’s interests than say, Sharif vs Sharif as appeared to be the case last year when Imran Khan nearly overran the fortress of “prime minister” Sharif - many suspect on some sort of a cue from “general” Sharif!
That shemozzle in Islamabad is now a distant memory with Prime Minister Sharif having realised his two-third majority may be slightly more fragile than the numbers appear to suggest and cozy up to the general, whom he had appointed - after long keeping the cards close to his chest - in the hope that his namesake would remain beholden to him.
But, as the Pakistani power corollary suggests, a man who comes to head the world’s seventh largest standing army is more likely to develop a mind of his own, if it has not been discovered already. General Raheel Sharif has not only reinforced the reality bite, but done so quite spectacularly; it even has a popular ring to it given how the armed forces have responded to the massacre of 134 students by the Taliban in Peshawar’s Army Public School last December.
Where the school murder spree stunned the world for its sheer brutality, it also shook Pakistan’s foundations, metaphorically speaking. Long accustomed to a gingerly, unconvincing approach in the face of ominous threat to its integrity, a mostly resigned nation of 194mn united in grief even as it wondered if its luck would change.
It was left to the powerful military - after the usual rounds of condemnation from all and sundry - to pick up the gauntlet. It coaxed - in no uncertain terms, one might hasten to add - the political leadership to use parliamentary fiat for a fightback subscribed to in the National Action Plan.
The results have been heartening as the khakis have made the offensive count; for a change, it has been targeted and consistent, not cosmetic and erratic. The ability and capacity of terrorists to strike, almost at will in the past, is significantly diminished.
But two developments with great symbolic value since then have also boosted the morale of a nation long mired in a web of cynicism.
The decision to resume - and successfully pull off - the National Day parade after seven years has given Pakistanis hope that their luck might change, after all. The grand show of force - once a much-awaited event on the national calendar - in the heart of the federal capital put across a very significant and strong message: as well as show terrorists the finger with a definitive national resolve, it swept away fear and considerably restored hope in a nation looking for assurance.
The parade also brought back fond memories as evident in an emotional rush to the proceedings, the highlight of which was the fly-past led by the air chief!
And to return to Karachi - long held hostage to criminalisation of politics - the security establishment, with the full backing of Prime Minister Sharif, is moving decisively to divest the port city of criminal elements.
The MQM continues to raise a commotion over what it alleges is a one-sided operation. However, it is noticeable that ever since the Rangers raid, the media is finally finding its voice, no longer fearful of reprisal.
In a development whose import is lost on few, the PM arrived in Karachi on Wednesday for a detailed briefing on the ongoing operation, which was held at a military base, not the Governor’s House as usual.
Eshratul Ebad, the Sindh governor, is from the MQM and is currently, facing allegations of having protected criminal elements within the party by using his office following a confessional statement by Umair Siddiqui, a party activist accused of involvement in the murder of 120 people.
Sharif only reluctantly met the MQM delegation in Islamabad on Friday after ignoring their initial attempts to engage with him in Karachi, but it appeared to be a largely cosmetic exercise since the PM has sought an extension in the execution deadline of Saulat Mirza, a former MQM convict, who, alleged in a confessional video hours before he was first scheduled to hang, that Hussain had directly ordered him to murder the city power chief in 1997!
But the MQM is not the only party fretting over what awaits it. The mainstream Pakistan People’s Party, which governs the Sindh province and recently allied with the MQM for the Senate polls appears reticent, having pulled the offer for it to join the provincial government, for now.
- The writer is features editor.
Newfound hope: General Raheel Sharif, left, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have converged to reset the contours of the state.
