Both rabbits came out of the same hat of the same master magician. The same script enacted twice.
The first, MQM, a test run on a smaller level, intended to contain the major political parties in urban Sindh, turned out to be a partial success. It effectively eliminated the role of national parties, like PPP, JUP and JI in Karachi and Hyderabad, the main goal the authors of the drama wanted to achieve. Encouraged by this accomplishment, the creators went on to run the same experiment on a much bigger, nationwide, scale. With the same purpose in mind, to completely discredit and destroy their major competitors for power - the politicians - PTI, a new MQM, so to say, was created and every trick in the book was employed to see the project to success.
While going full blast with the PTI experiment, the playwrights did not consider the end result of the first experiment. The MQM experiment had resulted in damaging the political fabric of urban Sindh forever. The PTI, a much bigger experiment, when it inevitably bombed, was bound to cause colossal destruction.
The MQM – initially Mohajir, and later Muttahida – Qaumi Movement, was manufactured in the laboratories of the mighty to contain the influence of people oriented political parties in urban Sindh.
The influence of pliant religious groups that had been doing the dirty work for the hidden powers in urban Sindh hitherto, had start to weaken due to their naked support of the duplicitous and hypocritical policies of the dictator in the name of religion, and therefore lost their utility. This could mean the rise of the ‘establishment’s’ archenemy, the Peoples’ Party, which was completely unacceptable. To counter this dreadful idea, the Goebbels of the time came up with the idea to give urban Sindh a so-called secular party armed with the victim card to attract emotional youth.
The MQM – initially Mohajir, and later Muttahida – Qaumi Movement, was manufactured in the laboratories of the mighty to contain the influence of people oriented political parties in urban Sindh.
A brief spell of democracy from 1972 to 1977 in the country had bitterly disappointed the Indian immigrant community in Sindh. Indian immigrants, due to their large-scale and disproportionate presence in the civil and military bureaucracy as compared to local people, had enjoyed control over the capital of Sindh ever since the partition of the subcontinent with an exclusive domination on the resource and jobs of the province.
The new and balanced quota system – the original, and highly lopsided in favor of immigrants, quota system was adopted in 1948 – ensured a fair share for the locals in jobs and resources. So used to monopolizing everything in the province, the community felt like being deprived of what was their inherent right. The powers well versed in psychological warfare decided to manipulate the, however misplaced, feeling of deprivation and injustice. The MQM happily adopted the slogan of injustice and discrimination against Mohajirs, as coined by its masters.
The sectarian trick has always proven the best recipe to instigate the sentiments of the people. Events were engineered and manipulated for this rhetoric to work in favor of the MQM. The bus driver in the Bushra Zaidi incident was not a Pathan. However, this instance was used to incite the Mohajirs against the Pathan, giving way to the decades of gruesome, unconstrained violence against, not just Pathans, but also Sindhis, Punjabis, and fellow Mohajirs on one pretext or the other.
To give the manufactured group standing in the political arena, every possible trick of the trade was exercised, from gerrymandering to forcing voters to vote for the MQM. A blind eye was turned when the reports of MQM committing all kind of crimes, including the collection of ransom and extortion money, murdering opponents, and looting of NATO supplies to Afghanistan, etc. emerged.
During Musharraf’s dictatorship, the whole budget of Sindh was placed at the disposal of MQM, a major chunk of which made its way to the MQM leader in London. Even reports of the party’s ties with Indian and European spy agencies were overlooked due to the political expediency or ethnic considerations of the dictators, who wanted to perpetuate their stranglehold on power at the cost of the country’s wellbeing. Everything was kosher for MQM. This freehand provided by the powers that be to MQM led urban Sindh to sink into major chaos and violence.
This had started to hurt the country, but as long Musharraf was in power, nothing could be done about it. Therefore, as soon as Musharraf was out, a strict action set in motion against the party, which divided the party into two groups, MQM-Pakistan and MQM-London.
‘Project Imran Khan’ started almost the same time, by the same people who had conceived the brilliant idea of MQM. The building of Imran Khan’s image as the messiah started during the Zia tenure, when a ruse of his retirement and then retraction of it at Zia’s request was played.
While MQM-London remains a pariah to date, the MQM-Pakistan is the sanitized version, containing the same people, involved in the same activities, but now having sworn the oath of allegiance to the masters, have become purified and cleansed, and hence acceptable.
So much about MQM. Now remove the word MQM and replace it with PTI in the above paragraphs. Isn’t it the same script, acted twice, with minor modifications?
‘Project Imran Khan’ started almost the same time, by the same people who had conceived the brilliant idea of MQM. The building of Imran Khan’s image as the messiah started during the Zia tenure, when a ruse of his retirement and then retraction of it at Zia’s request was played.
As in the case of MQM, every possible effort was made to discredit the two mainstream parties and their leadership to clear the way for PTI. The top leaders of the two major political parties were mottled as corrupt and incompetent, and the parties were weakened using every dirty trick possible, including violence and terrorism. At the same time, the propaganda factories started working overtime to carve out an image as the paragon of purity and honesty for a person who had a rather checkered history of gambling, immorality and substance abuse, and who had lived on the wealth of rich Western women and the charity of his friends all his life.
In a similar fashion as the gangs of MQM youth were armed and unleashed to ensure the ouster of its opponents from the political arena in urban Sindh, the power of the Taliban was used to support Khan’s party in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In Punjab, it was easier to manipulate the electables through coercion or enticement, as well as strongarm techniques. Aleem Khan and Jahangir Tareen, as well as Malik Riaz, were all too willing to help. In Sindh, the strategy did not work, though. Sindhis, having witnessed this drama before in the case of MQM and having suffered heavily, did not fall into the trap.
In both cases, the dumb-witted ‘establishment’ could not foresee, or ignored intentionally, the damage its myopic policies might cause the country.
To attract Pakistanis, an overtly religious people, the manufactured leaders had to be symbols of spirituality too. The leader of MQM was a Pir to his followers, who delivered lectures on religion and whose silhouette appeared occasionally on leaves! The PTI chief, too, was seen being reminded to give his speeches a ‘mazhab ka tarkaa’, a touch of religion, by his makers. With time, he too, has become a Murshid to his devotees. A chador clad Bushra Bibi provides additional support to this saintly image.
In his heyday, Altaf Hussain was an icon of piety. He could commit no sin. Talk to an Insaafian today and you will find out that he too firmly and earnestly believes his Murshid to be purity incarnate. Ask them about Ayesha Gulalai’s complaints, the contents in Reham Khan’s or Hajra Panezai’s books, the swindling of 190 million British pounds and the Al-Qadir Trust, the Toshakhana scandal, the California court verdict, incidents of May 9 etc, and you will learn that they are all lies, a heavily brainwashed Insaafian will tell you.
Both parties enjoy vast foreign support, not just financially but also diplomatically, mainly from powers opposed to Pakistan’s strategic program and pro-China policies. Internally, MQM enjoyed the backing of powerful people like Aslam Beg and Musharraf on ethnic grounds. The PTI possesses bigger influence within the powers that matter due to various reasons, ethnicity included.
However, in both cases, the dumb-witted ‘establishment’ could not foresee, or ignored intentionally, the damage its myopic policies might cause the country.
Einstein said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” The MQM drama was played on a smaller scale, and it ended in damaging just urban Sindh. The PTI, a much larger scheme, is threatening the very foundations of the country. It was foolish to expect any other end result.
Like in the case of MQM-Pakistan, those PTI workers, who take beyyat, an oath of allegiance, to the Amir, and acquiesce, are absolved of all sins, including the May 9 incidents!
Finally, it is not just the similarities outlined above, the name, Tehreek-i Insaaf, too, suggests that if there is anyone in this country deserving to be called Quaid-i Tehreek, it is Imran Khan Bhai.