A chess grandmaster – even, I am tempted to say, the cardinal of them all, the late Bobby Fischer – would be proud, and envious, of some of the moves made recently on Karachi’s tormented and bloody chessboard.
The PPP, since its inception all those years ago, was always into the sledgehammer school of politics, preferring a hammer when a screwdriver would suffice. For it now, under its post-Bhutto leadership, to play such a subtle game is almost beyond comprehension. Which is one reason why its numerous enemies are having a hard time coming to terms with this phenomenon. Sputtering with barely-suppressed rage, they could do with some cool analysis, even if analysis of any kind is not one of the foremost Pakistani virtues.
Just consider some of the moves in Karachi and a method in the madness begins to emerge. Zulfiqar Mirza blowing hot and cold (mostly hot) and with a Bollywood swagger around him; Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq also weighing in – we are tired of trying to please the MQM – but in more measured tones; Musharraf’s local body system, which favoured the MQM, scrapped with one blow of the hatchet; the ANP Karachi chapter, under the able command of its local generalissimo, Shahi Syed, mobilised to exert pressure on the MQM’s flanks; and the spectre of Afaq Ahmed, MQM dissident and long-time nemesis, pulled out from the cupboard of the MQM’s worst nightmares; and just when Karachi threatens to go completely over the edge, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, finding his kingmaker touch once again, sent on a Kissinger mission to Karachi to apply balm to the MQM’s wounds. And the MQM, controlling its anger, returns to the fold.
If this is not the finest chess, what is?
Gen Naseerullah Babar, as Benazir Bhutto’s interior minister, applied force in 1995 to restore peace in Karachi. The situation was such, Karachi spinning out of control, that drastic measures were called for. But this time round we have seen not the application of brute force but that of psychological pressure, in line with Sun Tzu’s dictum, “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.”
MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s strategic skills should also not be underestimated. One of the taboos of war is, do not fight a war if the situation is unfavourable (a dictum, it bears mentioning, always violated by the Pakistan army in all its wars). The situation in Karachi, as it had developed recently, was from the MQM’s point of view unfavourable. So instead of reinforcing a bad situation, or giving way to impulsive behaviour which would only have made matters worse, it took a step back to minimise its losses. This indicated superior generalship.
Since long Altaf Hussain has been the undisputed vice chancellor of Pakistan’s leading school of hard politics. Like that celebrated seat of learning, Monticello University, from where Dr Babar Awan received his phantom doctorate, this school too may be hard to pin down on a map, but it is there all the same. The MQM has much to preserve and defend and it plays its own game. Those under the illusion that it can be used or manipulated need to re-examine their presumptions.
It is another thing that Altaf Hussain has met his match in the PPP’s new leadership. Which only means that neither side is a pushover. This is the best guarantee of an equilibrium of sorts emerging in Karachi. The best guarantee of peace anywhere is a balance of forces. If the scales tilt too sharply towards one side disequilibrium results. In Karachi, amidst all the mayhem, we are seeing a new balance of forces emerge – a good omen for the future.
No doubt there has been a downside to this superior chess game: hundred or two hundred lives lost, entire communities subjected to endless and needless misery. But then as Stalin said, a single death is a tragedy, a million dead is a statistic. Two hundred dead is the kind of statistic Karachi has learned to take in its stride. Like in any large city anywhere, life in Karachi goes on at several disconnected levels. There is a better-off Karachi, which is South Karachi, and the outlying regions where disorder and lawlessness prevail…and the twain do not meet. They could be on different planets. Unless death comes close, it is always a statistic.
Events in Karachi may be a fascinating cameo – except for the unfortunate souls caught in the crossfire – but they are not taking place in a vacuum. They come against the backdrop of a larger change in the country, one whose outlines are only now becoming clearer to mortal eyes.
That summer of discontent which was the rightwing PNA movement against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 proved instrumental in forging an unwritten alliance between the army and Pakistan’s rightist forces. The hypocritical umbrella, and it was a monument to hypocrisy, covering this alliance was painted in the bright colours of Islam. Every fallacy propounded, every folly conceived, came in these colours.
Whether Zia was in power or, after him, the PPP and PML-N taking turns in nominal power – the strings of real power being pulled from behind the scenes by General Headquarters and Pakistan’s leading ideological think-tank, Inter-services Intelligence – this alliance dominated the national skyline for close to 22 years: 1977-1999.
The foot-soldiers of this alliance were provided by the rightwing parties. The ideological padding and physical guidance came from ISI whose commanders, after the Soviet Union’s retreat from Afghanistan, had begun to pose, and sometimes strut about, as masters of the universe.
Musharraf’s coup broke this alliance because that coup, and events leading up to it, signified a break between the army command and the doyen of Pakistan’s right, Nawaz Sharif. Even so, throughout the Musharraf years the army’s deep-seated and almost visceral animus against the PPP remained intact. In the army’s book of prayers, patriotism was the preserve of the Pakistani Right while the PPP’s credentials were always suspect.
With Zardari emerging as PPP leader, and elevated subsequently to the presidency, the army’s prejudices against the PPP turned to volcanic anger, army officers from top to bottom simply unable to accept the idea of him as supreme commander. But this was 2008…since then there has been a sea-change in that perception.
Not that Zardari’s acceptance has grown but the knee-jerk anger towards him has lessened. And despite knowing what army sentiment toward him has been, Zardari has taken care not to hurt army sensibilities. Gen Kayani’s extension and ISI chief Shuja Pasha’s two one-year extensions are part of Zardari’s confidence-building measures vis-à-vis the army.
And, in a strange turnaround, after Raymond Davis and Osama bin Laden and all the pressure and flak the army command has had to face as a result, the Zardari dispensation has provided a civilian protective cover to the army while the rightist forces – hitherto the army’s strategic ally – have been in the forefront of attacking the army for its real or perceived security failures. As turnarounds go, this is fascinating.
The rupturing of the army-rightist alliance means that for the first time since 1977 the rightwing is on its own, having to think for itself, bereft of help and guidance from GHQ and its subordinate agencies. And the picture is not comforting for the cohorts of the right, for while the central dispensation, to the chagrin of its many detractors, has gone from strength to strength – with a heavy heart has this to be admitted – the rightwing is in a state of disarray, a foretaste of which we got in Azad Kashmir.
This has had its effects on Karachi too. The MQM with army support used to be unbeatable. Deprived of this strategic prop it has had to discover the virtues of flexibility. Which still takes away nothing from Altaf Hussain’s great skill in map-reading. No one can teach him lessons in political realism.
Warriors of the old ideology are desperate for the army to do something…anything, as long as the present order at the centre is overthrown. But they are yesterday’s warriors, out of step with the times.
The next elections will be contested in the shadow of the new realignment hovering over the skyline. Woe betide any political party which doesn’t carefully look to the consequences.
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