Karachi's real dilemma

This past week many minds have focused on what needs to be done in Karachi and brilliantly so. Indeed, there is no dearth of solutions or people who know what the solutions are, from politicians to urban planners to journalists.

Unfortunately, I ain't one of them. I can only offer a few random thoughts on politics. So here goes.

Around the time that the urban nightmare in Karachi hit the headlines, a few boring people were also discussing a paper on Pakistan's elections. Authored by Amory Gethin, Sultan Mehmood and Thomas Piketty, it provided an overview of electoral patterns in Pakistan based on exit polls carried out in 1988 onwards. Towards the end, the authors note a "progressive ethnicisation" of both the PPP and PML-N.

"In the 1970s and the 1980s, the PPP was able to win elections by receiving … support from non-Sindhi ethnicities, and in particular … Punjab. This was not the case in 2018 anymore: the PPP only obtained a majority among Sindhis as compared to less than 10 per cent of votes among all other ethnic groups."

Later on, they write, "the evolution of Muslim League parties and their coalitions reveals comparable transition … in the 1990s, the electorate of the PML-N was broader than that of the PPP, even if Nawaz Sharif's party did receive significantly greater votes in the Punjab. The ascent of the PTI in 2013 and 2018 further restricted the PML-N's electorate to Punjabis, Saraekee [sic] and native Urdu speakers."

PML-N is a party of Punjab while the PPP has transformed itself into one that is restricted to Sindh. This will perhaps not be a revelation to most observers of Pakistani politics. In fact, it is a truth widely acknowledged and discussed that the PML-N is a party of Punjab while the PPP has in recent years transformed itself from a federal-level party to one that is restricted to Sindh.

To some extent, these

'ethnic' or provincial tendencies have intensified in the post-2008 period for two reasons. One is the passage of the 18th Amendment. As a senior PPP leader from a province other than Sindh commented, an unforeseen development of devolution had been that political parties were no longer interested in strengthening themselves outside their main base; it was an indirect critique of the PPP's disinterest in rebuilding itself in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

But this is not the only reason for the single-minded focus of Pakistan's two biggest parties on one province each. It's also due to the quiet PPP and PML-N understanding post-2008 that neither would interfere or campaign too aggressively in each other's backyard - Punjab for the PML-N and Sindh for PPP, especially in 2013.

But to some extent, the "progressive ethnicisation" does not explain the completely different trajectories of politics within each province.

Punjab's politics has taken a turn where no party in the province can afford to stand against more devolution and more provinces. Whether or not they are sincere to the idea, in public they cannot oppose it - be it the PMLN or PTI or PML-Q. They may aspire to takht-i-Lahore but they also have to acknowledge and condemn its colonial/unequal relationship with South Punjab and agree that a separate province is the answer. Hence, they use delaying tactics such as arguing that Bahawalpur also needs to be carved out as a province, separate from South Punjab.

And this is also why every party clamouring for space in the province is at pains to prove its sincerity to South Punjab - the PML-N focuses on the development spending it allocated for South Punjab under Shahbaz Sharif and the PTI is trying to move on its plans to establish a separate secretariat for the 'down under'.

Sindh, on the other hand, has a different discourse - the ethnic polarisation in the province (unlike Punjab) means that other than those who have a more urban vote bank such as the MQM, no one can be in favour of a division of Sindh. For the PPP and the rest, this is unacceptable.

For a friend with a background in economics, this is because Karachi is the cash cow - any party that rules Sindh, would be averse to letting go of the city. But this is not the only explanation.

Perhaps, one can also argue that politics in Punjab has become more focused on delivery - and as this is what political parties focus on as they woo voters, none of them can argue against further devolution in the form of a separate province for South Punjab. On the other hand, in Sindh, ethnic politics continues to dominate the discourse and the elections. And in this context, as the PPP is seen as a party which believes in Sindhi nationalism, it cannot and will not ask or accept the division of Sindh, the motherland.

To some extent, this difference in politics also explains the neglect of Karachi compared to the central position Lahore occupies in the political imagination of Punjab. It is now commonly accepted that the PPP does not give attention to Karachi because the city doesn't vote for it. But in Punjab, regardless of which party Lahore votes for, the government is expected to 'deliver' in the provincial capital to prove its credentials as a party that can govern. Be it the PML-Q (led by a family from Gujrat), PML-N or even the PTI, the perception in Lahore is what will determine its 'governance record'.

For example, when the Chaudhries' achievements are recounted, the list begins with the work they carried out in Lahore, and when the PTI is criticised for its performance, a common refrain is that Lahore is now much dirtier than it used to be.

All of this crowds one's thoughts while reading a piece - any piece - on Karachi. The city needs attention and immediate help. No one can disagree with this. And perhaps the solutions are there too. But the politics of the province have prevented their implementation so far. Can the politics be circumvented this time around? If so, for how long?