Before engaging with the methodological choices made in this study, it is important to provide some socio-political background on both the structure of Pakistan’s several major ethnic groups, all of which have a sizeable presence in the city, and Karachi’s electoral patterns.
Whilst the idea of Pakistan has often been presented as a homeland for the
‘Indian Muslim’ giving a distinctly Islamic undertone but, as stated earlier, it was envisioned as a federation of multiple nations (Devji, 2013). It was composed of, at the time of Partition, four broad nationalities where the characteristics of a nationality are defined as “common territory, language, mentality, cultural features and customs and traditions.” (Ahmed 1998). By this definition the Baluch, Pakhtun, Punjabi, and Sindhi are all to be considered nationalities and Pakistan may thus be considered a multinational state. Both Ahmed and Devji argue that ethnicity is not contingent upon an association to a territory as opposed to notions of nationality and statehood. Thus, in recent times, the Muhajireen have argued that there is a need to acknowledge and add the Muhajir quam as Pakistan’s fifth ethnic group. This identity, they believe has developed on the grounds of their shared language (Urdu) and profile as middle-class, professional urbanites, and further consolidated through their
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shared sense of sacrifice and subsequent victimisation as a skilled minority group11, through Pakistan’s short history.
On closer examination, it can be seen that Pakistan’s other ethno-territorial units have historically been structured quite differently from both the Muhajireen as well as each other, being predominantly rural, clan/tribe-based societies. The Baluch owes ultimate loyalty to his tribal chief or Sardar thus making Baluchi society quite hierarchical where the final decision of all tribe related concerns lies with the Sardar. The Pakhtun is independent and egalitarian with decisions taken through consensus by a council of elders known as a Jirga. Whilst historically, the Baluch have been pastoral nomads, the Pakhtun on the other hand are farmers and are therefore tied to the lands they farm; hence the old local saying that a Pakhtun without land cannot be considered a true Pakhtun (Titus 1998). Feudalism has been the dominant structure in rural Sindh, where the farmer or hari is not only tied to the land but also bonded to his landlord or Wadera/Jagirdaar thus giving rise to the traditional portrayal of Sindhis as submissive, intellectually slow, and lazy (Verkaaik 2004). In addition to this, in the case of the Sindhis prior to Partition, there appeared to be a rural/urban split on the grounds of religion; urban Sindh was the territory of Sindhi Hindus whilst rural areas were primarily Muslim. Hence upon Partition, the professional and cultural void left in urban society by the departing Sindhi Hindu population was filled by the already urbanised Muhajir population, many of whom subscribed to the Barelvi Sunni Muslim school of thought or hailed from Shiite backgrounds.
As discussed earlier, types of communal institution are pivotal in the building and/or maintaining of an identity and a community. Vertovec argues that the establishment of the Indian community in the Caribbean went through a four phase process of “social and cultural development”, these were; (i) migration and settlement, (ii) the establishment of ethnic/religious institutions, (iii) the crystallisation of their aspirations in party politics and finally, (iv) after a period of decline, the identity went through a phase of rejuvenation(Vertovec, 1995) thus highlighting both the importance of the establishment of institutions to the
11 Muhajirs make up only 6% of Pakistan’s total population despite the fact that they comprise just under 50% of Karachi’s current population
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process of integration as well as the natural transformation of a minority identity into a political one.
In the political context, most Pakistanis use religion and ethnicity as their primary motivators of self-definition. Thus in Karachi, the major political players at the time that this project was undertaken were the Muttehaida Quami Movement (MQM) representing the Muhajir community, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) representing the Sindhi/Baluchi speaking communities and the Awami National Party (ANP) representing the Pakhtun community, and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) generally favoured by the Punjabi community (Hasan, 2005, Gazdar and Mallah, 2013).
Several types of parties exist; elite-based, mass-based, ethnicity-based, electoralist parties, and movement parties (Gunther and Diamond 2003). From this understanding, political parties in Pakistan can be slotted into perhaps two broad categories; mass-based parties - both religious and secular - and ethnicity-based parties. The MQM started as a secular ethnic party; i.e. where the particular concerns of a certain ethnic group are central to the interests of the party (Chandra 2011).In recent times though, MQM has attempted to make a concerted effort towards becoming a party that appeals to the underprivileged, urban masses irrespective of ethnicity but this has been to limited success. A characteristic of most mass-based parties is that the bulk of their vote bank comprises of the working class - (Gunther and Diamond, 2003) which has been important to a political group whose primary voter base is middle-income city-dwellers.
Finally it should be noted that the MQM has – until recently – a strict three-tier political hierarchy. Nine Zero, their country-wide/city-wide headquarters located in a middle-income residential neighbourhood in central Karachi, at the top of the political pyramid, under which there are twenty-six Sector office located across the city, each of which oversee up to ten Unit offices which are active at the neighbourhood scale. The sector and Unit have a physical presence within the communities they represent making them an appropriate, mappable proxy for Muhajir presence in an area.
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Question Data source Data preparation Data analysis
Are the Muhajir community clustering, as minority communities tend to do, in Karachi? If so, is there any significance to where they are clustering? And, how the city? And, as these Muhajir areas of influence interface with the city, what form do these spaces of interface take and are there identifiable socio-spatial overlap and interact as well as help to build and maintain these discrete ethno-political identities, solidarities and divisions within the context of the Muhajir settlement?
Table 3.1 shows the methodological processes from data sources used to analysis performed for each set of questions posed in each of the analysis chapters of this thesis.
61 3.1 Data Source: shortage, scarcity and resolution of urban and
socio-economic data
As stated earlier, Pakistan is a research environment in which there is a severe shortage of accurate and detailed data, as a result in order to conduct this study, the research had to bring together a diverse array of source materials, identifying and documenting a series of socio-spatial proxies as being demonstrative of Muhajir presence and using both quantitative and qualitative methods. These sources can broadly be placed in four categories; historical documentation, broad statistical data sources, social media and open-content mapping and on-site observations and documentation