Karachi, the
first federal capital of Pakistan, is the largest and most populous
metropolitan city of the country. It is the 3rd largest city in the
world by population and the 11th-largest urban agglomeration. It is also the
provincial capital of Sindh. It is the country`s centre of banking industry,
economic activity and trade and is home to Pakistan's largest corporations. It
has the Pakistan's largest and oldest stock exchange, with many local as well
as overseas listings.
Despite the
growth and development of transport infrastructure elsewhere in the country,
Karachi remains the country's transport hub. The city's two ports, Port of
Karachi (Pakistan's largest) and Port Qasim, are central to nearly all shipping
in Pakistan. The Karachi airport is the largest and busiest airport in Pakistan
and handles 6 million passengers a year.
Financially, it
contributes the most to the national revenue of the country. Karachi’s
contribution to GDP amounted to around 16 billion rupees a day, and its daily
tax revenues to two billion. It is still the biggest industrial city that has
employed the highest number of people from all over the country. That is why
economists term it as the economic hub of the country. Economically, it is one
of those cities of the world which feed up their countries.
Socially,
Karachi it is the most multi-cultural city of the country. The people belonging
to almost all the ethnicity, sects, religions and regions of the country live
here. Because of all these reasons, it
has become the busiest city of the country which does not sleep at all.
Therefore, it is named as the “City of Lights” and “The Bride of the Cities”.
In addition to
all these, Karachi is the only city of the country that always takes lead in
making financial contributions for rehabilitations of the victims of any
disaster or mishaps that take place in any part of the country. Their
open-hearted help to their quake-affected brothers in 2005, is one of the most
prominent examples of the same.
In the recent
past, the Sumali pirates kidnapped the sailors including the Pakistanis who not
only belonged to Karachi, but also to other parts of the country. Logically
speaking, they were the responsibility of the whole country. But, it was only
the leadership of Karachi which came up to help the victims. Although there
were five Chief Ministers, five governors, one Prime Minister, one President
and hundreds of provincial as well as federal ministers were acting in the
country, only Governor (Sindh) Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ibad owned the people in-trouble
and made the unmatched efforts to rescue them.
All these
clearly indicate that it is only Karachi which has been performing the role of
a guardian for the entire nation. The question is, is there any other city of
Pakistan which has similar features like Karachi? Practically speaking, there
is no comparison of this city in entire the country.
However,
instead of accepting the undeniable importance of this city, Karachi has been
made the target point for victimization on both the political as well as ethnic
grounds. It started from declaring Islamabad the new federal capital of the
country. Nobody asked if it was financially feasible for a less developed
country like Pakistan to spend billions of rupees just for the shift of its
capital from one city to another. Did it benefit Pakistan anyway?
Unfortunately, this victimization did not stop there, it is still going on.
Sometimes Karachi is tried to be controlled from Islamabad by ignoring its
political mandate, and sometimes from interior Sindh.
Moreover, to
get control over its resources, Karachi has now been renamed as “Mini Pakistan”
with the slogan that it is not only of one specific community, but for all.
However, when it is the time of allocation of funds to it, the whole Pakistan
altogether disown it and, consequently, Karachi is left as an ordinary city of
only one community and political party who raise voice against the
injustice.
When MQM had an
opportunity to take charge of the city`s administration, it did wonders. Its
nominated City Mayor Mustafa Kamal turned Karachi into one of the most rapidly
developing cities of the world. Due to this performance, he was declared as one
of the three best mayors of the world. No other mayors in the country could
perform like him. But, instead of appreciating Mustafa Kamal and promoting the
local bodies system, the whole system was wrapped up. No local bodies elections
have been held yet.
When after
taking so long, a mutually agreed local bodies system was introduced, almost
all the political and religious parties opposed it claiming that there should
be a uniform system not only in Sindh, but also in all provinces. But,
presently, the same parties are in the provincial as well as in federal government
and they have designed the local bodies systems for their provinces that are
not only different from others, but also contain distinct aspects for rural and
urban areas. It clearly indicates that their opposition towards the People`s
local bodies system in Sindh was only to deprive Karachi of its due right of
development.
The question
is, is it fair to allocate funds to other cities for development at the cost of
Karachi? How surprising it was that all the political and religious parties
joined their hands by forming an alliance just to oppose the mutually agreed
new local bodies system, but there was no protest from them on depriving the
Karachi-ites of the benefits of elected district governments for about three
years by not holding their elections? No prominent development project was
started for Karachi in last three years from the government. But, no alliance
was formed by those parties to protest on it. There was a complete silence over
it.
All of the
anti-Karachi forces must keep this in their minds that no matter un-due
priority is given to Lahore, Islamabad, Benazirabad or Larkana at the cost of
Karachi, none of them can play the role of a guardian for the whole Pakistan
that Karachi has been playing since 1947.
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