The Marginalization of Muhajirs In Karachi!

According to the census results released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Karachi’s population has been recorded 14.9 million in 2017 as compared to 9.39 million in 1998, at 59 %c in nineteen years. On the other hand, Lahore has witnessed 116% growth in population, from 5.1 million in 1998 to 11.12 million in 2017.

Whatever has been claimed about the population of Karachi is quite astonishing. It is in contradiction of the estimates of different national and internal sources according to which the population of Karachi is at least around 25,000,000.

The reason for being so populous city is not only the natural increase (the difference between the numbers of births and deaths) in the population, but also the continuous migration of people from all over Pakistan to Karachi. 

Thousands of people come to settle in Karachi every year and this has been taking place for decades. That is also why Karachi is termed as “Mini Pakistan”. The IDP`s (Internally displaced people) too preferably opted to move to Karachi due to the military operation “Zarb-e-Azb”.

These were also the reasons why Sindhi, Punjabi and Pashtun parties began to claim about their communities to be 5,000,000 (fifty lacs) each in number in Karachi, and they have been propagating this since mid 90`s.

Very importantly, none of the analysts or experts ever objected to such an assertion at all. Not only this, even some well-known political analysts also started inferring that, due to so much influx of people from all over the country, the (ethnic) demography of Karachi has changed now and that MQM (Muhajirs) are not in majority anymore.

So, taking into account these aspects, do the census results make any sense? Of course! Logically, when the population of Lahore can increase at 116% in a normal scenario, why can the population of Karachi not grow at much higher rate despite having abnormally contributing factors?

According to MQM`s Nadeem Nusrat, declaring the population of Karachi so less is an open victimization of the already oppressed Urdu speaking community in Pakistan.

Yes, he is right! Because recording less population (less number of people) means 2 or 3 persons in every family are being denied to be even existing and, thus, no rights, no facility would be allocated for them by the state despite collecting various taxes from them. Question is, can anyone accept such a declaration?

One more surprising aspect is that all those parties which had been repeating the incantation of “50 lacs Punjabi”,”50 lacs Sindhi” and “50 lacs Pashtuns” in Karachi, are dead silent over this vital issue. Why? Will there be no negative impact on the number of these ethnic communities of Karachi due to showing less population of “Mini Pakistan”?

It is on record that just before the general elections of 2013, almost all the political and religious parties got united against MQM and started propagating that thousands of voters (of non-Urdu speaking) had been left out from the Karachi`s voters` list and been transferred to their native areas outside Karachi. They kept on protesting and demanding the Election Commission of Pakistan to verify the Karachi`s voters list to ensure transparent elections in the city. 

Eventually, the election commission ordered for that and the verification of voters list was conducted under the supervision of Pakistan army (but the allegation got proved just a political stunt eventually).

Question is, when they can raise their voice and protest for their voting right of their communities, why are they so silent over the matter of even their existence which is a more serious issue? Or, perhaps, they are sure that the reduction of Karachi`s population will not affect their (ethnic) communities, but only Muhajirs?

It is almost the same situation in which whenever the Sindhi nationalists threatened to cut off the water and food supply from Interior Sindh to Karachi, no one, except MQM and Altaf Hussain, spoke out over it as if they were sure that they would not be affected by such a cut off, but only the Urdu speaking community.

So, seeing no worries and no concerns being expressed by rest of the ethnic communities of Karachi, it shows that only Muhajirs have to suffer from whatever discriminating actions are taken against Karachi. When this is the reality, then it is truly the matter of life or death for the Urdu speaking community to stand up against all these evil acts. Otherwise, they will soon be completely marginalized in their own city.