The Muhajirs

The Jama‘at-i Islami began in Pakistan as essentially a Muhajir party, consisting for the most part of Urdu-speaking migrants from the Muslim minority provinces of India who had settled in the cities and towns of Sind and East Pakistan and migrants from East Punjab who settled in the Pakistani side of that province. They remained its most visible base of support until well into the 1980s.^[19] Their loyalty can be attributed in part to the extensive relief work the party undertook among the refugees in Karachi and Lahore after partition. The Jama‘at workers cleaned up refuse in refugee camps, buried unclaimed corpses, and provided food and medicine;^[20] it set up some forty-two aid centers for assisting the refugees, spending in excess of Rs. 260,000 on them between 1947 and 1954, which benefited some 1.5 million Muhajirs.^[21] These efforts established a firm bond between the two, the more so because the government had proved incapable of helping the refugees. This campaign proved so successful that social work was incorporated into the structure of the Jama‘at. The party created its division for “service to the people” (shu‘bah-i khidmat-i khalq), which today runs hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, and centers for assistance to widows and the old. It collects revenues and contributions for distribution among the poor. When in the 1980s large numbers of Afghan refugees began to pour into Pakistan, the Jama‘at initiated projects similar to those for the Muhajirs to gain support among the Afghans.

The Jama‘at’s virulent anti-Hindu rhetoric also found a receptive ear among the Muhajirs, whose harrowing experiences from the partition had made them particularly sensitive to the Indian threat. They were most keen about Mawdudi’s promises to restore Islam to its true place at the helm of power in the Subcontinent, which for many Muhajirs meant restoring their fortunes, status, and property. The Muhajirs had arrived in a country where, before partition, the Muslim League had had little influence and where ethnic loyalties and provincial interests superseded the kind of commitment to Islamic universalism that had led to Pakistan’s creation. Neither the geographical territory of Pakistan nor its ethnic and provincial political structure had any significance for the Muhajirs; their sole reason for migrating to the new homeland had been the primacy of religious and communal identity in their politics. In Mawdudi’s denunciation of nationalism and the Jama‘at’s emphasis on Urdu and Islam, the Muhajirs found a political program attuned to their interests, which sought to hide the fundamental realities of Pakistani society and politics—the simmering tensions between the refugees and their hosts, especially in Sind—behind Islamic solidarity. The Jama‘at’s political program in general, and its depiction of the plight of the Muhajirs as comparable to those of the original Muhajirs, the companions of the Prophet who migrated with him from Mecca to Medina, provided the Muhajirs with a justification both for their presence in Pakistan and for having a say in its politics.^[22] The Jama‘at’s ideological pronouncements in a time of social disorder and political change attracted support for the party. This championing of the Muhajir cause came over time to become a part of the party’s role and place in Pakistan politics.

The campaign for the Islamic state, assigned to Islamic parties in general—and to its most vociferous advocate, the Jama‘at, in particular—the task of legitimating the idea of Pakistan and providing hope and solace in hard times. This legitimating function attracted the support of those who had a stake in the unity of Pakistan, which, in addition to the Muhajirs, meant the Punjabi and Pathan middle and lower-middle classes. With every crisis and the threat to the unity of the country, the Islamic movements such as the Jama‘at have increased their following and have had success in their propaganda, because the panacea for political unrest rooted in the founding principles of Pakistan is Islam. This also in good measure accounts for the Jama‘at’s reluctance to abandon its legitimating role and the religious tone of its political discourse and to turn to a more pragmatic approach to provincial and ethnic politics.

Although the Jama‘at had never courted the Muhajirs, it soon became aware of their political value and the pivotal role the cities that they dominated played in Pakistani politics, especially as rural politics remained closed to the party. By 1951, the year when the first census in Pakistan was taken, the Muhajirs accounted for 57 percent of Karachi’s population, 65 percent of Hyderabad’s, 55 percent of Sukkhur’s, and in all, 46 percent of the population of Pakistan’s twelve major cities.^[23] Anxious to win elections, limited in appeal to urban voters, and increasingly conscious of its legitimating function in Pakistan, the Jama‘at made much of its ties with the Muhajirs. In return, the party was able to attract large crowds for demonstrations and public rallies in cities like Karachi, time and again intimidating the government and compelling it to adopt measures Islamic parties demanded. With no national elections in the offing until 1970, the Jama‘at found no opportunity to test its popularity or the wisdom of its policy of relying mainly on the Muhajirs. In 1970 the Muhajirs, in turn, for the first time took a hard look at their policy of supporting the unity of Pakistan in the name of Islam and lending support to the Jama‘at. While the politics of the Muhajir community did not radically change until the 1980s, when the MQM was founded, doubts were already evident in the elections of 1970. The Jama‘at’s staggering defeat at the polls in the elections of 1970 showed its weakness and told the Muhajirs that it could not deliver on their demands. The elections were soon followed by the secession of East Pakistan and harrowing tales of oppression of its Muhajir community by the Bengali majority. The independence of Bangladesh proved to be a devastating psychological shock for the Muhajirs, especially as it coincided with the rise to power of Bhutto, a prime minister who championed Sindhi nationalism to the detriment of the Muhajirs. The Jama‘at’s poor showing demonstrated that it would be of no help. The Muhajirs chose instead to play the ethnic political game, a strategy that promised to deliver more tangible gains than the Jama‘at could produce—provide them with a greater say in the country’s affairs and direct resources to their community. By succumbing to ethnic politics, however, they abandoned the vision of Pakistan united under the banner of Islam. Later, the MQM rallied Muhajirs to its cause with the slogan “We have not signed contracts to uphold Pakistan and Islam.”^[24]