Muttahida Qaumi Movement: Mode of Politics and Political Attitudes
Abstract
The emergence of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, popularly known as MQM, as a political party has created turbulence on the political scene of Pakistan, especially that of urban Sindh, for over three decades. It introduced a different style of political culture and apparently due to the same innovation, it has been facing a host of problems. Once a party, which stood intact in the face of military operation and deliberate onslaught from the state institutions, it is, nowadays, fragmented in three distinct sections. Issuing any statement of its founder and central figure, Altaf Hussain, or displaying his picture on Pakistani media, is banned. Moreover, even his name has been excluded from his own party’s manifesto. Seemingly, the political career of Altaf Hussain has been closed, and the state would not allow him to resume his previous standing. How the events led to such an impasse? What factors led MQM to this course of action? To answer these and similar questions about MQM, one needs to study the MQM style of politics and political attitudes critically in the context of urban Sindh, particularly in the historical backdrop of socio-economic and political conditions of Karachi. One also needs to take into account those factors that were instrumental in the formation of such characteristic style and culture of politics, which had become a hallmark of MQM. This analysis helps in identifying and comprehending those factors which, though, not known in the political literature of the world, are operative on the ground in urban Sindh. This article comprises three sections: the first explains the historical background of the formation of MQM; the second takes an account of MQM as a political party, its organisational structure and mode of operation. The last section includes the analysis of the subject.