PAKISTAN ISLAMIC FRONT – UNFOLDING OF A NEW IDEA

It had been just two years after taking up my new responsibilities as Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi’s chief when the country’s political scene went into chaos. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed the Nawaz Sharif-led government by exercising Article 58-2B of the Constitution. On May 1, 1993, I received a call from someone, saying, “Khan Sahib, Azeem Ahmad Tariq has been killed. Upon enquiring where the incident had taken place, I was told that it happened in Dastagir, probably at the victim’s in-laws home. It wasn’t difficult for anyone to understand that it was an insider job. The area in question wasn’t far from MQM headquarters Nine Zero, and it was considered a stronghold of the party. It wasn’t possible for an outsider to enter the area and kill the party’s chairman inside his house. It was clear that Altaf Hussain and his aides had already listed Azeem Tariq as a traitor alongside Afaq Ahmad and Amir Khan.

Azeem Tariq was known as a moderate leader of MQM for his veiled condemnation of the politics of bloodshed, extortion, and torture cells, but this narrative was unbearable for Altaf Hussain and other hardliners of the party, who only believed in using force on people and disliked peace. Whenever I got the chance, I tried to convince the party’s elders to keep Karachi’s youth away from firearms and not replace their books with pistols. In response, they used to present a weird logic, saying there are big firearms in every house of the tribal areas, “Why don’t you object to that?”

Their thought process baffled me. There was no logic in comparing Karachi to tribal areas. Every region or society has its own culture. Those in the tribal areas have enmities that sometimes transmit to generations and result in the bloodshed of the innocent. These people wanted to see Karachi bloodied as well. I used to warn them that the weapons they used will one day be used against themselves. And then we all saw that happen. Not only did Altaf Hussain’s party kill political rivals and commoners, they didn’t spare their own founding members and leaders. From this point of view, the party set a barbaric precedent, with no such occurrence evident from the past. Whatever happened after the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif’s government is an unpleasant chapter in history, and it pains one to even go into those details. In short, both the government and Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s presidency were no more. Senate chairman Waseem Sajjad took charge as the acting president, and Moin Qureshi, a US-origin former employee of the World Bank, was made the caretaker prime minister. He didn’t have a bad reputation. He arrived here like a guest and returned after the elections. It was so strange that our establishment couldn’t find one suitable person from the population of 200 million for a three-month caretaker premier, or was it that none of the two major parties were ready to put their faith in a local individual? JI decided to try to convey to the people that both the major parties of the country are the same in terms of their character, and the philosophy of ‘lesser evil’ is an eyewash. So, the people should be provided with an option of a third, alternative political force. Khurram Murad Sahib was enthusiastic and hopeful for the plan.

Pakistan Islamic Front

JI chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad presented the manifesto of the Pakistan Islamic Front before the nation and made efforts to put men of high repute and influence on this platform. Pasban – JI’s youth wing – was very active those days, and it had brought about thousands of youth in major cities. Pasban’s slogan of standing against injustice was quite appealing for the common man. Altaf Shakoor, Shahid Farooqui, Gulzar Ahmad, Usman Moazzam, Masood Mahmood, Shafiqullah Ismail, Amin Sadiq, Dr. Zafar Iqbal, and others led the organization in Karachi. When the election schedule was announced in 1993, JI decided to contest the polls under the banner of the Pakistan Islamic Front, with ‘car’ as its electoral symbol. A vigorous, countrywide campaign was run under Qazi Hussain Ahmad’s strong leadership. Rashid Nasim, who was JI Karachi’s secretary general, organized the entire campaign in a very scientific and modern way. The tide was on our side, and the victory of several candidates of ours seemed certain.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad contested elections from his native constituency of Nowshera as well as from Karachi. The MQM opted out of the National Assembly polls but took part in the provincial ones. People got the idea that the party had entered a backdoor deal with the establishment. The result of the extraordinary electioneering campaign was absolutely dismal. Only three candidates of the Islamic Front could make it to the National Assembly. We failed in convincing people that there was no ‘lesser evil’ among the PPP and PML-N, and that the country needed an alternative political platform.

From Karachi, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Syed Munawar Hassan, Abdul Sattar Afghani, and I faced defeats. Muzaffar Ahmad Hashmi could barely make it to the National Assembly. Qazi Hussain Ahmad Sahib was defeated by Haleem Siddiqui, who was a newcomer in politics. I lost to PML-N’s Dost Muhammad Faizi. He bagged 17,058 votes while I got 10,344. After the result was announced, I met and congratulated him. The turnout remained really low due to MQM’s boycott. A vast majority of the city’s Urdu-speaking voters wanted to vote for the kite as evident during the provincial assembly polls, a repeat of what had happened in 1988 and 1990. Pasban was blamed for the electoral defeat, and the central shura (council) decided to disband the organization. Several members of the shura were uneasy at this decision, but there was no other possibility but to accept the collective opinion of the party. After having written off Pasban, JI’s shura launched ‘Shabab-e-Milli’ for the youth, with Shabbir Ahmad Khan and Hafiz Salman Butt as its central president and secretary-general, respectively. In Karachi, we appointed Syed Muhammad Bilal as the wing’s president. He was succeeded by Shahid Sheikh and then by Dr. Parvez Mahmood.

Parvez Mahmood fulfilled his responsibilities well prior to his new task of contesting the election for the Liaquatabad Town Nazim. In the biggest blow after the elections, some JI leaders formed a faction with the name of ‘Tehreek-e-Islami’. These leaders included seniors and ideologues. From Karachi, Jalil Khan Sahib and Dr. Athar Qureshi joined the ranks of the faction. Due to the training imparted by Maulana Maududi and our deep association with one another, we never stopped respecting each other despite our disagreements. We all knew that we only disagreed on the ideation and strategy; we had no differences on Iqamat-e-Deen, neither did we have an ill-intent or worldly interest behind our actions.

Abdul Sattar Afghani was our candidate from the NA-185 constituency. He had twice served as the city’s mayor and had a crucial role in providing Orangi Town with basic necessities. His rivals were Muhammad Afaq Khan Shahid from PPP and Alhaj Shamimuddin representing PML-N. We hoped an easy victory for Afghani Sahib, but he got 7,796 votes to secure a third slot. Afaq Khan Shahid remained victorious with 14,866 votes. It was the same constituency where MQM’s Saleem Shehzad had gotten more than 80,000 votes in the past.

During the review of the defeat, it came to light that he had in fact won most constituencies of the town, but the NA constituency included rural population too, where Balochis, Brohis, and Sindhis were in majority. These were the old villages of the city devoid of basic amenities and almost negligible literacy ratio. The reality is that the JI had never focused on these areas and later on, when we went there, we found out that most people there didn’t know about any other party than PPP.

Ashraf Awan, ameer of JI district west formed a new circle for the rural areas and appointed Abdul Rahim Marwat as its nazim. Abdul Rahim Marwat began weekly medical camps in these villages with PIMA’s assistance. The members of the women wing, too, began to visit the villages and organise Quran classes for women. After a while, schools were established in some of the villages which were later adopted by the Green Crescent Trust and named Hilal Public Schools. Abdul Rahim Marwat worked tirelessly in these areas and made several new arakeen there. On my directions, Iftikhar Ahmad, naib ameer of JI Karachi, made a detailed visit of the villages and recommended that the Karachi chapter allocate a budget for dawah in the rural population. The initiation of this dawah despite the electoral defeat of 1993 was evidence that defeat on any one front cannot discourage the spirits of those associated with Tehreek-e-Islami.

Tahira, my life partner, was suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes for several years. She was a woman of patience and endurance and she won’t voice her pain that she was experiencing due to her illness. She would carry out her religious and home routine as usual and would never complain about the fact that I wasn’t able to spare much time for home owing to my political engagements. Tahira, however, used to remind me that I wasn’t taking my medicines on time; I was also suffering from the same illnesses for a long time. Allah had bestowed us with obedient and loving sons and daughters. She wasn’t the strict type but also wasn’t lenient when it came to offering prayers on time. She breathed her last after a cardiac arrest on February 26, 1994. It was for the first time since the Dhaka debacle that I was crying so much. My heart and mind weren’t willing to accept the sudden end to a 34-year old companionship, but I had no better choice than to accept the will of Allah.

إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ

Karachi was among the worst cities in terms of law & order during the 1990s. The fascist group of Altaf Hussain had complete control over the city. Politics and crime were no different any longer and no section of society was safe. On December 4, 1994, Muhammad Salahuddin, a prominent journalist and editor of Takbeer, was shot dead by terrorists. He was known as one of the top journalists and he had the reputation of a brave, bold, and ideological man. He had migrated from India and carved out a place for himself in journalism after a lifelong effort. Before launching Takbeer, he had been working as the editor of JI Karachi’s daily Jasarat. He always wrote fearlessly against Altaf Hussain and his party’s way of politics. As a punishment, his house and Takbeer office in Gulbahar were set on fire, but it couldn’t restrain his pen. In 1995, JI Sindh ameer made me his naib (deputy). Abbasi sahib was an excellent man; a gentle, composed, and well-mannered person. He was a very kind-hearted and wasn’t the type to order around others. He had good ties with every school of thought of the province and was held in high regard by the landlords, tribal heads, and gaddi nasheen. He handed me the task of monitoring the districts of Thatta, Mirpurkhas, Umarkot, and Tharparkar, and said, “You are much interested in public welfare, but dawah in large and small towns isn’t possible without organizational visits. Although the provincial wing lacks financial resources and good vehicles for travel, I want you to visit these districts regularly.” Given the specific circumstances of the city, the leadership used to be quite engaged those days. The additional task of the visits took a toll on my health and some old ailments returned. My doctor, renowned cardiologist Prof Azhar Farooqui, used to tell me that I will be bedridden if I didn’t take rest. With Allah’s blessings, I seldom found myself confined to bed or limiting my organizational activities.