PML-N Quaid Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif is the only leader of a national party, who has been categorical about how the PML-N considers division of Sindh equivalent to treason and how Pakistan's territorial integrity is linked to Sindh's borders not being tampered with.
As a worker of the PML-N, I consider my Quaid's statement in line with the PML-Ns vision of intra and inter provincial harmony, which will bring prosperity to each Pakistani without any ethnic discrimination.
Of late, we have all noticed that the signage for a separate province for Mohajirs is fast spreading in Sindh's big cities. We condemn such a movement and those forces who are actively assisting such a tehreek. Breaking Sindh in pieces would lead to bloodshed because every son and daughter of the soil would resist such a move peacefully. However, knowing the terrorist and fascists supporting such a movement, it is clear that our peaceful resistance would make us sitting targets for their firepower.
We don't consider the term mohajir appropriate after so many decades of their entry from India. For us, all the people living in Sindh are Sindhis and must be given the same rights and respect. They might have different mother tongues like Sindhi, Urdu, Punjabi, Shina, Seraiki, Pushto, Gujrati, Brohi, Balochi etc, but they are all people of Sindh who are the sons and daughters of the soil, since they are born on this soil and adopted it voluntarily as their homeland. There can be no distinction between any of them based on how new their entry has been in Sindh. Those who entered Sindh pre-Raja Dahir, post-Mohammad bin Qasim and post-1947 cannot be divided into bands of new and old Sindhis.
It’s unheard of in the world to have separate provinces for immigrants, since by their very definition immigrants migrate to make their new homeland their home and not to carve it out into a separate home.
My forefathers from Keti Bunder in Thatta and Karachi's Boulton Market opened up their own homes for the migrants in 1947. Everyone has lived peacefully and respectfully for decades. Never in their wildest imaginations could they imagine that some miscreants from these migrants would not integrate and ask for a division of Sindh from those who gave them their own homes.
As per the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, every citizen has the same rights irrespective of ethnicity or mother tongue. As such, the discrimination which is happening in creating the concept of 'Karachi and Sindh' or 'Sindh and Mohajir Sooba' is unfortunate. The real discrimination which is happening is the one between rural and urban Sindh due to the PPP-MQM government's bad policies. Sindh's cities have more facilities and those Sindhi youth and students, who are denied entry into their own cities’ educational institutions based on small quotas for them, have all the right to protest for their rights. It is not clear what discrimination is happening with those who call themselves ‘mohajir' when they are eating, working, studying mostly on Sindh's soil with full facilities in the larger cities. It is clearly a ploy by the MQM to get more political power for themselves behind the cloak of such a movement. Local government duplicities by the PPP and MQM have already rocked Sindh’s political fabric. There can't be two systems of governance in one province. Democracy versus corruption at grassroot doorsteps should be an objective for all. Needless to say, the elections in Sindh's provincial capital are violent and hardly free and fair thanks to such fascist political forces.
As such, the racism and hatred being generated by the fake Mohajir Sooba Tehreek and justified by certain MQM leaders is condemnable. Immigrants over thousands and thousands of years have entered and integrated into Sindh and made it their homeland peacefully. 1947 immigrations into Sindh were not the first ones! This is the first example in over thousands of years where migrants are asking for a separate province and for carving 'jeejal maa'.
We have always preached harmony as Latif Sarkar's followers. We wish to see one Sindh and one Pakistan. We have always fought for the strengthening of Pakistan and never for its breakup. We have only politically negotiated with those Sindhi nationalists, who accept Pakistan and wish to do parliamentary politics inside Pakistan. We have always condemned separatist movements.
It is clear that the PPP, MQM and other government political parties' silence on this Mohajir Sooba Tehreek is an acceptance of this tehreek. For the CM Sindh to claim that he is incapable of removing signage, which is creating hatred and divisions amongst the people of Sindh, is tantamount to treason by the government. The PPP’s name will be written in history as the party which allowed the breakup of Sindh, unless all signage is removed immediately and their coalition partners are told in no unclear words to stop actively supporting such tehreek. If the PPP cannot manage to explain this issue to the MQM, it will be clear who the culprits behind the plot to divide Sindh are.
We respect all the people of Sindh and Pakistan equally. We don't wish to create discrimination. We are cognisant of our responsibility to bring development to each Pakistani irrespective of ethnicity or language. We believe in Pakistaniyat. Sindh's territorial integrity is linked to that of Pakistan's. Let the miscreants be clear that we will defend it with our last drop of blood.
n The writer is a former Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan.
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