MQM, PPP, ML(N), IJI, ANP - NO, just Pakistan Zindabad

How can you go back - literally grown up idolizing your views bhai! How can I unite with Punjabis? You brand me Mitarwa and Hindustora who refuse to even acknowledge my mandate?

Something I am writing,
IDENTITY OF A MOHAJIR

Territorial identity gained popularity in the 1970's. It was an alternative to the
Ideal of Muslim nationalism that lay scattered after the partition of 1971. A Pakistani
had always had a doubt identity. As a Muslim he belonged to the "umma". As a Pakistani he belonged to the "millat" - a term that us a synonym for nation. Whereas the umma explained Pakistan's eastern border with India, the millat did so for the western borders with other Muslim countries. Bhutto now added a third community, the "qaum" to which a Pakistani was supposed to belong. He took qaum, or people, as an ethnic-territorial unit, identifying four qaum in Pakistan. He took qaum or people, as an ethnic-territorial unit, identifying four qaum in Pakistan, which coincided with the four provinces: the Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Baluchistan.Being a Punjabi, Sindhi, Pakhtoons or Balochis was no longer considered to be in opposition to a Pakistani national identity. Analogous to the two nation’s theory, one could coin this ideology the threefold identity theory as it brings together the attachment to the three communities of "umma, millat and qaum" into one national identity.

A more commonly used term for the same phenomenon was "nationality theory" which according to Eqbal Ahmed in Pakistani context, arguing that the place of the provinces in Pakistan was similar to the nationalities in the Soviet Union. The Nationality Theory also enabled one to see Mohajirs as a flawed and in-between category, people with neither history nor a sense of territorial attachment, urban, on the move and unreliable.

Interestingly, I found an example of this idea of the uprooted Mohajir in Benazir’s Bhutto's autobiography donated to me by a dear friend to understand Benazir Bhutto.

When B.B is confronted with a marriage proposal from the family of Asif Zardari she ponders over his credentials, listing as one of his positive points that

"He is from Sindh, so he knows out customs and courtesies. He's not a rootless phenomenon like the urban professional people who can pack their bags and go anywhere. He's a rural, with commitments to his family and tribe" (Bhutto 1988:354).
without a sense of loyalty is, of course the Mohajir the urban migrant.

The new state ideology was put into practice in several ways, such as the introduction of Sindhi as the provincial language. A "quota system" regulating access to government jobs and educational institutions on the basis of ethnicity was implemented. In Sindh, this reservation on the basis of ethnicity was implemented. In Sindh, this reservation program distinguished between Sindhis and Mohajirs. More-over, Mohajirs like other groups who did not identify as Punjabis, Sindhis, Pakhtoons or Balochis were asked to assimilate. They were expected to learn Sindhi and prove their loyalty to Sindh -its language, culture and history. This of course deemed the way for Mohajirs to question the PPP's commitment to the Pakistani ideal of Muslim fraternity and to argue that Mohajirs had made sacrifices for Pakistan, not Sindh and that they had come to Pakistan to live in dignity as first-class citizens and never to bow for despot again, be it a Brahman or a Sindhi landlord. Yet the reaction, culminating in the emergence of the MQM, was much more complex than a plain rejection of the nationality theory. To a large extent the MQM made the new policy of ethnicity its own and adopted the Sindhi passion with which it was associated.

"I request all my Pakistani brethren and cistern - Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Baluchis, Kashmiris, and Mohajirs to unite against those who want to hurt all of us. Our salvation is in unity and in Pakistan's survival and progress."

Very true...and it also lies in the umda Karachi biryani which cannot be had in LA :(