The Gul Plaza in Karachi was gutted by a ferocious blaze a week ago. The MQM-Pakistan has since intensified its absurd demand for the separation of Karachi from Sindh. Karachi, like all big cities of developing countries, is confronted with the usual problems of local governance: poor availability of municipal services, inefficient management of sewerage and sanitation, deteriorating roads and streets, and policing and law and order challenges. No big city in the developing world is free from these local problems. The MQM should stop misguiding the people of Karachi.

Will Karachi be a different city after federalisation, with its control transferred to federal institutions such as separate administrative paraphernalia, law-enforcement agencies, policing, and a local government system managed by the federal government? Will new political, economic, and administrative measures make a difference in the governance of the metropolis?

This is all debatable, especially when we know how federal institutions have been functioning in the country and how democratically the federal government has been running Islamabad. The broken system of governance is worse at the federal level than in provincial administrations. Karachi has already paid a heavy price for the MQM’s ethnic politics and its absolute rule under military shadows.

I recall Karachi from the early 1970s. After my graduation, I sought a job in the Sindh Secretariat in July 1972. I visited Karachi and stayed in a small hotel in Bolton Market. It was the rainy season, and the Karachi skies were overcast with thick clouds. The city was not so huge. The crowds on roads, in shopping areas, and on buses seemed manageable. The buses of the Urban Transport Corporation, started by the senior Bhutto’s regime, were comfortable. However, I particularly enjoyed travelling by tram to the Sindh Secretariat. The people were friendly and........

© The Friday Times