The mohajir elite disliked the MQM’s methods and viewed it as an organisation made up of a lumpen proletariat. Immediately after its creation, the MQM cultivated techniques of violence, which were part of the APMSO’s legacy.
Since then, this dense local presence of the MQM not only enables it to exert social control over the inhabitants (and even to spy on them), but also to implement a strategy of social work, including the distribution of free food. This organisation, emulating the pyramidal structure of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was intended to establish a direct relationship between Hussain and local cadres. The party criss-crossed the urban space (especially in Karachi) with a dense network of well-trained activists. In 1984, APMSO leaders, including Hussain, created the first iteration of the MQM, the Mohajir Qaumi Mahaz. In 1978, the first APMSO manifesto claimed that “Mohajirs should be provided with a province of their own where they can freely practice and exercise their culture” - something their forefathers (including Jinnah) had tried to achieve by creating Pakistan. In 1981, they represented only 22.30 per cent of the civil servants hired by the Centre, against 30.30 per cent in 1973. On top of it, mohajirs were losing government jobs as a result of the quotas introduced in 1973: 10 years later, urban Sindhis made up only one-fifth of the senior civil service, compared to one-third earlier. According to the 1981 census, Karachi’s population was 61 per cent mohajir, 16 per cent Punjabi, 11 per cent Pashtun, 7 per cent “native-born” Sindhi and 5 per cent Baloch. Migrants poured into Karachi from all of Pakistan’s provinces, seeking to take advantage of its dynamism this was also true of refugees from the war in Afghanistan. More importantly, the mohajirs felt besieged in their own cities. Although they approved of the establishment of courts to enforce Sharia and applauded his decision to make Islam the state religion, they protested against the quotas put in place in the administration, which meant that 10 per cent of civil service posts were reserved for retired military personnel, while Punjabis continued to dominate the army. In the 1980s, the mohajirs came to find Zia-ul-Haq’s policies just as detrimental to their community as Bhutto’s. The beginning of his career as a student leader was difficult, but he founded the MQM in 1984.
A clear indication of his social marginalisation was the scorn of the mohajir business elite, which he experienced when he approached industrial houses in Karachi to raise the funds needed to operate the APMSO. Born into a family of modest means, Hussain had trouble getting into medical school to study pharmacology. The union represented the lower middle class of the mohajirs, who were the first to feel the brunt of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s pro-Sindhi reforms in the 1970s. In 1978, mohajir students created their own union, the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO), under his aegis. Hussain first played an active role in the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), the student union of the Jamaat-e-Islami - one that, like others, systematically resorted to violence on university campuses in the 1970s.
But what has Hussain’s strategy since the creation of the party been? And who is he? The judicial pursuits that have resulted in the arrest of Altaf Hussain in the UK (where he was released on bail last week, four days after being arrested) may mark a turning point for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Karachi.