KARACHI is a strange city and its inhabitants’ peculiarities are obvious from their conflicting attitudes towards the role of the law-enforcement agencies (ie police, Rangers, intelligence services) in the continuing Karachi operations against militancy and crime.

On the one hand, Karachiites are quite satisfied with the radical reduction of militancy and crime as a result of the Karachi operation — which includes targeting the MQM’s militant activities. But, on the other hand, the same Karachiites are critical of the violations of law and fundamental rights committed by the same law-enforcement agencies by their regular use of torture, resort to unlawful disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Moreover, by continuing to vote for the MQM, a substantial portion of these Karachiites have also shown their displeasure against the law-enforcement agencies for targeting the party’s political activities.

Are Karachiites confused? Yes, and the key to this confusion lies in understanding the relationship bet­ween Karachi and its three conflicting ‘lovers’ — a strong state, legal justice and democratic representation.

Strong state as an absolute necessity: Between the 1980s and 2013, the situation in Karachi could easily be described as a violent anarchy. This violent anarchy was mainly the result of a politicised and weak state, which had lost its monopoly over violence. The period between 2007 to 2013 was especially brutal as Karachi was, consciously and unconsciously, handed over by the political power elites to secular militants (People’s Aman Committee, MQM and ANP militants) and religiously inspired militants (sectarian organisations, Taliban) leading to a semi-African version of a weak state existing in Karachi.

Without having read the political philosophy of Hobbes, Karachiites are Hobbesian at heart.

It is in this context that the violent anarchy of Karachi’s society prevailing in 2013 was countered and rectified by the brutal and unaccountable violence of the Karachi operations by the police, Rangers and intelligence agencies primarily by means of unlawful disappearances, sweeping arrests, long-term detentions without charge, torture as routine and large-scale extrajudicial killings. In the presence of a collapsing state in Karachi in 2013 (eg a nuclear state which couldn’t even administer polio drops in the metropolis), the only realistic, quick and short-term solution to societal anarchy was state brutality.

The Karachi operation has substantive public support because in the public perception, state brutality is considered a lesser evil as it has led to a radical decrease in militancy and crime and a restoration of order with the disappearance of large-scale societal anarchy. Without having read the political philosophy of Hobbes, Karachiites are Hobbesian at heart because they understand that a strong state with a monopoly over violence leading to a reduction of societal violent anarchy is an absolute necessity for living, and all else comes second. In other words, there can be no legal justice or democracy without an effective state and there can be no effective state without monopoly over violence.

Legal justice as a necessary desire: Although accepting the necessity for state brutality for restoring order, Karachiites at the same time are also troubled by the violation of legal and constitutional safeguards by the law enforcement on account of their regular use of means such as unlawful disappearances, sweeping arrests, long-term detentions without charge, routine torture and large-scale extrajudicial killings. It is a classic battle between the necessity of state violence for order and the desire for individual rights for justice. But why are Karachiites not satisfied by the ‘peace’ established by state brutality? There are three main reasons for this.

Firstly, the history of Pakistan tells us that unaccountable state brutality with no legal and constitutional safeguards led not to peace but to the break-up of the country eg Bangladesh, or alienation of an entire community ie the Baloch society.

Secondly, every Karachiite fears that the next extrajudicial killing or torture or unlawful disappearance might not happen to a stranger but to himself or one of his loved ones. In short, the love for law and access to an independent judiciary is love for self-preservation also.

Thirdly, Karachiites understand that a city of around 20 million inhabitants can never be made peaceful in the long run by mere state brutality, whereas providing legal justice for Karachiites, both against societal and state injustice, is a time-tested solution for establishing peaceful societies.

Democracy as an irresistible desire: No amount of state brutality or fundamental rights safeguards in law can solve the problem of violence and crime and establish peace, if Karachi’s state resources and power are monopolised by a small group of political, bureaucratic, military and capitalist elites and if there is large-scale economic and social inequality in Karachi’s society.

In other words, the key causes of violence and crime in Karachi are political, economic and social inequality and deprivation of the majority of Karachiites. It is precisely for this reason that despite knowing about the large-scale corruption of PPP’s political elite and the violent politics of the MQM, the people of Karachi still vote for them for two main reasons.

Firstly, as opposed to the elitist upper and middle-class nature of the bureaucratic, military and capitalist elites, these political parties also give representation to the non-elite in Karachi.

Secondly, the majority of Karachiites believe that they have no access to state resources, or have no ability to solve their inequality and deprivation problems except through the corrupt and violent representative politics of the PPP and the MQM. Politics is used by the powerless to counter unjust laws, inequality and the elitist state.

As in a marriage, anyone with a wife/husband (ie strong state) and two lovers (ie legal justice and democracy) is bound to suffer constant instability and conflict. Therefore, three questions need to be addressed. Can we have a new constitutional framework that guarantees a strong state with extraordinary law-enforcement powers but under effective judicial supervision for checking state violence? Can we have a new legal institutional governance framework reflecting the changing socio-economic realities in Karachi? Can we have democratic governance in Karachi which doesn’t subvert and politicise the law-enforcement agencies? Only Karachiites, through political and civil society struggles, can resolve this conflicting love triangle.

The writer is a lawyer.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2016