KARACHI, July 20: On a bustling street of Chakiwara, near Madni Masjid, is a long line of shops selling imported food items from Iran, with women and men queuing up to buy them in bulk. A can of tuna is sold here at Rs100, whereas prices of shampoos and soaps of good quality depend on a buyer’s friendship with the shopkeeper.

Wali Rehmat runs a shop in the same lane with food items ranging from chocolates and marshmallows to cooking oil and canned fish, all imported from Iran. With his brother going to Iran every other month for purchasing, Wali is one of the many Irani-Baloch living in Lyari’s Chakiwara area having a link with Iran. “I have a strong line of customers,” Wali says proudly. “Most are from here, and some are from out of town. Iranian cooking oil is quite popular around here, even though we sell it at Rs400.”

For many Irani-Baloch or Iranians residing in Karachi, presidential elections in Iran hold a lot of importance as it decides the fate of their business and trade for the upcoming year. Most Irani-Baloch voted for Hassan Rouhani at a polling booth set up inside the Iranian consulate.

In connection with the recent presidential elections in Iran, Barkat Malik Raeesi was very busy here. He was contacted by Irani-Baloch not only from Lyari but also from different Baloch-dominated areas in Karachi to inquire about polling day and area. “Whether it is an Iranian, Irani-Baloch or a Zoroastrian, they can vote as long as they have a ‘Shanas Namah’, an Iranian identity card, that can justify their voting rights,” says Mr Raeesi.

His forefathers migrated from Sarbaz district in Sistan-o-Baluchestan to Lyari as labourers around 1916. Though Karachi was a small port city at that time, it offered a lot of opportunities to the Irani-Baloch who came to its shores during the pre-partition days either as labourers or traders. It was around the same time that many Iranians started moving from Yazd to Karachi in search of a lucrative business and later built cafés or sold tea mostly in the old areas of the city.

“My father also came here with dreams of making it big, financially, which he did,” says Mr Raeesi, a tall broad-shouldered man in his late 40s. Though for many years the Irani-Baloch kept a low profile, confining themselves to Lyari with occasional visits to Iran, it was during the 1990s that they got the Iranian government’s backing. During the presidential tenure of Mohammad Khatami in 1997 the Iranian consulate in Karachi invited Baloch, Iranians and Zoroastrians for a meeting. During the meeting it was decided that like other countries in the world, Iranians would cast their vote, says Mr Raeesi, who later became head of the Anjuman Falah-i-Irani Balochan that looked over the process.

Members of the Anjuman, situated in Chakiwara, keep a low profile because of repeated attacks on Shia community members. However, Irani-Baloch are predominantly Sunni, with surnames including Sheerani, Askani, Hussainzai, Barakzai, Sarbazi, Mubaraki, Baranzai and Lashari. “A majority of those who voted in the recent or earlier elections in Iran are not Shia. But there is a fear to openly discuss such issues. Who is listening, anyway?” says Mr Raeesi in a somber tone. It is for this purpose that a bevy of police personnel looked over the voting process in Kharadar in previous elections. Since the announcement and backing by the government the votes were cast in a community centre called Hussaini Iranian-i-Kharadar and at the Iranian consulate. This year voting could not take place at Kharadar due to the security situation in the area, but it went on schedule at the consulate.

Speaking about former Iranian president Khatami, Mr Raeesi says his tenure “actually brought down rising religiosity in Iran. We must understand that practising Islam and overbearing religiosity are two completely different things”.

After Khatami’s tenure, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad was elected the sixth president of Iran, with his own set of “conservative policies” that isolated Iran internationally. Exclusion from the international import market sparked inflation in Iran. It also affected the growing Irani-Baloch population across the border. Most Irani-Baloch traders exported clothes, bed sheets, mangoes, rice and goat meat across the border while importing oil, fruits and wax, which is imported legally. Meanwhile petrol and diesel was, and still is, imported illegally from Iran through Mund, Balochistan.

But the ongoing economic downturn in Iran has not affected the mutual cross border import from the country, says Mr Raeesi, adding that the food and other daily use items are first exported to Mund, from there to Quetta before finally reaching Karachi. Similarly, local market vendors in Lea Market and Khajoor Bazaar get most of their profits by exporting food items and other stuff to Iran through the same route. Through the import, vendors and wholesalers earn millions in monthly profits. “If Iran stops exporting stuff or if there are restrictions on the border for a day, local wholesale markets in areas like Sarafa Bazaar, Khajoor Bazaar, Lea Market and Bolton Market will suffer a lot,” he says.

What helped the cross border import and export, whether legal or illegal, was a tattered border fence and an easy access in the past, something which has changed now. Now there’s a lot of security. Vice president of the Anjuman Hammal Azmoon says that restrictions started during Ahmedinijad’s tenure. The Iranian government has now issued passes to traders, through which they can export a limited amount of things, coming under Rs3 million. “It used to be enough in the past, but with rising inflation in Iran it doesn’t give us a lot of profit,” adds Mr Azmoon.

It is for this reason that hundreds of Irani-Baloch came out to vote for Hassan Rouhani in the recent presidential election. Mr Raeesi explains what good his presidential tenure might bring about: “He is progressive, seems open to cross border trade and, most of all, he is not overly religious, which works for everyone.” Being less religious, according to him, means normal international relations, this in turn means profit for the wholesalers exporting goods to Iran.

Having voted in the recent general elections in Pakistan, Mr Raeesi laughs when countered about it. It’s been 15 years since he got associated with the consulate and feels that progression is what is needed on both sides. He feels that Pakistan is not utilising its relations with Iran, in terms of trade and business, which can earn the country in general and Karachi in particular a lot of revenue. “Most of all, we need support from our own community, which unfortunately I don’t see much,” he says, adding that most Irani-Baloch only gather when something affects them, at times ignoring the community at large.

Even with a Shanas Namah of his own, he does not go to Iran as often as he would like to. “As for my voting in both Iran and Pakistan, I must add that Pakistan is my home. This is where I was born. So it will come first…Always.”