A Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan campaign slogan on a barber shop in Lyari, Karachi | Momina Manzoor Khan
The 2016 execution of Salman Taseer’s assassin Mumtaz Qadri came as a shock for Muhammad Imran, a Karachi-based businessman in his late 30s. He saw the police guard – who, in 2011, had used his official rifle to murder Taseer, governor Punjab at the time – as a champion of laws that concern the namoos (honour) of the Prophet of Islam (may peace be upon him) and the finality of his prophethood.
“None of the blasphemers has been executed in our country but Qadri, who took action against blasphemy, was hanged,” Imran says as he argues that no political party has raised a voice “against this injustice”. So, he decided he would back any party that promised to do something about it.
This was certainly not on the agenda of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) — the party he regularly voted for in previous elections. One organisation that he saw as working proactively on the issue was Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah but it was a protest movement, not a party. When one of the movement’s founders, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, had Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan registered in the summer of 2017 as an entity eligible to take part in elections, Imran immediately decided to vote for it.
Apparently hundreds of thousands of others in Karachi made the same decision.
When Pakistan went to polls on July 25 this year, a Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan candidate ended up getting 20,733 votes in the National Assembly constituency, NA-245, where Imran lives. This was the third highest tally of votes in the constituency — after 56,664 votes polled by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and 35,429 votes secured by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
That the winning candidate, Aamir Liaquat Hussain, and the runner-up, Farooq Sattar, are known not just in Karachi but across Pakistan makes the high number of votes won by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s unknown candidate, Muhammad Ahmad Raza, even more significant.
The constituency was earlier an MQM stronghold. It comprises many working-class areas such as Pakistan Quarters, Patel Para, Lasbela Chowk, Martin Quarters, Teen Hatti, Lines Area, PIB Colony; it also includes a number of middle-class and upper middle-class localities — Soldier Bazaar, Nishtar Road, Tariq Road, PECHS and Nursery.
A large number of local residents belong to various Urdu-speaking communities but Memons, Punjabis, Seraikis, Kashmiris, Pakhtuns and Sindhis also live here in large numbers. As do Bohri and Ismaili Shias and Christians. It is impossible to ascertain as to how many Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan voters came from which of these neighbourhoods and communities.
In another part of Karachi, this may be a little easier.
In the National Assembly constituency NA-247, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s Allama Syed Zaman Ali Jafri – whose name does not generate even a blip on the political radar – secured 24,680 votes, finishing second after PTI’s Arif Alvi who got 91,020 votes. In a provincial assembly constituency, PS-111, that comprises a little less than half of NA-247 and includes high-income areas such as Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and parts of Clifton Cantonment, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan received only 1,477 votes.
PS-110, the other provincial assembly constituency that is part of NA-247, consists of middle-class neighbourhoods – such as Karachi Cantonment, Saddar and Civil Lines subdivisions and portions of Garden subdivision – and also includes commercial and working-class localities such as Lighthouse, Kharadar, Aram Bagh and Burns Road. Here, a Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan candidate received 11,165 votes. It is easy to surmise that a large number of the party’s voters in this constituency came from the Memon community that is heavily concentrated in some of its parts.
This perception is further strengthened by the high number of votes – 26,248 – that Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan polled in PS-107 to beat a PTI candidate by a big margin of more than 10,000 votes. A part of this provincial assembly constituency – that falls in NA-247 – is inhabited by the Memon community, known for its trading acumen and religiosity. Many of its members follow Dawat-e-Islami, a non-political Barelvi missionary organisation, that also has its origins in the same area.
The Memon population also spills over into those parts of PS-107 that fall within NA-246 which comprises Lyari subdivision — an erstwhile bastion of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
In the second provincial assembly constituency in Lyari – PS-108 – a Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan candidate polled 7,958 votes and came fifth. A possible explanation for this could be that this constituency is dominated by a Baloch population which mostly, if not entirely, votes along ethnic lines rather than religious ones. That a candidate of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious parties, has won this constituency in a four-way tight race this time round could still be put down to various ethnic and political splits here between the Baloch and non-Baloch residents of the area.
In PS-109, the third provincial assembly constituency in Lyari, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan came in second, securing 19,913 votes. Its candidate for NA-246 also came second by securing 42,345 votes — 3,020 votes ahead of PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and 10,405 votes behind PTI’s Abdul Shakoor Shad.
Lyari Town on the whole is a working-class area with a mixed population — comprising the Baloch, Kutchis, Memons, Punjabis, Kashmiris, Pakhtuns, Urdu-speakers and Seraikis. As a political scientist based in Lahore says, the weakening of other civic forums – such as trade unions, grass-roots level political associations and ethnicity-based organisations – is leaving industrial and commercial workers, especially those who have migrated to a big city from elsewhere, with little option but to seek and find support from religious groups formed around neighbourhood mosques and madrasas. “This explains why Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan has attracted a very high number of votes in mostly low-income neighbourhoods in large cities,” he says.
His argument may also explain why a Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan candidate came second in NA-240 in Korangi district, a low-income constituency with large populations of industrial workers who have come to Karachi from various parts of Pakistan.
A similar explanation can be given for the results in NA-249 in District West where Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan came third by securing 23,981 votes — after PTI and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), each of which got around 35,000 votes. These numbers are remarkable for the fact that PMLN’s candidate here was former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif whereas Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s candidate was little known even among voters of the constituency.
PS-115, where Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan polled 21,596 votes, a clear 6,000 plus votes ahead of PTI, to win its second provincial assembly seat from Karachi, is also a part of the area that comprises NA-249. Mainly consisting of Baldia subdivision – where migrant industrial workers from all over Pakistan live alongside large Urdu-speaking communities with a similar demographic profile – this was a made to order playing field for Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.
The weakening of ethnicity-based politics – expedited after the official ostracising of MQM founder Altaf Hussain’s image and voice from Karachi’s politics since his August 2016 speech and subsequent squabbles among the leaders of his party – could be another major factor behind a rather unexpected number of votes Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan has polled in the city. This perception is backed by the fact that its candidates have gained a large number of votes in District Central where Urdu-speaking voters – the core of MQM’s support – far outnumber those from any other community.