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MQM and the Muhajir Myths

MQM FlagMQM, founded as Muhajir Qaumi Movement, is now known as Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The change in name came after its decision to join national level politics as a main stream party. When MQM went through this shift it was assumed, and appreciated by many circles, that MQM has stripped out of its racist core. However, time has proved the optimists to be wrong. MQM is still a racist party, claiming to be the defender of Muhajir rights.

This leads to an interesting discussion. What is a Muhajir? Is it a caste? a race? or some sort of nationalistic identity? By definition Muhajir is someone who does Hijrat from a place to other. As Hijrat is called migration in English, so Muhajir can be an immigrant. However, in religious terms, and in the context of Two Nation Theory, a Muhajir in Pakistan is someone who left India to settle in Pakistan, in or after 1947.

As MQM claims itself to be champion of Muhajir rights, and runs its political shop on this pretext, it has spread some myths in order to justify its political slogans and brainwash innocent citizens of Pakistan.

Myth #1: Muhajris live in Karachi and Hyderabad only

As Urdu speaking communities migrated from UP and CP, Punjabis migrated from East to West Punjab. However, the settlers in Lahore or others parts of Punjab now call themselves Pakistanis rather than Muhajirs of Delhi or Amritsar. Even those who migrated from Pakistan to India have not don the Muhajir name tag.

Before inception of MQM, Urdu speaking communities used to live peacefully in interior Sindh with their Sindhi compatriots. However, they had to pay the price for MQM’s activities in the cities and mass exodus from rural to urban Sindh happened in 80s and early-90s.

Myth #2: All Muhajirs are Urdu Speaking

As claimed by MQM, it represents the Urdu Speaking, hence the Muhajirs – giving an impression that all Muhajirs are urdu speaking or vice versa. This is totally false. All Muhajirs are not Urdu speaking. MQM itself has people like Farooq Sattar whose mother tongue is not Urdu. Various castes of Memons and Gujratis are part of MQM. And as discussed in Myth #1, Punjabis and Pashtuns are also Muhajirs.

Wikiepedia has a list of Muhajir communities, many of them are not Urdu speaking.

Myth #3: MQM is sole representative of Muhajirs

MQM has a generated a hype that it is sole representatives of Muhajirs, and Altaf Hussain, its British National Quaid-e-Thereek, is the chief of all Muhajirs. This is another myth. Urdu speaking communities of Karachi constituted the vote bank of Jamaat-e-Islami before MQM, and its politics of gun and terror, entered in Karachi. In the good old days, PPP and JI enjoyed the support of Urdu Speaking communities of Karachi until MQM hijacked the scene.

In 1998 Sindh had 21.05% Urdu speaking population, Punjab had 4.51% and Islamabad had 10.11% [Wikipedia]. Fortunately, the Muhajirs in Punjab and Islamabad were saner enough to not to fall into the MQM trap.

Quoting the same source, the Muhajir population in United States is 150,000, Saudi Arabia 120,000, Canada 80,000, UAE 50,000 and UK 25,000. These figures are likely to include 2nd and 3rd generations who have been born overseas and are considered residents of their respective countries. That is, they do not call themselves Muhajirs any more and feel discriminated if someone call them immigrant. This should serve as a real wakeup call for all the Muhajir ki Aulad in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Incidentally, when Altaf Hussain asks Indian government to take back the Muhajirs, does he meant Punjabi Muhajirs too?


12 thoughts on “MQM and the Muhajir Myths”

  1. I ask author to answer one small question, which has a lot of depth

    The question is which other party when present to aid mohajirs when katti Pahari and qazba ali garh massacre took place, was there PPP and jamaat islami to speak for those poor mohajirs who had nothing to do with any political affiliation

    And what about quota system, what about language bill, what about mohajirs being called ‘makkar, mohajir, panah guzeen’ etc even before existence of the MQM

    And one innocent question, why don’t sindhis, Punjabis, balochs, pathans forget being their respective ethnicities and just be Pakistanis?

    If you can’t expect from them, why should mohajirs not behave as ‘a distinct ethnic race’ and a community? What’s problem with one community excercising its rights for identifying who it really is, becoming Pakistani will make them more acceptable to Pakistan? mohajirs have sacrificed a lot being Pakistanis, example is east Pakistan when biharis were left alone to rott in tin camps in Bangladesh while the Pakistan army was promptly evacuated to west Pakistan?

    What happen to being Pakistan then?

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  2. I wish we could have become muslims and follow islam first than being MQM and MQC OR BBC OR something .im not from pakistan but aap logo ne jis tarah se islam ka mazak banaya hain ALLAH aap see samajh raha hain…. aap logo ko sharm aani chahiye apne hi logo ko martey huye.. HADEES :Agar aapko apne musalman bhai par ghussa aye to apni talwar patthar par maar kar thod dijiye lekin apne bhai ko kuch nat karee…

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  3. MQM is a power in anyway, whether you like it or not. They have the votes of urbun Sindh for last 27 years.No doubth.If you think that they have hijacked the votes of the people of Karachi
    and Hyderabad, then who can assure me that PPP and PML or even ANP are the truely elected representatives.I know a lot of people both political figures and common men in Punjab
    and Interior Sindh and even in Khyber do not like the rise of MQM .It look like a change in the status quo.The reason is that these people do want to have the influence of regional and linguistic parties in their respective provinces but dont like the idea that the people of Urban Sindh should have their own local elected representatives .These racially charged and emotionally based people want that Zardari , Nawaz , Mengal , Fazalur Rehman and Bilour to come to contest from Urban Sindh and get elected and go back to their villages to enjoy the preveiledges thay aquire for being elected from Urban Sindh.This was happening before MQM came to the scene.It was the time when these Hyenas were rulling Urban Sindh.How shameful that they still want the same politics of deception and forgery to be in play, when the representatives of Urban Sindh would come from far villages of Sindh and Kyber and the local residents would vote for them.No ,it is not going to happen again.Stop the colonialism and the politics of feudals and waderas.We will always fight for our rights and would not let anyone to look at us
    with disgust and hatred.We have blocked the ways some people find easy to make us fight against each other on the bases of religion and language. Anybody living in Urban Sindh is smart enough to understand the policies of deception and division and we whether Urdu speaking or Punjabi speaking or Pushto speaking or even Sindhi speaking living in Urban Sindh are united ,since our problems are same and our lives are same .We will be one as one
    power represent us and that is MQM. Pakistan Zindabad.

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  4. HUM RAJPOOT MUHAJIR HAIN.JO HARYANA OR U P SAY AYE HAIN.HAMARI LANGUAGE NA TU URDU HAI. OR NA HI PUNJABI. HUM APNI ;RANGHRHI; ZUBAN BOLTAY HAIN.KASAM KHUDA KI AAJ BHI HUM SAY NAFRAT KI JATI HAI. JISAY HUM NAY APNI TAQAT SAY DABA RAKHA HAI.OR LOOG HAMEN MUHAJIR KEHTAY HAIN.LOOG JHOOT BOLTAY HAIN KEH PUNJAB MAIN MAHAJIRON SAY NAFRAT NAHI KI JATI. KASAM KHUD KI NAFRAT KI JATI HAI.MQM 100 % THEEK HAI.

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  5. My mother side of family is from delhi and father side is from jammu we lived in sialkot mqm lies the so called muhajirs own 70% of industry in punjab urdu is taught in all schools in punjab here most of the sane minded people support peoples party pmln fools people by making false promises all karachi walay mqm supporters vote ppp when they move to punjab why?

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  6. This is 200% authentic. There are thousands and thousands of
    families (khandans) maybe million+ who ‘migrated’ from India to
    Punjab and NWFP (aka KP). They were Persian speaking pakhtuns
    and punjabi speaking punjabi speaking families who took refuge in
    all provinces of PK including Karachi. So, how come they don’t call
    themselves Muhajir. I am a pakhtun from a migrant family in Punjab
    province and i never in my lifetime heard the word ‘muhajir’ from
    anyone in my family. I never say I am going to “Sindh” when I’m
    traveling to Karachi. But this bloody drowsy retarded drunk mindset
    is using the word Punjab instead of Lahore, Islamabad & Multan?
    How much more racist and anti-pakistanis you karachi urdu
    speaking residents be?

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  9. I think you were drunk not high when you wrote this piece of shit 😉
    How MQM had a racist core when it was fighting for urdu speaking rights in Karachi?
    Was fighting against quote system is racism?

    Reply

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