MQM Muttahida Qaumi Movement - A Brief Introduction

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The Muttahida Qaumi Movement generally known as MQM came into being after the formation of the Student organization, the All Pakistan Mohajir Student Organization (APMSO) which was founded in 1978 by Altaf Hussain which subsequently gave birth to the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1984. It is the third-largest Political party in Pakistan after Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz Group (PML-N).

Initially the party was founded on socio-ethnic lines representing the rights for the Mohajirs or Urdu speaking community of Pakistan who were often treated badly and discriminated upon by the establishment that viewed them as third grade citizens. On January 1991 MQM renamed itself from Mohajir Qaumi Movement a name that was often viewed and presented an image of the party as one that deals only with the socio-political issue that are faced by the Mohajirs or the Urdu-speaking people of the country to Muttahida Qaumi Movement representing itself as United National Movement that deals with the socio-political issue for all ethnicities of the Country. MQM now maintains the most liberal, progressive and secular stances on many political and social issues amongst all other Political parties in Pakistan.

The history of MQM lies in the first political organization of Mohajirs, called the All Pakistan Mohajir Student Organization (APMSO), which was founded in 1978 by Altaf Hussain who then was a student of Pharmacy at the University of Karachi. The purpose of APMSO was as a result of the deprivation of the fundamental right to education of the Mohajir students in their own country, Province and cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and other urban centres where Mohajirs are in majority. As a result of the “Quota System” local Mohajirs were deprived of admission in the universities and professional colleges and
deprived of rooms in hostels despite having better and required grades in comparison to the students of other provinces of Pakistan or rural areas of Sindh as well as employment in government jobs.

Within 3 years of its existence as a political party, the MQM drew enormous crows, the height of success of which was the rally of August 8, 1986 at Nishtar Park in Karachi which drew enormous crowds in their thousands who stood despite the rain, the party still celebrates that moment when the party arose as a Political force and one year later MQM swept the local bodies elections in November 1987 in Karachi and several other urban areas of Sindh. In 1988 Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won the general elections and formed a coalition government in Sindh with the help of MQM and a 59-point agreement called the Karachi Accord was signed between the PPP and MQM which included reforms for the protection of the democratic system and political rights, development in urban areas and creating merit based criteria for admissions to Universities and Colleges. There were many differences between MQM and PPP, however, the main difference between the two was MQM workers and their leaders came from poor and middle-class families who primarily believed in their slogan 'Power to the People' whereas PPP's workers too came from poor and middle-class families, however, their leaders were rich and powerful feudals who believed in preserving the feudal system which unlike MQM, gave 'Power to the powerful'. Thus, within few months of the agreement the alliance broke in October 1989 when MQM joined hands with PPP's opponents, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML).

By October 1990 elections, MQM emerged as the third-strongest political party in the Country this time making its alliance with Pakistan Muslim League (PML). In January 1991, MQM then known as 'Mohajir Qaumi Movement' decided to renamed itself as 'Muttahida Qaumi Movement'. Several senior party members were critical of this name changing and showed their dissent which led MQM to delay the name changing of the partys nomenclature.

On 21 December 1991, an assassination attempt was made on MQM's Chief leader Altaf Hussain but he escaped injury. In January 1992, Altaf Hussain left for London for medical treatment and in light of the assissination attempts that were made on him, his party workers decided that it was best that he and other top-brass of MQM stay abroad, thus since 1992 Altaf Hussain has been in self-exile and at the same time he has been able to successfully run his party from London ever since.
In 1992 an Operation by the name of Operation Clean-up aka Operation Blue Fox was announced by the military that sought to cleanse the city of Anti-Social elements and it was initiated on June 19, 1992. The main purpose of the operation was to sabotage an alledged plot to form a breakaway state by the name of Jinnahpur in Pakistan that would serve as a homeland for the Mohajir Urdu-speaking community after the military claimed that it had found maps of the proposed state of Jinnahpur in the offices of MQM.

MQM and the Urdu-speaking community at the time labelled 'Jinnahpur' as a conspiracy and an excuse to launch a military operation in Karachi and other MQM strong hold areas in order to weaken the party's image, their influence and brand them as anti-Pakistan elements. During this whole military operation against MQM, a total of 15,000 civilians, mostly MQM workers and ordinary citizens were ruthlessly murdered and even women were raped by the security agencies namely the police officials during house searches.

The government then, led by Nawaz Sharif completely denied having any knowledge about 'Jinnahpur' however, on August 24, 2009 two former military men who were major players in the 1992 operation clean-up namely former Intelligence bureau director-general Brigadier(retd) Imtiaz Ahmed better known as Imtiaz
Billa and General(retd) Naseer Akhtar disclosed that the alledged map of Jinnahpur was a 'drama' and its publication was meant to malign MQM. Brigadier Imtiaz confessed on a popular tv channel Geo Tv that no maps of Jinnahpur were found in the offices of MQM rather they were orchestrated in order to create divisions among various sections of the nation and that it was launched after full consultation and with the full knowledge of the proper chain-of-command, which included the then-Army chief Asif Nawaz, president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. General(retd) Naseer Akhtar who was the corps commander Karachi at the time too confessed that he had no knowledge of the Jinnahpur map and that was the reason why the Inter-Services Public Relations ISPR withdrew it within 2 days of its publication.

Soon after the two former Generals made the confession during a Television interview, Altah hussain made a Televised press conference in which he said that his party’s stance stood vindicated and termed the confessional statements by two pivotal charters of the operation as the victory of truth and justice, and proof that the establishment was scared of the party’s pro-middle class and anti-corruption and feudalism message. MQM leader Altaf Hussain demanded a formation of a national truth and reconciallatory commission to put facts before the nation after the astonishing relevations by two former generals related to the 1992 operation clean-up and said that the Jinnahpur map and the plan never existed and it was only an excuse to start the military operation againt the MQM.

Altaf Hussain's MQM can credited as the first political party in Pakistan that introduced a new trend in the political culture by giving it a non-feudal based political philosophy. It claims to be a political party of working towards the betterment of the poor and middle class population of Pakistan and boasts of sending poor and middle class people to the Parliament for the first time in history of the country.

On July 26, 1997, the party officially changed its name from Mohajir Qaumi Movement to Muttahida Qaumi Movement signifying it as a party for all in Pakistan.