Impact of Declining Muhajir Birth Rates on Pakistan's Demographics and Politics

[Riaz Haq]

Why did the Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) react so strongly to the PPP's aggressive stance in the recent Azad Kashmir elections that it decided to pull out of the ruling coalition? Why has the MQM leadership replaced "Mohajir" with "Muttahida" in its name? Why is the MQM so eager to expand its base from the exclusively Urdu-speaking urban Sindh to other provinces and regions?



To answer these questions, let's look at the changing demographics in Sindh province. A combination of rapidly declining birth rates of mohajirs and the rising tide of migration of northern pathans into urban Sindh is causing increasing concern among the leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) about their party's future as an ethnic and regional political force. This concern has been further reinforced by the influx of new Pathan and Sindhi migrants into Karachi after the massive 2010 floods.

Pakistan's National Census data from 1981 and 1998 showed that the proportion of Urdu-speaking Muhajir population in Sindh declined from 24.1% to 21%. During the same period, the Sindhi-speaking population of Sindh rose from 55.7% to 59%, with the rest made up of Pathans and Punjabis. Given their higher level of education and consequently lower birth rates, it is expected that the 2011 national census now underway will show the proportion of Urdu-speakers in Sindh will go down still further to below 20%.

In his recently published book "Pakistan-A Hard Country", Professor Anatol Lieven of London's King's College has described Mohajirs as passionately believing in "Muslim nationalism on which Pakistan had been founded, and for the sake of which they had sacrificed so much."

I think we should all, including MQM, take serious notice of the above description of the native Urdu-speakers (aka Muhajirs) in Pakistan.

If MQM is really serious about appealing across ethnic lines to become a truly national force, it needs to start by genuinely reaching out to all ethnic groups in Karachi, a cosmopolitan urban center which represents a true microcosm of all of Pakistan.

I also think that MQM's genuine pursuit for the mantle of a national party should, therefore, be seen as a positive rather than a negative. It should be supported by all those who believe in a united and harmonious Pakistan which helps every Pakistani, regardless of ethnicity, achieve his or her dream of peace and prosperity as one people striving to make Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Pakistan a reality.

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[Riaz Haq]

These past movements took three directions. A very large number of people came in from the outside. The country was born in the midst of a demographic convulsion. As many as eight million Muslims left the newly-independent India and headed for the newly-born Pakistan. Six million Hindus and Sikhs moved in the opposite direction. A smaller, but still a significantly large number of people left the country and settled abroad. Millions of people moved within the country. Some of them went looking for work. Others were forced out by natural or man-made disasters. The country is currently dealing with the displacement of half a million people from North Waziristan as a result of Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
No firm estimates are available for the number of people involved in these movements so we will have to do with guesstimates. Of Pakistan’s current population of almost 200 million, a third are refugees or their descendants. Their number is probably 60 million. This is by far the highest concentration of refugees in the population of a country comparable to Pakistan’s size. The largest component of this group came from India during Partition; of the eight million Muslim refugees who came to Pakistan, some 5.5 million settled in Punjab. Many of them were accommodated on the properties left by the Hindus and Sikhs. This group was quickly absorbed since they were ethnically similar to those who lived in this area. They also spoke the same language. The descendants of this group now number about 35 million.
For most of the remaining 25 million, assimilation was much harder. This is not a homogenous group. It includes the descendants of the refugees from India, those who came later from Bangladesh when that country became independent in 1971, and those who were displaced by natural disasters and other crises. The refugees who came to Pakistan from the Muslim-minority provinces of British India such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Bombay, and Gujarat still stand out as a separate community. Their effort to get accommodated created ethnic tensions and associated violence in the country, particularly in Karachi. This composite group now numbers about 15 million, of which about 12 million live in Karachi. The remaining are scattered in other parts of urban Pakistan, mostly in the larger cities of southern Sindh. Of this group, those who call themselves muhajirs number about eight to nine million.
The second large-scale movement of people involved job seekers. About 10 million people were involved in this movement. A significant number of these went to Karachi. Some of those who came from Punjab returned home as the pace of economic growth picked up in the province, particularly during the presidency of Ayub Khan. The Pakhtun population stayed, locating itself in the bastis founded on Karachi’s periphery. Once opportunities in the construction industry declined, many of them took up jobs or established businesses in transport and other parts of the service sector. The current size of this population is about three million.
Once the Pakhtun areas became established in the city, they attracted the Pakhtun populations displaced by the two wars in Afghanistan. This movement of people probably added another two million, bringing the total to five million. This is equivalent to one-fourth of Karachi’s population.
To summarise this arithmetic: 60 million economic and political refugees in Pakistan are divided into four fairly distinct, but large groups and each of these four groups has shaped Pakistan’s history in different ways.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/731979/migrations-and-shaping-of-pakistan/

[Riaz Haq]

Working Paper Series on Rural-Urban Interactions
and Livelihood Strategies
WORKING PAPER 15
Migration and small towns in Pakistan

https://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10570IIED.pdf

Migration has long played a key role in shaping the size and distribution of the population of
Pakistan. Since the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947, and up to recent and
ongoing conflicts within the region, Pakistan has been the destination for large numbers of
cross-border migrants and refugees. These migrant groups, together with the growing
number of rural people displaced by agricultural modernization and mechanization, have
contributed to the substantial increase in the levels of urbanization in Pakistan, especially in
the more industrialized provinces of Punjab and Sindh. At the same time, like the people of
so many low- and middle-income nations, Pakistani citizens have sought work abroad, and
in the 1970s large-scale labour migration to the Middle East began in earnest. Remittances
have since become an important component of the national economy and of the livelihoods
of many households.
These complex and substantial movements have resulted in profound changes in settlement
patterns, and also in deep socioeconomic and cultural transformations. Smaller urban
centres, such as the ones described in this paper, reflect the growing discrepancy between
changing values and widening economic opportunities on the one hand, and the persistence
of a feudal system of political power often supported by a highly controversial administrative
and political devolution plan, on the other hand.
This study draws upon secondary sources and census reports of the government of
Pakistan. In addition, it draws upon previous work done by the authors, and detailed
interviews which have been carried out for this study. A list of the persons interviewed, along
with excerpts from their interviews, is given in Appendix 1. These excerpts have been
translated from Urdu recordings totalling over 16 hours.
------------

In 1996 he became responsible for looking after the oil tankers of a private individual from his
area. This is what he does now and it has for the first time given him surplus income. He has
invested in a plot and house in a katchi abadi in Karachi. His two sons are now living in the city
and have both gone to high school. They are also in the transport business and have negotiated
informal loans for buying rickshaws which they rent out to people from their own area in the
NWFP, while they work as drivers for private companies. All this is the result of the connections
Abdul developed while working in Karachi.
From 1976 until the time that he got a job that earned him a surplus – 1996 – Abdul could never
have even thought of bringing his family to Karachi. He did not earn enough to rent
accommodation and the type of jobs that he did required odd working hours. Most of the time he
lived in make-shift accommodation near transport and cargo terminals or with co-workers,
sometimes seven to eight men in a room, and even more sharing a toilet. He feels that staying
away from his family and living the way he did was tough and that nobody should be subjected to
such conditions. However, these sacrifices have opened a new world of opportunities for his
immediate family and saved them from a life similar to Abdul’s.
Source: Interview taken by Arif Hasan in Karachi on 13 December 2007