LYARI: PPP’S STEPCHILD

Kala Naag, Dadal, Laloo, Babu Dacait, Rehman Dacait...these names seem to be of characters straight out of a bad Bollywood flick. But they are far from figments of imagination. These are actual people who grew up to be feared, hated, and in some cases, gunned to death in streets like animals. Some might say that they got what was coming to them, that they were the scum of the earth while others might say that their only misfortune might have been that they were born in a pit called Lyari.

Lyari is one of the oldest settlements of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area but the most densely populated, home to about a million souls. These people are served by a few understaffed schools, a few substandard hospitals. Water is scarce and so is electricity. Roads are riddled with potholes and sanitation is just a concept. Basic needs to live a decent, hopeful life are absent, but the community is rich in certain assets. One of them is loyal voters for the Pakistan Peoples Party. The representatives win overwhelmingly from the district of Lyari, but have they ever walked in the shoes of their constituents? Do they know what a day in the life of a Lyari resident is like? None of them has ever lived there. They might not have even tasted the water from Lyari, for which its residents were paying fifty rupees per hundred litres until Mustafa Kamal, while in office as Mayor of Karachi, brought water to their homes. Yet come election time, the representatives of PPP drive in on their fancy rides and promise the heaven and earth to them and the loyal people of Lyari come through for them again and again.

The residents of Lyari have been ignored and marginalized by their representatives in office. Their needs have been consistently sidelined by their leaders. They have witnessed every form of violence, every insecurity. They have come to accept this hopelessness as a way of life. When confronted, these representatives blame everything on “gangsters,” but have no viable plans to curb the violence. One would think these are the forgotten people...but this couldn't be further from the truth. Maybe there is some method to this madness. If you look closely at chaos you start to discern patterns.

Violence and hopeless environments always breed a very unique people. Lyari is where you go when you need your dirty work done, when you need a place to hide a hostage, when you need an assassin, when you need desperate people to do desperate things. It has become a safe haven for criminals and separatists from Baluchistan. Drugs and bullets are the currency of the streets and necessities are given as payment by benevolent benefactors. As long as Lyari is on fire, there will always be an army for hire and an unpatrolled “no-go” area for war. It’s like having your own little piece of hell where demons are bred unchecked.

All the journalists sitting with the “peaceful” leaders of Lyari with ajraks (traditional fabrics from the region of Sindh) around their necks, discussing how Lyari is peaceful and law-abiding should maybe look for new careers, because pandering to their benefactors and producing these puff piece documentaries is not journalism.  These people deserve respect and hope for a future. We need to know what the mothers and fathers of Lyari want. What do they see when they look at the faces of their new-born babies? Do they see doctors and engineers, or do they see drug dealers and killers?

It is time to stop treating Lyari like the waste disposal unit of a giant machine, serving a vital purpose as long as you don't let the stench bother you. It is time to humanize Lyari and elevate it to the status it so richly deserves.