If anything has been clear in the murk of Karachi for weeks now, it is that tensions between the military and the PPP have been on the rise.

First, the director general of Rangers in Karachi made an extraordinary set of allegations centring on the multi-billion-rupee nexus between politics and crime in the megacity and then Maj Gen Bilal Akbar’s paramilitary forces raided the Sindh Building Control Authority offices in search of proof of the vast alleged land-related irregularities in the province.

On Tuesday, PPP supremo and former president Asif Zardari launched an astonishing verbal attack against the country’s military leadership, suggesting that the PPP will not suffer in silence whatever it is that Mr Zardari believes the military leadership wants to inflict on his party.

Also read: Zardari cautions military establishment for 'stepping out of domain'

But what does the PPP boss really believe? Is he responding to the military’s attempt to try and disrupt or sever the alleged links between the PPP leadership in Sindh and the phenomenally lucrative financial, land and other rackets in the province? Or is Mr Zardari trying to push back against the insistent rumours that governor’s rule is being contemplated in Sindh?

While it is hard to discern Mr Zardari’s motive in lashing out, at least one aspect of the ongoing, and possibly escalating, crisis is all too apparent: the Rangers have drifted far away from the original mandate of simply fighting organised crime and militancy.

Maj Gen Akbar’s allegations were in essence a political charge sheet as was earlier Karachi corps commander Gen Naveed Mukhtar’s dilation on the city’s decades-long drift towards lawlessness. So, have the Rangers attempted to expand their role in Karachi after getting the nod from the country’s military leadership, which may have decided the time has come for a bigger military role in Karachi and Sindh generally?

If that is indeed the case, then surely the Sindh government need not just be a bystander in all of this. The Rangers in Karachi can only serve in the city so long as the provincial government endorses their stay there. That would perhaps be a nuclear option, but it also underscores a continuing uncertainty: what is it the military via the Rangers are really trying to effect in Sindh and how serious is Mr Zardari about standing his ground?

There is also the contrast between the PPP’s apparent willingness to defy the military in Sindh and its acquiescence at the federal level to consider.

After all, it was only with the PPP’s support that the 21st Amendment, and so new military courts, could be approved in the Senate in January. Does the PPP’s concern about military encroachment into the civilian domain — including investigating corruption — extend to only matters of Sindh?

If so, there’s a startlingly obvious alternative: clean up Sindh, give issues of governance some serious consideration and demonstrate that politicians can lead ably and competently. Will the PPP consider that?

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2015

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