A foreign friend of mine recently emailed me and asked me to explain the Karachi situation to her. She asked me what a "mahajir" is, why there was so much trouble in Karachi, and why it happens so frequently. I tried to be brief, but still my answer took more than a couple paragraphs. Anyway, I decided, now that I had finally written something worthwhile, why not blog it?
So here it is: Explaining the Karachi situation to an Outsider
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First things first, who are the mahajir? The dictionary says it is someone who migrates from one place to another, i.e. an immigrant. However, in the murky world of Pakistani politics, a "mahajir" is a person who speaks Urdu. Basically a person with roots in Delhi, Bihar, Lucknow, or other Urdu-speaking parts of India. Take me for example. Even though I was born and raised in Pakistan, and consider myself to be a first class Pakistani citizen, society and politics label me a "mahajir" because I have roots in Bihar, India. This is racism at its finest!
