1Lyari, one of the oldest settlements in Karachi, has been the site of ongoing violence between political parties, criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies since the early 2000s. Due to this conflict, Lyari has been labeled by law enforcement agencies and the media as one of several “no-go areas” in the city. However, residents tell a different story, referring to this area as Karachi ki maan. or the mother of Karachi, thus laying claim to their right to the city. For Lyari residents, their locality has continuously shifted from being a space of protection against the hostile social and political environment of the city to a space of terror at the hands of local criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies (see Kirmani 2015).
2Lyari is comprised of many dense neighborhoods, each with its own history and particular demographic composition. The area spans approximately 1,800 acres of land in Karachi’s South district and is one of the cities densest areas, with a population of approximately 1.5 million. Like Karachi as a whole, Lyari has been shaped by multiple waves of migration by people from across the Indian Ocean region. Although often characterized as a Baloch area, Lyari is one of the most diverse parts of the city, with Baloch residents forming approximately 50% of residents, and the rest being Kutchis, Memons, Sindhis, Punjabis, Pashtuns, Mianwalis, Biharis, Bengalis, and Urdu-speaking migrants from what is now India (known as Muhajirs). Apart from being a massive vote bank, Lyari is located in an extremely important area geographically. It neighbors both the country’s major port as well as some of the city’s main wholesale markets, both of which employ large segments of Lyari’s population. This helps to explain why various political parties, the military, and capitalists would be so interested in staking their claim in the area.
- 1 The People’s Aman Committee is both referred to as “the Aman Committee” and “the PAC” throughout th (...)
- 2 In this paper, “gang” is used to refer to the organized groups engaged in illicit activities, inclu (...)
- 3 The Pakistani state must be understood as being hierarchical, multilayered, and fragmented. It incl (...)
3Between 2008 and 2013, much of Lyari was unofficially controlled by the People’s Aman (Peace) Committee (PAC),1 an organization founded in 2008 by Rehman Dakait (Rehman “the Bandit”) purportedly to end a longstanding conflict between two warring gang factions (Zia 2010).2 However, the PAC was itself comprised of the gangs that were victorious in the conflict and which aligned themselves with the ruling political party at the time, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). While the PAC was most closely linked to the PPP, it modeled itself after the most powerful political party in Karachi at the time and the PPP’s main rival in the city, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). While the PAC was not officially granted the power to govern Lyari, the city’s residents had the impression that its members were supported by at least some of the branches within the formal state apparatus, both the ruling PPP and the military,3 and could provide access to public goods. In this way, the PAC produced a kind of “state effect” (Mitchell 1999), blurring the line between formality and informality, state and nonstate, and forcing residents to go through them in order to access public goods.
4For some residents, the PAC was at times viewed in a positive light as providing security in the face of real and perceived external threats, decreasing the distance between citizens and the state, and as a means of imparting quick “justice” in a context in which the formal state was viewed as being both corrupt and largely ineffective. However, for many of these residents and for others, the informal and ambiguous nature of the PAC contributed to their general feeling of uncertainty and legitimized the power of violent nonstate actors, who were often viewed as relatively more biased and arbitrary in their dispensation of justice. In this way, the PAC was a source of both security and insecurity for the residents of the areas under its control.
- 4 While the military has historically been the most powerful state institution in Pakistan, it regula (...)
5O’Donnell’s (1999) schema of Latin American cities provides a color-coded map to help explain the relationship between state/nonstate actors and violence. “Blue zones” are the areas where there is a high degree of state presence and control; “green zones” are areas with high degrees of state penetration but low degrees of functional presence; and “brown zones” are areas with very little state presence, where local forms of power—such as gangs—emerge. However, unlike in Latin American cities, where nonstate actors such as gangs and drug cartels were allowed to rule marginalized areas of the city due largely to state neglect, in the particular context of Pakistan and Lyari, nonstate actors worked in tandem with various branches of the state to assert control over certain “problem” areas. In that sense, a schema that presents state and nonstate actors as separate entities acting alongside each other cannot explain the opaque nature of the state’s presence/absence in Lyari, where the state during this period was made to appear both present (through visual markers of state presence) and absent (through a narrative that framed Lyari as “lawless” and a “no-go-area”). Hence, groups such as the PAC cannot be classified as “vigilante” in that they are not taking the law into their own hands independently of formal state institutions. Rather, residents of the area narrated how the PAC seemed to be given the right to rule by certain actors within the state apparatus, which included the ruling political party, the PPP, and the military.4
6This paper builds on the extensive body of work on the opacity of the state in everyday life and its relationship to violence (see Agamben 2005; Aretxaga 2003; Benjamin 1986; Das 2006; Das and Poole 2006; Taussig 1989; Taussig 1992) and Gayer’s (2014) detailed work on Karachi and Lyari in particular. Jusionyte’s (2015) idea of “camouflage” is perhaps the most useful in analyzing the “state effect” (Mitchell 1999) in Lyari. It highlights the deliberate obfuscation of boundaries between state and nonstate actors in the context of corruption in the triborder region of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. Her work demonstrates how “crime, as transgression, is always already implicit in the legal-moral order, even as it is creatively disguised” by the camouflage state (Jusionyte:127). Rather than separating state authority from the “counterfeit authority” of nonstate actors such as criminal gangs, the concept of camouflage stresses that “the state always already disguises the violence that it pretends to be separate from” (Jusionyte:116). Such ambiguous relationships are maintained by agents of a fragmented and multilayered state apparatus as a strategy of rule, an “ordered disorder” (Gayer 2014). The result is that citizens, particularly those on the margins of power, are kept in a perpetual state of insecurity. This insecurity contributes to their desire for some form of stability, whether it is upheld through violence instigated by state or nonstate actors. Hence, agents of the state are able to maintain control either indirectly through nonstate actors or directly, as and when needed.
- 5 I have been conducting research in Lyari since 2012. While I grew up in the United States and am an (...)
7Focusing on the period in which the PAC was functioning as the de facto source of authority in most of Lyari (roughly 2008-2012) and based on longitudinal ethnographic research conducted between 2012 and 2017,5 this paper describes the nature of this organization and its complicated relationship to formal state institutions (in particular, the provincial government, the police, the judiciary, and the military) from the perspectives of the area’s residents to demonstrate the manufactured opacity of the state at the local level. Discussions with residents regarding the PAC took place retrospectively in the period following their formal disbandment in 2012. The paper further explores the ways in which residents negotiated with this quasi-state organization in their everyday lives, highlighting the complex interplay of formal and informal state processes in the simultaneous production of security and insecurity at the local level.
- 6 The MQM rose to power in Karachi during the late 1980s and received much of its support from the ci (...)
8Lyari has been host to a variety of criminal groups that have become increasingly powerful since the 1980s, when the city as a whole was transformed as a result of the massive inflow of arms and drugs in the region due to the Afghan War (see Gayer 2007; 2014). This was a period in which violence became routine within the city. However, it was not until the arrival of Rehman Dakait in the late 1990s that criminal groups started expanding and organizing themselves into what could be called “gangs,” developing a wider presence in Lyari. This is also when criminality and politics became more explicitly intertwined in the area. This must be understood against the backdrop of the more general rise of a particular brand of violent politics in Karachi beginning in the mid-1980s as the MQM gained power.6
- 7 While the PPP has been in power in Sindh for many years, it has struggled to gain a foothold in the (...)
- 8 It is worth noting that while the PPP received the majority of National and Provincial Assembly sea (...)
9Rehman, who began his career by engaging solely in criminal activities, gradually grew closer to the Pakistan People’s Party, which has historically viewed Lyari as its power base in Karachi.7 He and his men played a central role in the security apparatus of various party leaders and were instrumental in the party’s 2008 election campaign in Karachi, which the PPP won at both the provincial and national levels with Benazir Bhutto’s widower and the party’s chairperson, Asif Ali Zardari, elected president.8 This cemented the People’s Party’s position within the formal state apparatus at the provincial and federal levels during the period of the PAC’s rule. Rehman’s group was also involved in a violent gang war over the control of criminal activities in Lyari, which erupted in the area from 2004-2008. Many believed this was a proxy turf war between the PPP and the MQM, Karachi’s most powerful party at the time partially due to the support of Pervez Musharraf’s military regime. This conflict ravaged many parts of Lyari, creating widespread insecurity among its residents, and hampered social and political activities in the process (Gayer 2014; Kirmani 2015).
- 9 Rehman’s use of the title “Sardar” and the addition of “Baloch” to his name was an attempt to estab (...)
10The gang war ended in 2008 with the establishment of the People’s Aman (Peace) Committee, led by Rehman. Even before the PAC was created, Rehman had begun shifting from simply supporting the PPP to fashioning himself as a leader in his own right, changing his preferred moniker from “Rehman Dakait” to “Sardar Rehman Baloch.”9 A 2010 article published in the Express Tribune describes the PAC’s ambiguous relationship with the PPP in the following way:
He [Rehman] forged an alliance with his rival gang, and formed the People’s Aman Committee (PAC), which appeared to be affiliated with the PPP at the time. No rally or public gathering of the PAC was complete without hundreds of PPP flags fluttering in the air. It seemed like the days of Rehman the dacoit were over. Rumours at the time indicated that Rehman wanted to stand for a seat in the local government. In 2008, prior to his election as Pakistan’s president, Benazir’s widower was often seen accompanied by a gang of gun-toting security guards, rumoured to be part of Rehman Dakait’s followers. The boys were also entrusted with ensuring security at Zardari’s residence in the capital, Islamabad (Imtiaz 2010).
11The creation of the PAC under his leadership only strengthened Rehman’s authority. In a personal interview, a senior police officer in Karachi said, “The political infrastructure of the People’s Party [in Karachi] was being taken over by Rehman.” This posed a problem for the party, particularly as this was shifting the ethnic representation of the party in the area from being multiethnic toward being dominated by the Baloch, who were viewed as occupying most of the positions of authority within the PAC. At the same time, the People’s Party patronized the PAC to counter the MQM, which had grown increasingly powerful in Karachi since the 1990s (see Gayer 2014; Khan 2010). While the MQM had its own militant wing, the People’s Party was comparatively weak from an organizational perspective and thus looked to external “violence specialists” to shore up its authority (Siddiqui 2022). This patronage was conveyed to Lyari residents visually through the display of party banners and flags at PAC rallies and offices as well as billboards and posters (see Figures 1 and 2) displaying photos of PPP leaders alongside photos of Rehman, Uzair Baloch (who took over after Rehman was killed), and other fallen members of the PAC. The PAC’s name itself seemed to suggest an affiliation with the PPP. However, these were merely gestures and were never made official, reflecting the state’s practice of using camouflage as means of masking its authority (Jusionyte 2015).
- 10 This is similar to the concept of “social banditry” first introduced by Hobsbawm (1959) in his stud (...)
12Rehman built his reputation as the Robin Hood of Lyari, engaging in large-scale charitable works in his community, distributing rations to families, setting up medical clinics, and supporting educational and sports-related activities, particularly in the area where he lived in the Kalakot neighborhood.10 For this reason, many residents had mixed feelings about Rehman. After Rehman’s death, one of the members of the Aman Committee was reported to have said:
Rehman may have been condemned as a corrupt man, but then how many of our so-called leaders, ones who are elected, are not corrupt? Rehman built roads, schools, parks and madrassas for children out of his own money. He even built a small clinic and was planning on a lot more. And once he called for peace in Lyari, no one dared to even fire a shot at a wedding, otherwise Khan Bhai [Rehman] would deal with them (Jalil 2009).
13At the same time, Rehman elicited the combination of respect and fear that so often characterizes violent authority figures. For example, he was rumored to have committed several murders, including that of his own mother when he was just a teenager for allegedly having an affair. After he was killed in 2009 in a police “encounter”—a euphemism used to describe extrajudicial killings—many speculated that his increasing moves toward becoming a political leader himself—rather than simply taking orders from the official party heads—along with his alleged sympathies with Baloch nationalist groups were what might have led to his killing.
14Uzair Baloch, whose father was killed in the gang war, was subsequently selected to take Rehman’s seat as the head of the PAC. In many ways, Uzair followed in Rehman’s footsteps, perhaps even more explicitly framing himself as the rightful leader of Lyari, by engaging in social work within the area and aligning himself with the ruling People’s Party, at least at the beginning of his tenure. Due to this, residents also expressed the same ambivalence about Uzair as they did toward his predecessor Rehman. However, unlike with Rehman, it was less Uzair himself who was feared and more the network of criminals working under him, who had a well-known capacity for violence, along with the various state agents (both the People’s Party and the military intelligence) that were thought to be backing him. It was not until after Uzair took over the reins of power that the Aman Committees began to spread, not only in Lyari but also to other parts of the city. This included areas with large concentrations of Baloch residents, such as Malir, Keamari, Ibrahim Haidery, and Moach Goth.
Figure 1
Billboards featuring Uzair Baloch alongside Asif Ali Zardari, the Prime Minister at the time (pictured at the top left), with Rehman Dakait (bottom right and left), plastered on a building in Lyari on Baloch Culture Day in March 2013
“So us workers, we said, ‘Rather than forming an Aman Committee, why don’t we call it the People’s Aman Committee? We are People’s Party workers after all.’ So we decided to call it the People’s Aman Committee” (Uzair Baloch, September 4, 2012).
- 11 However, it should also be mentioned that not all areas of Lyari were under the PAC’s control. Thos (...)
15Despite being named the People’s Aman [Peace] Committee, its creation did not put an end to violence or the existence of gangs in Lyari. Rather, it in many ways expanded and formalized their power. While the PAC was officially established during Rehman’s lifetime and was described as his brainchild, after Uzair took over, the PAC structure expanded and became more elaborate, with the opening of local offices and the assignment of different roles to various individuals in the organization. Zafar Baloch, a longtime People’s Party worker who had served as a councillor in the area, acted as Uzair’s chief political advisor and represented the PAC in front of the media. Zafar, who was the victim of targeted killing in 2013, was an example of the overlap between PPP workers and those affiliated with the PAC. The PAC set up a “Buzurg Committee,” or a committee of elders that served as an advisory council and provided the PAC with more legitimacy among those Lyari residents who would have previously approached local anjumans (caste/clan-based associations) or elected representatives for assistance. The PAC sought to replace this older system and establish themselves as the new local authorities. Most of Lyari was divided among various “commanders,” who were given the authority to rule within their areas and attributed subcommanders (often referred to as lalas). Residents described how offices were set up throughout most of Lyari and in some other areas of the city with large Baloch populations—a practice that mimicked the MQM’s system of sector and unit offices in areas under their control.11 There were a few central offices for those who occupied more powerful positions within the PAC, as well as several smaller offices operated by those occupying the lower rungs of the organization that often have torture cells attached to them—a practice that also mimicked the MQM. Buildings housing Aman Committee offices were marked with banners, often accompanied by a PPP flag and lending the premises an air of formal affiliation with the ruling party.
- 12 The conflict between the PPP and the MQM peaked during the summer of 2011, by which time the Human (...)
- 13 All names have been changed to protect the identities of my interlocutors.
16The PAC framed itself and was viewed by many residents as providing a necessary defence against the MQM’s attempted incursions into the area.12 Young men were hired to “picket” particular neighborhoods, keeping an eye on who was coming and going and preventing outsiders from entering PAC-controled localities. I heard several stories of how boys were lured into the PAC by giving them a 125cc motorbike, a gun, a mobile phone, and 500-1000 rupees per day. In a context in which many young men were unemployed or underemployed, the temptation of easy money and power was difficult for many to resist. Nabila,13 a long-time social worker from the area said: “They saw a future for themselves. If you have no other option, you will say ‘I may as well join. At least I can fill my stomach.” The PAC’s informal security system quickly spread in this way, acting both defensively against the MQM and offensively in terms of entering and taking over more areas in and outside of Lyari.
17Zakir, a social worker who was pressured into opening a PAC office in his neighborhood for a short period of time, described how the Aman Committee forcibly occupied buildings:
They asked if a place was empty; if it was empty they would break the lock and make it their office. The owner then didn’t dare come near to question them about it… Then they used to put a banner and boards outside the office of ‘The People’s Aman Committee.’
In this way, many public and privately-owned buildings—including offices, warehouses, and even schools—were taken over by members of the PAC to carry out their own activities.
18Imran, a university student and leader of a local youth group, described how they took over certain areas:
- 14 Moach Goth is an informal settlement located approximately ten kilometers northeast of Lyari and ho (...)
The fact is wherever the Baloch community lives, these people [the PAC] want to be in power. It’s as simple as that! In Moach Goth,14 there was a group that opposed them. They ‘cleaned’ them out. They burned their houses down and whatnot, and then installed their own people. Now that area is under their control. They run the show. Their people picket the area, sell drugs, and if there in an issue in the entire area, they have to go to them. You can think of them as nazims [mayors].
19Hence, while the official narrative of the PAC was that it provided security and access to public goods, it was also common knowledge that members of the Aman Committee were involved in criminal activities, including the selling and smuggling of drugs and weapons and extortion in the areas under their control.
20In an interview I conducted with Uzair Baloch in February 2013, after the PAC was formally disbanded and before he fled the country prior to his arrest, he spoke openly about how each of the “commanders” would give a portion of the money they earned back to the Aman Committee, which he claimed would then be used for “positive activities” such as supporting local educational initiatives. Uzair’s narrative was that he was trying to gradually shift those involved in the gangs away from crime toward doing “social work” in the community.
21The PAC used various strategies to mark their presence symbolically and spatially in the areas under their control. When I first began conducting fieldwork, much of Lyari was covered in posters featuring images of Uzair Baloch, Rehman Dakait, and other fallen members of the Aman Committee killed in fighting between rival gangs or by law enforcement agencies. These were referred to as shaheed (or martyrs). Many of these posters included images of members of the People’s Party and photos of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) at the time, Ashfaq Kayani (Figure 2; see Kirmani 2015). The COAS’s inclusion on billboards signaled to Lyari residents that the PAC not only had the support of the PPP, but that they also possibly had the backing of the most powerful and the most opaque state institution, the military, which is significant in an area historically known as a hub for Baloch nationalists. This alignment, which again was never made official, appeared to increase after the killing of Rehman, who many believe was sympathetic to the cause of Baloch nationalism—another reason many speculate for why he was killed and replaced by Uzair (see Gayer 2014). Residents mentioned that the gangs affiliated with the PAC targeted Baloch nationalists, forbade any nationalist protests and even burned down the offices of nationalist newspaper Daily Tawar, and were most likely responsible for the torture and killing of one of its journalists, Abdul Razaq Sarbazi in 2013 (Amnesty International 2014). While the military’s support was never made official, their appearance on billboards along with the PAC’s targeted attacks on Baloch nationalists gave residents the impression that they had military backing.
- 15 However, it should be noted that not all those affiliated with the PAC were necessarily Baloch nor (...)
22The PAC co-opted Balochi identity and culture as a means of rallying support for themselves and drawing support away from Baloch nationalists through the imagery used in their posters, the naming of their leaders—such as Rehman and Uzair—as sardars, and the celebration of Baloch Culture Day in Lyari (see Figure 1).15 The PAC also held regular protests and rallies to gain support in the area, pressure the government, and mark their place as powerful players in the city’s political landscape. Residents were urged by local PAC members to join these protests either by choice or, if necessary, through coercion (see Kirmani 2017).
Figure 2
Billboard in Lyari’s Aman Park, featuring Uzair Baloch (center) alongside General Ashfaq Kayani, the Chief of Army Staff at the time, and the Home Minister Zulifiqar Mirza (top right), with fallen members of the PAC pictured at the bottom
23The relationships between various state actors, both the ruling PPP and the military, remained murky throughout the PAC’s tenure. Afshan, who runs a private school in the Kalri neighborhood, described the symbolic and spatial overlap between the PPP and the PAC: “Most of the people working in their [the PAC’s] offices were PPP workers … So where there is the Aman Committee’s name written on the offices, it is above the PPP’s flag, so obviously at least 80% of the influence was [the] PPP’s.” Others also spoke about how it was obvioius that the PAC had government support because elected officials such as the Chief Minister at the time, Qaim Ali Shah, regularly visited Uzair Baloch at his home. Zulfiqar Mirza, the Sindh Home Minister at the time and one of the most vocal supporters of the PAC within the PPP provincial government, even stated in a press conference that 300,000 licenses for weapons were handed out at a rally held in Lyari in September 2011. He said they were given to people to be used for their own protection, supposedly against the MQM (Ahmed 2015; Gayer 2014). While the number of licenses was certainly an exaggeration, as later news reports revealed, such public proclamations sent the people of Lyari a clear message that the PAC had the support of at least some state functionaries.
- 16 It is important to note that the police operate under the authority of the provincial government, w (...)
24This was evident in discussions I had with residents about this period. For example, when I asked why people visited the PAC offices, Rashid, the owner of a chain of private schools in the area, said, “Because there was no law here!” All the police stations were closed or ordered to only work for the PAC, and people spoke about how the police were often seen riding in vehicles with PAC members in the area.16 A group of women living in the Sarguad neighborhood recounted how the police hit them with tear gas when they tried to resist the entry of the Aman Committee in their locality. Police collusion with the PAC was confirmed in an interview with a senior police officer who had also served for a period in Lyari. The cumulative effect of these visual markers and the PAC members’ public relationship with certain state functionaries sent a clear signal to the people of Lyari. According to Rashid, the state had empowered the PAC, and “nobody can fight with the state!”
- 17 Jaffe (2013) describes a similar situation in Kingston, Jamaica, where the state acted in a “hybrid (...)
25Residents were urged to go to the PAC offices to resolve local disputes and submit any complaints related to the civic administration. Before this time most local disputes were resolved through the anjumans, which were caste- or clan-based community organizations run by (mostly male) elders, or local elected councillors. When the PAC took over, the authority of both traditional and formal state institutions was largely displaced. In this way, the PAC began operating as part of a “hybrid state” (Jaffe 2013)17 within Lyari, with the PPP unofficially treating this body as their local representative.
26For some of the residents of this historically-neglected area, the PAC represented more direct and immediate access to power than the formal state, which many perceived to be distant, cold, corrupt, heavily bureaucratic, and largely unresponsive. Residents approached the PAC with a variety of problems ranging from civic issues (for example, not having water or gas) that the union council would have handled to domestic and property disputes, which the courts or local anjumans would have managed. In that respect, the PAC offered immediate “justice” for residents.
27Saima, a young woman who lived in an area formerly controlled by the Aman Committee, spoke positively about the PAC and said that they helped poor people in her neighborhood. She recounted how her husband’s sister ran off with a man whose family did not want him to marry her but considered it imperative that they marry in order to protect the young woman’s reputation. The couple took refuge in the home of the woman’s aunt in Moach Goth and were subsequently taken to their local PAC office, where they were quickly married. Saima felt that the PAC solved people’s problems swiftly and fairly.
28Faris, a local social activist, described the appeal of the PAC in the context of a large number of people feeling alienated from the state:
If someone forcefully occupies your land, and then the police system is not working for you [and] the judiciary isn’t working for you, there is no mechanism/institution in place that you can go to and complain about these forceful occupants. But if you go to them [the PAC] with your complaint, they will say, ‘Okay we will solve it for you and will take half the money.’ And they used to get the job done. They used to take such quick action compared to the state … [T]he state system wasn’t that quick … People would willingly go to the PAC because there was no alternative.
The proximity of this organization and the speed with which they resolved problems thus attracted residents to their offices, especially when the formal state was viewed as being inaccessible and corrupt. Furthermore, as the reins of power had ostensibly been handed over to the PAC by the provincial government, residents really had no alternative.
29However, the PAC’s relationship with the formal mechanisms of the state were kept deliberately opaque. When I asked Uzair Baloch about the PAC’s relationship with the state, his response reflected this ambiguity:
Uzair: There are funds coming right now. I am getting people’s work done.
Nida: You mean the funds are coming from the government?
Uzair: Yes, this money isn’t coming out of my pocket. I’m getting schools repaired. I’m getting roads fixed. This isn’t coming out of my father’s account, is it?
Nida: This is coming out of the Lyari Package [a government funding scheme]?
Uzair: These are the government’s funds. Why aren’t our [elected] representatives getting this work done?
Nida: So they gave you control of the funds?
Uzair: No, it’s not in our control, it is under the control of [names a government official]. Look, people often come to me, and then we have a meeting [with the official] and say, ‘Sir, these are the roads. Please come and check that the road needs to be fixed,’ so he comes and checks and gives it his approval. Before this time, the government officer had so much pressure from our elected representatives who would say, ‘You do as I say. There is no reason for you to go to the community and check!’
Uzair went on to talk about all the corruption that used to take place before the Aman Committee existed. The implication was that the Aman Committee was getting the government to fulfill its responsibilities where elected representatives had been failing. In this way, Uzair framed the PAC as a kind of pressure group, which had the community’s best interests in mind.
30Because of this, many residents approached the PAC with their civic problems. Afshan spoke about how the Aman Committee got civic work done in the locality in which her mother lived:
In the area where my mother lives, there was a water supply shortage. Even now the water pipeline is popularly called gangwar ki line (the ‘gangwar’s line’). … They [the PAC] were the ones who helped get access to help build that pipeline. There was a shortage of water, and the people of the locality were quite stressed. And then the local people contacted them and asked them to do this favor, to fix this problem. They said okay and in a few days the pipeline was put in place and the water supply through that pipeline is uninterrupted… Even now they get water from that pipeline even though their offices are now closed. So in a lot of ways, they did a lot of favors as well.
31However, as with most favors, they did not come for free. Those who received support from the PAC were also expected to participate in their rallies and protests. Afshan described the consequences if her family did not participate in the Aman Committee’s rallies:
Once, my mother’s family refused to participate in their protest and in response to this refusal, the gas pipelines of my parents’ house were shot at and damaged. When they used to cause such damage, my family had to pay the price for many days. And when my family used to participate in their protests, they [the PAC] used to become happy as well …They used to take care of my family’s needs.
Therefore, while there may have been some benefits to supporting the PAC, the costs of not supporting them were even higher.
32For this reason, many who spoke positively of the PAC were also critical of them, due in particular to the biased and arbitrary manner in which they operated and their known capacity for violence. While Rehman was largely viewed as acting fairly with regard to local disputes, when the PAC expanded under Uzair, many complained that inexperienced young men were being given free reign to create their own fiefdoms with no accountability. Residents spoke about how the PAC favored the party that approached them first and offered the highest fee for their services. For this reason, Rashid concluded that honest people would not approach the PAC for help:
The wrong party in a conflict used to go and complain, not the ones who were right. The wrong party knew that if they could go to the union council or court, they won’t win, and if they go to these people [the PAC], their work would get done.
33Others mentioned an ethnic/personal bias in the way the Aman Committee operated. Reema, whose family was Sindhi and Syed (upper caste), said that the Aman Committee left her family alone because the commander in her area was also Sindhi and respected her father. Others also confirmed that the PAC favored relatives of their local members or people the same community.
34One of the main ways the PAC maintained control of particular areas was through the sheer threat of violence. Stories circulated throughout this period of young men being picked up, tortured, and killed for not complying with their orders. Afshan spoke about how the PAC maintained their power through fear:
They used to keep people under pressure as well. They used to take bhatta [extortion money] from the shop owners in the area. Or if someone would enter or leave the area after midnight, they used to check every rickshaw to see who was coming into and who was going out of the area, and why they were coming at this time of the night … . So people used to live in fear that if, God forbid, something goes wrong, they [those affiliated with the PAC] didn’t take much time in killing people.
So while they may have solved problems quickly, residents were also aware that this came with its own very high cost.
35The PAC was officially banned in March 2011 by the provincial PPP government. This was largely due to pressure from within the party and from the MQM, who, alongside the Awami National Party, were their coalition partners at the provincial and national levels from 2008-2013 (Gayer 2014:277). Uzair Baloch subsequently announced that all offices would be shut down. However, when I began my fieldwork in 2012, the organization was still very active and expanding. Uzair was even allowed to select the candidates for the May 2013 election by the PPP in return for his support (Gayer 2014:158).
- 18 It is also worth mentioning that in the 2018 elections, the PPP lost all seats, national and provin (...)
36Support for the PAC among Lyari residents, which was always difficult to measure due to its violent tactics, seemed to be declining gradually until the summer of 2013, when major cracks in the PAC edifice began to appear. In September 2013, a rift formed between two factions of the gangs, one led by Uzair Baloch and the other led by one of his most notorious commanders, Baba Ladla. This sparked a bloody conflict between both groups that led to hundreds of deaths in the area from bomb blasts and firing as well as a heightened sense of fear and insecurity among residents. Furthermore, after the electoral upset of the PPP government at the national level by the Pakistan Muslim League (N), the state launched a major security operation in Karachi (“the Karachi Operation:) led by their paramilitary forces, the Rangers, and targeting various groups in the city, including the Lyari gangs, the Taliban, and the MQM. Most of the major gang commanders fled or were killed in either in-fighting or “encounters” with law enforcement agencies. Uzair was arrested and has been in custody and under trial for more than a decade now. Since September 2013, the official monopoly of violence in Lyari and the city as a whole returned to the state (this time to its military branch under the authority of the Rangers), at least for the time being.18
37Although most of the Lyari residents with whom I spoke were generally supportive of the Rangers’ Operation, some are also critical and accused them of acting in a similar manner to the gangs in terms of their violent behavior toward citizens, demonstrating the mimetic nature of state and nonstate actors in their perpetration of violence in the city (see Khan 2010). For example, Saima, who praised the PAC’s problem-solving abilities when it came to her sister-in-law’s marriage, was also generally satisfied with the paramilitary operation against the gangs because it brought an end to the violence. However, she now complained that they had no one to whom they could go for help. She said the Rangers all take money and do not really help but instead picked up people who were doing drugs in her neighborhood and demanded bribes from their families in return for their release. Despite these criticisms, it seemed that most residents supported the paramilitary operation largely because the level of insecurity was still relatively lower than during the period of PAC rule and even more so than during the period of violent conflict around the time of its demise. Based on past experience, however, residents were aware that this “peace” was probably only temporary.
38Arguing against a statist approach that views the Pakistani state as separate from society, Suhail writes:
So where does the writ of the state begin, and where does it end? Does the power of the state go only as deep as the point where the paramilitary Rangers mark their presence on the walls? What of the times when they paint Lyari’s walls with a more organic hue of red? And when the gangs perpetrate coercion, from where do they derive their power? … If the ambit of state power ends at the edges of Lyari, then what kinds of claims are being made through the pictures of army chiefs and government ministers? Are the gangs ‘state’ or ‘society’? (Suhail 2014:54).
39The evidence presented in this article builds on these provocations by demonstrating the porous boundaries between state and nonstate actors in the context of Lyari. Unlike in other cities where gangs have become powerful, the dominance of an organization like the PAC is not the result of the retreat or neglect of the state as it might appear. Rather, the emergence of an informal authority such as the PAC occurred through active state intervention and manipulation. Under this model, the state subcontracts its authority to actors who appear to be vigilantes. Faris, a social activist and Lyari resident, referred to this as the state’s “private management strategy.” Similar to the strategy of a transnational corporation, which evades responsibility by relying on third-party contractors to carry out their “dirty work,” certain branches of the Pakistani state strategically subcontract responsibilities to nonstate actors, such as the PAC, while maintaining the ultimate authority to withdraw support as and when necessary—for example, when these nonstate actors begin to become too powerful and stop following orders, as demonstrated by the periodic state-led operations launched in Lyari and Karachi as a whole and the encounter killings of figures such as Rehman Dakait.
40Hence, various state actors, including members of elected parties and the military, actively create the appearance of informality by maintaining ambiguous relationships with nonstate actors. This opacity legitimizes the often arbitrary and excessive use of force (in the form of encounter killings, for example) and allows actors within the state to maintain control over the area. The appearance, not only of informality but of “ordered disorder” (Gayer 2014; Taussig 1989) and the use of camouflage (Jusionyte 2015) to obscure its power is an essential means through which the state is able to assert its authority. Hence, the violent authority of the PAC was made to appear both connected to and independent of the state’s authority, as and when necessary.
- 19 The most spectacular such example was the 8-day operation launched in the Cheel Chowk area of Lyari (...)
41While it may appear that state and nonstate actors are engaged in a struggle for the control of power and authority in this particular area, which is demonstrated through the spectacle of periodic state-led operations by law enforcement agencies19 as well as antistate rallies and protests held by the PAC, the monopoly on violence remains firmly in the hands of state actors. The periodic moments of rupture, such as the clash between Uzair and Baba Ladla, are intrinsic to the exercise of the state’s authority. In other words, nonstate actors must be made to appear as being out of control in order for the state to legitimize its own use of excessive power. These “states of emergency” (Benjamin 1986; Taussig 1989; 1992) or “exception” (Agamben 2005) are not only not exceptional, they are intrinsic to the performativity of statecraft itself, which relies on such obfuscations in order to maintain control (Jusionyte 2015).
42In closing, this paper demonstrates how citizens living in areas such as Lyari, where formal power and informal power are constantly blurred, are not the passive victims of the machinations of powerful actors. Rather, residents learn to navigate this ambiguous relationship between state and nonstate actors. While they are often critical of the violent tactics and corruption of both and apart from rare moments of organized resistance (Kirmani 2017), their “will to security” (Samet 2019) mostly leads them to accept, and even at times desire, the authority of one or the other. Furthermore, their awareness that state power undergirds the authority of nonstate actors means that any open challenge to the authority of nonstate actors seems futile. In this context, residents are kept in a perpetual state of insecurity by criminal gangs and state actors who sometimes overlap and sometimes oppose each other. In order to survive, Lyari residents tactically manage these fluctuating insecurities by learning how to negotiate relationships with state and nonstate actors depending on shifting circumstances.