Karachi's Dark Ages

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Aasim Sajjad Akhtar When Karachi was struck by yet another long episode of unannounced loadshedding and power outages over the weekend, the abuse directed towards those in power for yet again failing the people reverberated around Pakistan. On this occasion of course a large part of the country was plunged into darkness alongside Karachi and the government was quick to make the typical announcement that a 'high-level inquiry' would be launched into the causes of the nationwide power breakdown. Karachiites, however, know better than to expect any changes to come from whatever inquiry takes place. Probably sooner than later another blackout of epic proportions will hit the city and paralyse its social, economic and political life. It is telling that even amongst those that are aware of the fact that the severe problems in the planning and operation of the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) explain the city's long-standing power crisis, the focus of the invective continues to be the 'state'. KESC was indeed once a government agency but it has now been five years since it was sold to the private sector. Perhaps many of those who choose to criticize the sitting government even though it has no effective role in power supply to Karachi do so because they do not want to admit that the magic wand of privatization has not produced peace and prosperity. In fact, privatization has exacerbated Karachi's chronic power crisis. Many will know that the Saudi company Al Jomaih that originally bought KESC packed it off to another Arab firm some months ago having made no meaningful attempt to redress the structural flaws in the company's operations. Those of us who opposed privatization on principle to begin with were well aware that whoever bought KESC was not about to spend billions of rupees on revamping its infrastructure and instead wanted to cash in on the company's fixed assets. This is exactly what happened: Al Jomaih sold the real estate owned by KESC, recovering what it had invested in buying the company and more. It also wantonly issued more electricity meters across the city to generate more revenue for itself thereby adding to the supply shortfall. When there was no more easy money to be had, Al Jomaih promptly sold out. The new owners have yet to take over the company but it is already common knowledge that they have no experience in the power sector. One might argue that it would be unfair to expect too much of the new owners given that they have been burdened with numerous problems. But it is not too early to say that the new owners will be just as oblivious to the need of the city's population – and particularly the working-class majority – as Al Jomaih. It can never be reiterated enough that the logic of the private sector is not need, but profit. And the massive investment that is required to rehabilitate KESC does not guarantee the kinds of easy and quick returns that the private sector wants. Thus rather than blaming the state, Karachiites, and particularly those who have the requisite information, should blame the private sector. The state, to the extent that it even resembles a coherent entity, comes in for far too much abuse already. While it deserves a certain amount of this abuse, especially when it comes to its liberal use of coercive force, it is only fair that it be acknowledged that the state no longer has as much control over the economy or delivery of services as it once did. The ideologues of neo-liberal rollback, both within the country and outside of it, have ensured as much. In effect then, Karachi's people – and the city is in many ways a microcosm of the rest of the country – need more of the state, and not less. To clarify, we need more of a well-functioning public sector, and it is true that the KESC before privatization was hardly a people-friendly organization. Neither is WAPDA or railways for that matter. But this hardly means that the solution lies in selling off these public-sector enterprises to a callous and short-sighted private sector which has no intention of addressing people's needs, or at best meets only those needs that do not impede the imperative of profit-making. Karachi's elite has a crucial role to play in working towards a more people-friendly state, but sadly it is unlikely to play this role. This is because, as hinted above, the elite is firmly committed to state rollback and fully enamoured of the invisible hand of capitalism. In related vein, the elite has no real commitment to the public realm, as is evidenced by the fact that Defence and Clifton are littered with generators that permit the rich and famous to maintain their indulgent lifestyles even when the rest of the city is blacked out. This is the same elite that decries the lack of 'civic sense' of the common hordes. It is a reflection of just how alienated the elite is from the rest of society that it can rant about a lack of 'civic sense' in society and yet willingly close itself off into bourgeois ghettos in which there is full license to live like a parasite. The almost predictable blackouts that befall Pakistan's biggest city are indeed a manifestation of the deeply troubled times that we are living through, but not only because they subject the majority of Karachiites to great strife. In the depths of Karachi's darkness one uncovers a deeply divided society, one in which the rich and poor not only live worlds apart but have radically different visions of a better future. Needless to say, working people in Pakistan have also developed a deep contempt for the state because it does not ensure their security, meet their basic needs, or represent a cohesive national identity. But yet they do not have the luxury to substitute the state with private providers as the elite do. This is why if things are to get better we must all own this state and transform it so that it can serve all of us. Hurling abuse at it when it is not even at fault simply compounds the problem.