Let me give a quick summary of the situation in Karachi or what I called "structural problems". Karachi is the capital of Sindh province which is one of the four federating provinces that make Pakistan. A ancient region mostly semi-arid desert through which flows the Indus river terminating into the Arabian Sea and forming a delta. It was this region that become known to Greeks and the river gave it's name to the region - India and over time that meaning extended to mean the entire sub-continent. Sind is the site of some of the earliest centres of civilization like Mohenjo Daro. The natives of Sindh are called Sindhi and speak their own language called Sindhi. They are recognized group with their own culture and identity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sindh
The British conquered Sindh in 1843 and brought to end the rule of the local Talpur Amirs. The Sindhi's fought valiantly but lost their kingdom against what was then a superpower - the British Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Miani
Karachi was then a small fishing village. But the British saw that it's location on the lip of land west of the Indus Delta afforded it a
prime geographic location for a port that would have monopoly over the
entire Indus Basin [present day Pakistan] and if not even further to Afghanistan, Central Asia and even Chinese Sinkiang Uighur province.
All that was required was transport links up north with the huge hinterland. In something similar to how China is fast working on CPEC and Gwadar port the British laid rail lines along the Indus River connecting the north to the new port of Karachi. By 1900s Karachi was a well established city with a flourishing port that had the entire Indus basin as captive hinterland with which it was now connected by rail and roads. There was significant British presence and again echoing what is happening now in Gwadar Karachi became known as the cleanest and best kept city in South Asia.
In 1943 Sindh Assembly became the first to pass a resolution for the idea of Pakistan. In 1947 Punjab, the present day Khyber Pakhtunkwa [NWFP], Balochistan would also federate into Pakistan. Kashmir of course remains a contested region.
https://www.dawn.com/news/871700
However as the British left with newly emerging Pakistan and India millions of migrants began moving. The Hindu/Sikh minority in Pakistan moved east into India. Millions of Muslim migrants streamed in from India into Pakistan and most headed for Sindh province and in particular Karachi which was made capital of Pakistan.
These migrants from differant parts of India came in such huge numbers that Karachi by 1950 was a Muhajir dominated. The term Muhajir [migrant] came soon to mean the Muslim migrants from India who settled in Karachi or wider Pakistan. Many of these Mujahirs came from urban areas in India that had been under British rule for centuries and had better education then the native Sindhi's. Karachi soon was entirely dominated by this group. Today the Muhajir population is about
7% of Pakistan but in Karachi they make just under
50%.
Post 1947 when there was the first deluge of Muhajirs from India the figure hit well above 50% within a decade of 1947. However over the last 40 years internal migration from [rest of Pakistan] up country Punjab, K-Pk [Pashtuns] and rest of Sindh has slowly been whittling away at the Muhajir %.
The result today is we have Muhajirs who have mostly congealed around the Muhajir Quami Movement [now with a slight change in prefix] or MQM which represents the Urdu speaking community that migrated to Pakistan in 1947 from what is now India. The Punjabis, Pashtuns and Sindhi's who have slowly been changing the ethnic balance are also aggregated around their own ethnic based parties. With the border with India becoming frozen the number of more migrants from that country has reduced thus MQM's majority will shrink further as other ethnic groups from Pakistan move there.
The result has been a ethnic based conflict which at times resembles civil war. All sides are armed to the teath and will fight to defend their economic interests. MQM has also been accused with some strong evidence that it retains strong links with India and is possibly being financed by Indian RAW intelligence.
This is the fundamental problem or structural as I called it in Karachi. I don't think the present calm is anything but a temperory abeyance. The underlying dynamic will rip open at some point. To make matters worse Sindh province is ruled by PPP a Sindhi dominated party whereas Karachi is in the hands of MQM. All this makes for a crazy pot pouri that I think even highly developed countries would have problems let alone a under developed country like Pakistan with a conflicted, divided polity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33148880
