About the Book: Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for City
A brilliant study of one of the hotspots of the subcontinent, the city of
Karachi
With an official population approaching fifteen million, Karachi is one of the
largest cities in the world. It is also the most violent. Since the mid-1980s,
it has endured endemic political conflict and criminal violence, which revolve
around control of the city and its resources (votes, land and bhatta-protection
money). These struggles for the city have become ethnicized. Karachi, often
referred to as a Pakistan in miniature, has become increasingly fragmented,
socially as well as territorially. Despite this chronic state of