Graffiti: Contributing to a Political, Religious and Social Turmoil

Bangali Baba’s message carved on one of the walls on streets of Karachi began like this:

“Mehboob apke qadmon main……..”

Another hilarious one says:

“Parhey likhey rishton k liye raabta karen: 03*********”

How often have we the educated lot seen these on the streets of Karachi finding them amusing, ignored and later walked away? Do we ever pause and consider how these are leading to a great anti-social turmoil. The impoverished class of our nation easily is falling into a trap created by the poison of these predatory messages.


The age of racing cars, dolls and video games is gone; seems like human mind is the best toy to play with in contemporary times. The knowledge of psychology has been put to use not just by politicians, marketers, and advertisers but also by common people; people who have a motive of breeding their way of thinking and ideologies into the systems of the masses. An extremely inexpensive yet effective in terms of frequency of exposure way of communication like Graffiti has done wonders.

“Only Altaf”
“Bus bohat hogaya……Land mafia……”
“JUI”
“Mohammed k gulaamon ko Amreeka ki gulaami na-manzoor”




I happened to come across these messages supporting political schemes and religious motives a couple of days ago. The influential entities of each political party in Karachi have printed messages about their ideas within the vicinities of their rule. This has contributed to sectarian divide and political unrest in the past few weeks majorly. Also the promotion of so many filthy operations like palm readers, matrimonial services, bangali babas, and future tellers is letting our uneducated populace astray.

Recently when the news broke out that Pakistan will grant India with the status of “Most Favored Nation”, protests from all over the country were well evident in the form of graffiti. Freedom of speech and expression were exercised through this medium. A country where the lower class feels the utter need of a representation becomes very easily convinced by these ideas and indulges into wrong doings.

Even though regulators have tried to put an end to graffiti in the past and various voluntary organizations have painted the walls back to white to remove negative messages, many slums and interior localities still have abominating messages contributing a great deal to the animosity existing in the minds of our generations.

The end note to my discussion: We don’t need a dictator to destroy our state now. Nor is a foreign force required to ruin and dilute our identities. Religious maniacs and political activists dwelling in our state are doing the job subtly yet so well. The time is not far when all we will be is a state full of contaminated religious ideologies, political hatred and individuals with bigoted mindsets.