Nehru’s Prescient Words During  India's 1st General Elections Resonate Today

S N Sahu | 27 May 2024

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On India’s first PM’s 60th death anniversary today, amid a polarising election campaign, his utterances on upholding the Constitution and defeating communal forces resound.

Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru (Centre) and Maulana Abul Kalam 'Azad' 

Sixty years ago, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, passed away on May 27, 1964 while serving his third consecutive term in office. As the solemn death anniversary of Nehru is being observed on May 27, 2024, the 18th general elections are being conducted in seven phases, with the last phase scheduled to take place on June 1.

While paying tribute to Nehru and recalling his rich legacy to build a new India from the ravages of centuries of colonial rule, and lay its foundation, among others, on the strength of science, technology, scientific temper and secularism, it is of crucial significance to reflect his ideas on elections, which he articulated a few days before the conduct of the first general elections in 1951 and during the conduct of its different phases.

It is illuminating to note that those articulations of Nehru on elections were so prescient that those are immensely relevant for our country today, when the conduct of 18th general elections are in full swing.

Nehru’s Warning on Coercive State Apparatus to Benefit a Party

In a letter to the Chief Minsters on June 5, 1951, five months before the commencement of the 1st general elections in November that year, Nehru wrote that he was accused by several opposition parties that he was instrumental in passing several legislations for the purpose of creating a coercive State apparatus with a view to winning the elections. He described the conduct of the 1st general elections as “a colossal affair taxing our administrative capacity to the utmost.”  “They will,” he remarked, “tax also our forbearance and will be a test for all of us”.

He proceeded to add that in the shadow of those elections, there were heated debates in Parliament and in the press, and in several quarters the legislation passed by the provisional Parliament was interpreted as a measure connected with those elections. Possibly, Nehru was referring to the Representation of People’s Act of 1951 and described the twisted interpretation given to it as “….a completely wrong inference.”

“Indeed,”, he sharply stated, “there could be no greater folly for a government, such as we are, than to use the repressive apparatus of the State to benefit any party”. “That itself,” he sensitively observed, “would rouse antagonism and lose support for that party.”  

Nehru’s utterances that “Indeed there could be no greater folly for a Government, such as we are, than to use the repressive apparatus of the State to benefit any party” resonate when people of India and Opposition parties are confronting a highly coercive State headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has employed several government agencies against Opposition parties and leaders, arrested leaders and even the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, former Chief Minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren before and during elections.

Even the bank accounts of the Congress party have been frozen by the income tax authorities in a bid to financially paralyse the party from conducting its election campaign. So, today, the State apparatus is being used to benefit a particular party.

The contents of the aforementioned letter of Nehru need to be recalled while paying tribute to him on his death anniversary and remind the nation that how, with a farsighted vison, he wrote therein that bullying tactics of the State for winning elections for the party in power would generate antagonism and diminish people’s support for it. What Nehru wrote before the conduct of general elections is being replayed now when the election process is in full swing across the country.

Warning on Communal Forces

In that letter, Nehru also wrote that dangerous attempts were being made to cause trouble during the elections by, what he called “some ill-disposed persons” and he very prophetically stated, “Mostly it is expected from communal groups”. He, therefore, cautioned that the nation should be prepared to meet that anti-social challenge, which he candidly said, represented “fascist forces who never participated in freedom struggle.”

And 60 years after Nehru’s sad demise and during the election campaign, none other than Prime Minister Modi, as a star campaigner of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is engaged in stoking communal passions and targeting Muslims by spewing poison against them.

The Election Commission of India has written to the BJP president, J P Nadda, that the star campaigners of his party should desist from violating the Model Code of Conduct , which prohibits parties or candidates from indulging in activities that “may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic.” 

While first Prime Minister Nehru, a few months before the conduct of the 1st general elections in 1951, indicted the communal groups for their attempts to engage in anti-social activities, the present Prime Minister, as BJP’s star campaigner, is being indicted by the Election Commission, albeit half-heartedly, for using religion and communally divisive narratives for appealing to the electorate to vote for his party.

It is instructive to note that Nehru, in another letter to Chief Ministers on October 4, 1951 wrote, “The near approach of elections has galvanized all kinds of communal parties into fierce activity”. He stated that this concerned itself not with any positive proposals but falsely targeted the Congress for its so called 'appeasement' policy toward Muslims.

Nehru also noted with deep anguish that the communal forces indulged in “an abundance of vulgar abuse” which, he said, went down with the crowd. He wrote with pain that the “vulgar and foolish approach and the inherent poison of communalism, which, if allowed free play, would break up India”.

However, he also expressed his optimism by writing that the “vulgar abuse peddling communalism” could be countered with presentation of facts before people, who were good enough to accept the narratives anchored in truthful account.

In another letter to Chief Ministers on November 1, 1951, Nehru referred to several aspects of electioneering as depressing and described the “ugly phenomenon of communalism” being pushed forward during the election campaign as the most dangerous development of the time.

That “dangerous” development flagged by Nehru during the first general elections is now being embraced by Prime Minister Modi with impunity, and in complete disregard of the law and the Supreme Court’s directions.

Nehru and Saving the Constitution

It is illuminating to note that Nehru, during the first general elections, wrote about the responsibility of the people in general and those occupying high offices in particular, for proper implementation of the Constitution. In a letter to Chief Ministers on April 15, 1952, while referring  to the formation on Congress ministries in Coorg, Delhi, Pepsu, Ajmer, Mysore and Madras, he wrote about the Constitution of India, defining the rights and responsibilities of the Centre and of the States. “But,” Nehru remarked, “however good the Constitution of a country might be, it depends ultimately on the people of that country, and more especially on those in positions of responsibility, how work is carried on and what results are achieved”.

Those utterances made by Nehru 72 years ago, assume added significance on the occasion of his 60th death anniversary in 2024, when election campaign is on and people have made “saving the Constitution” an electoral issue. They did so because those in positions of responsibility, such as several BJP leaders contesting to get elected to the Lok Sabha, stated that Modi after winning 400 plus seats, would change the Constitution.

The words of Nehru “however good the Constitution of a country might be, it depends ultimately on the people of that country, and more especially on those in positions of responsibility” resonates in today’s India and constitutes a propelling force for people to remind those occupying positions of responsibility not to tinker with it.

It is rather fascinating that the issue of the Constitution and its proper implementation, which Nehru said rested with those wielding power, is now being reiterated by people and they are in the forefront to defend it by making it a major election issue.

Nehru’s legacy is of enduring significance and in upholding it, we can defeat communal forces who are out to cause havoc to the ‘idea of India’ and the Constitution.  

The writer served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan. The views are personal.

 

We Are on the Side of Humanity: Sana’ Daqqah

Peoples Dispatch | 27 May 2024

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Sana’ Daqqah, activist, journalist, and the wife of the martyred Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa, addresses the People’s Conference for Palestine

Sana' Daqqah addresses the People's Conference for Palestine with Milad in her arms (Photo: Vivek Venkatraman)

On day two of the People’s Conference for Palestine, Sana’ Daqqah, activist, journalist, and the wife of the martyred Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqah, gave a special address to attendees, with her daughter Milad in her arms. 

Palestinian revolutionary Walid Daqqah spent 38 years as a political prisoner before being martyred behind prison walls on April 7, 2024. Daqqah’s family is now engaged in a struggle to return Daqqah’s body, which the Zionist state insists on keeping until Daqqah’s sentence is over. 

Israeli authorities inflicted many cruelties upon Daqqah while he was behind bars, including denying him and his wife conjugal visits, blocking his attempts to start a family. 

Nevertheless, against all odds, Sana’ gave birth to Milad Daqqah in February 2020, conceived through smuggled sperm. In 2011, Walid Daqqah penned a letter to his (then) unborn child, Milad, reflecting his aspirations for the future:

I write to a child, yet unborn …

I write to an idea or a dream that intentionally or unintentionally frightens the jailer; even before becoming a reality,

I write to any child,

I write to my child that has not been born yet,

I write to the birth (Milad) of the future.

This is how we want to name our child,

and this is exactly how I would like for the future to recognize us […]

Will I stop dreaming?

I’ll continue to dream despite this cruel reality,

I’ll search for a meaning for life despite what I have already lost.

They dig ancestors’ cemeteries searching for a delusional authenticity,

while we search for a better future for our grandchildren; one certain to come.

Salaam Milad, salaam my dear. 

Read the full transcript of Sana’s address below:

 

Good evening everyone, first of all, I want to thank you all and thank you for this invitation, and for the amazing conference that’s been organized, and for the welcome that I just received that instills in me inspiration, and serves me and Walid, and his story, and his message, and his struggle. He always said that Milad will carry his message into the future.

Walid was martyred in the Israeli zionist prisons, after 36 years of imprisonment. We have no doubt that there was a decision that was taken by the prison authorities to assassinate Walid. 

We always said, and we still continue to say that the aggression on Gaza, this barbaric, savage aggression, has created an opportunity for the Zionists to end whichever prisoner they wish to end. 

And Walid was on the top of this list that they wanted to assassinate. And we know this because he was martyred after a couple of hours of arriving at the hospital. Meaning, that they left him in prison until there was nothing that could be done when he got to the hospital. 

We are still in the middle of the battle to release him from the Israeli prisons so that we can bury him in his nation’s land. And as you know, the Zionists and their country are the only people that keep dead bodies after they are killed. And that shows that this is a country that sanctifies death over life. 

What allows for us to retain glory and honor is that we are on the side of humanity, that we are better than them morally because we are committed to our land and the freedom of our country. 

They are the ones who are on the dark side of humanity, they are the human monsters of humanity. And as Walid once said on Milad’s tongue, or Milad said on Walid’s tongue, we do not fear this country, as we produce life, while they produce death. 

To you dear attendees, I say, continue, continue to raise your voice, to fill the streets, demonstrate against this racist, barbaric, Zionist entity, and remember that our resistance is what roots us in our struggle. We will not capitulate. That it is either victory or death.

Walid spent nearly 40 years in prison, 40 years unlike any other. And throughout the duration of his time there, he would always produce a thought around what it means to respond to his conditions, to resist, and to confront. And Walid was a writer, and thinker, an academic, he taught generations within prison, after he, himself, was taught in prison. And he wrote a book specifically titled, “Searing of Consciousness,” and it discusses and evaluates the politics of the administration of the Israeli prison system. And it articulates how the strategies and the politics of the administration of prisoners inside of Israeli prisons predicated on the complete control of the human man, and that this engineered project of developing control of man is produced in prison, and exported outside of the prison to be implemented against the entirety of the Palestinian people, that’s meant to destroy them as humans.

Walid created a challenge for prison guards and was a fighter against the prison guards on every level. He created a cultural challenge for them through his writings, through teaching and through learning, and what he got in response was always abuse and torture. 

But there was nothing that me and Walid planned on doing that we didn’t do. And our biggest victory against the prison guards and imprisonment was Milad. We know that Milad created a flood in the prison because of the torture that Walid received as a response to giving birth to Milad. Because for years, they put him through solitary confinement, took away his personal belongings, his books, and didn’t allow him to learn. Having Milad was our biggest victory. 

After I became a mother and Walid became a father, he stayed in solitary confinement for years, and I honestly thought that he would not come out of it. The abuse went on for years and years.

I want to mention here that Walid has “Israeli” citizenship. And we see this as a way to stay on our land, because we are not going anywhere, and we will continue to fight on our land. But this is to tell you that he should have legal rights. But this is a racist country that continued to abuse Walid until his martyrdom. 

DEVELOPMENT: WHAT THE CHINESE ARE SAYING ABOUT CPEC IN PAKISTAN

Dr Muhammad Ali Shaikh 

Published June 2, 2024 

DAWN/EOS

Illustration by Radia Durrani

Pakistan and China formally established their diplomatic relations on May 21, 1951. For almost half a century, their primary focus remained mostly on strategic cooperation, evolving into ‘higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the oceans’ friendship, but devoid of significant economic partnerships. Even in 1999, the bilateral trade volume accounted for just 0.27 percent of China’s total trade.

The shift from the strategic friendship to economic partnership came during the early years of the present century, when both the countries developed an interest in the development of Gwadar as a deep-seaport and connecting it with China through land routes.

This strategic-cum-economic initiative was designated as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and brought under the umbrella of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Under the CPEC, China invested billions of dollars in Pakistan in various sectors, from energy generation to construction of roads, highways and rail networks. This heavy investment in Pakistan on the part of China invoked Chinese scholars and academics’ interest in Pakistan, resulting in a huge surge of research literature on various aspects related to Pakistan.

A lot has been said and written in Pakistan about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and its transformative potential. But how do Chinese academics and scholars see it and the challenges they see in its implementation?

However, as most of the research literature was in Mandarin, and confined to China’s exclusive academic networks, only a limited number of people could access it.

Recently, some of the important articles written about CPEC by Chinese scholars were translated into English. The present article is based on these translated articles. A disclaimer is also in order here, that the views quoted or referred to in this article do not necessarily represent the entire Chinese academic and research community.

Pakistan’s Expectations

One of the Chinese scholars’ major concerns has been Pakistan’s exaggerated and unrealistic expectations of CPEC, which they fear would be harmful for Pakistan and China relations in the long run.

Professor Xuemei Qian of China’s prestigious Peking University highlighted the vast difference in understanding about CPEC among Pakistani and Chinese people, stating, “Pakistani people… believe it [CPEC] is their hope to change their lives”, while for China, it is “just a project of the BRI.”

Qian writes that many Pakistanis regard CPEC a “game-changer” and even a “fate-changer”, expecting that, when completed, CPEC would bring fundamental changes to their lives. “However, whether CPEC can really change Pakistan, or to what extent can it change, is a question that can only be answered when it is completed,” she states. At the moment she said she was more concerned “whether CPEC can be implemented successfully.”

Qian also disputes the oft-quoted financial size of CPEC, amounting to $46 billion, stating that the figure was self-projected, and based on rough estimates of individual CPEC projects, calculated privately by some individuals.

She is of the view that this unauthentic figure was “translated by Pakistani media as well as the politicians” into the financial size of the project under their own motives, without any input or commitment on the part of the Chinese government.

“The developers from Punjab and Sindh, who had made a fortune from trading land in Balochistan, did not build schools and other social infrastructures as they had agreed,” writes Professor Ruoshui Jiao of Lanzhou University. “The government [too] did not fulfil its promise to promote the economic and social development of Balochistan, and the rural areas of Balochistan were getting even poorer.”

Qian feels that the negative fallout of believing in this erroneous figure has already unleashed struggles among various social and political forces in Pakistan, so as to grab the maximum share of benefits. This, the scholar believes, has resulted in “actions and competitions for interests, spreading among political parties and provinces, private and public sectors, government and the military forces.”

She also states that, while people in Pakistan are highly enthusiastic about the CPEC, the people in China “tend to be more concerned about the hardships and risks CPEC might encounter and bring about.”

Similar optimistic views about CPEC in Pakistan were highlighted in their joint paper by Professor Yao Huang of USA’s Duke University and Dr Yan He of China’s Tsinghua University. They wrote that being “one of the slowest developing South Asian countries, Pakistan considers CPEC as a lifeline to stimulate its economy and promote its infrastructure.” In their view “the government, military and research institutes in Pakistan have placed high expectations on China’s enormous investments [under CPEC].”

Aside from this optimism, the feelings of pessimism about CPEC prevailing in a segment of Pakistani society were highlighted by Dongkun Li of China’s Southwest Jiaotong University. The scholar stated that certain people in Pakistan “tend to believe that CPEC might leave Pakistan heavily indebted, domestic enterprises might be hit hard, and even the political intentions of Pakistan might be controlled by China.”

Li fears that these “gaps in understanding of CPEC by Pakistani society are likely to evolve into more anti-China movements in the future. And this is also the major challenge that Chinese FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] in Pakistan might encounter in the future.”

Obstacles to Chinese Investment

One of the primary concerns of many Chinese scholars have been the risks and threats to China’s FDI.

“Pakistan’s political risks are very high, only slightly better than Somalia and Syria,” commented Li. “Pakistan is significantly below the world average level in aspects of corruption control, government effectiveness, political stability and control over violence and terrorism, laws and regulations and rule of law, etc,” Li continues while advising Chinese stakeholders to exercise prudence while making FDI in Pakistan.

Among the top-most deterrents for Chinese FDI in Pakistan is religious extremism and sectarianism. “Different religious sects not only have different doctrines, laws, ceremonies and cultures, but also political demands and material rights. Therefore, religious fights in Pakistan are considerably fierce… increasing the threat to Chinese FDI in Pakistan,” Li writes. “Featured by its suddenness, uncertainty and mass destruction, terrorism… has become the major institutional risk for Chinese investors to decide whether to invest in Pakistan or not,” Li observed.

Some scholars have associated the degree of terrorism with poverty and lack of socio-economic development in that region. “The poorer the provinces remain, the more likely their inhabitants will be attracted and involved in radicalism,” wrote Huang and He.

“A large number of militants are from the lowest socio-economic segments of society, and most of the terrorist activities have been implemented by young males in the country… Having no opportunities in poverty, young people are likely to be attracted by madrassas associated with armed militant organisations which offer food, shelter, and a sense of group identity,” the scholars observed.

Militancy in Balochistan

Chinese scholars have extensively addressed the issue relating to militancy in Balochistan, citing it as the gravest threat for CPEC.

“Local separatists have taken various actions to fight for their independence, posing a major threat to CPEC,” wrote Dr Yuhang Xie of Southwest Jiaotong University. “In order to achieve their independent political goals, they [have] used bomb blasts and launched armed attacks on various energy infrastructures and non-Baloch people in Balochistan, which [has] made the local security situation very critical,” she continued.

Some Chinese scholars have pointed out that lack of stakes and benefits for local Baloch population in the development projects was an important factor contributing towards unrest in Balochistan.

“The developers from Punjab and Sindh, who had made a fortune from trading land in Balochistan, did not build schools and other social infrastructures as they had agreed,” wrote Professor Ruoshui Jiao of Lanzhou University. “The government [too] did not fulfil its promise to promote the economic and social development of Balochistan, and the rural areas of Balochistan were getting even poorer,” he continued.

Jiao was of the view that the Baloch “are dissatisfied with the excessive power of the central government and believe that the rights and interests of the province are not respected and protected, feeling strongly [they are] being deprived.” He gave the example of Gwadar port, where he said the “technical jobs were occupied mostly by the Punjabi people or other ethnic groups, and hardly by the [Baloch] people.”

Some scholars have underscored the link between the tribal or feudal sardari system and the turmoil in Balochistan. “The biggest risk for CPEC comes from the province of Balochistan, where the sardari system and tribal structure has been preserved till today… It is now the most serious political issue in Pakistan and the most prominent challenge for CPEC,” wrote Jiao.

Highlighting the essence of this tribal system, Xie wrote: “Under the sardari system and tribal structure, tribal members are loyal to tribal leaders and lack a sense of belonging towards Pakistan. This makes the ordinary Baloch people susceptible to incitement by the sardars to defy the federal government.”

But instead of blaming the Baloch and their sardars, Xie holds the federal government responsible for it.

“The federal government is, in fact, largely responsible for the powerful grip the sardari system continues to have on the region,” she states. “By neglecting its [Balochistan’s] socio-economic development for too long, the federal government has contributed to the widespread poverty and the low levels of political literacy and educational attainment in the province, which [is responsible] for the population’s susceptibility to incitement,” she observed.

Pakistan’s Political Dynamics

Chinese scholars have also studied Pakistan’s political and fiscal systems to determine their impact on CPEC. One aspect highlighted by many of them is Pakistan’s lopsided federal structure.

“Since Pakistan adopts federalism, there is a serious imbalance existing in the functioning of Parliament, because economic development and population distribution differ greatly among all the provinces… Dominance of only one province [Punjab] and one ethnic group [Punjabis] have escalated the political conflicts among all provinces and ethnic groups,” wrote Li.

Some scholars have attributed the selection of the eastern route for CPEC — passing through already relatively developed areas of Punjab and Sindh — over the western route, passing through poor and socio-economically backward provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, to the Punjab’s dominant political role in Pakistan.

The reason officially cited for preference of eastern route over the western one was the better security situation in Punjab and Sindh compared with the western route provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. However, Huang & He found it “untenable to view eastern provinces as safe havens, because CPEC’s facilities and employees can hardly be exempted from threats of attacks regardless of their locations.”

Jiao claimed that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had (allegedly) “intended to make Punjab province the privileged and biggest beneficiary of CPEC, which was firmly opposed by Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

Some scholars also have focussed on the poor performance of provincial governments in the social and economic development of their people, despite obtaining huge additional finances under the 7th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.

“With a larger share of revenues… [the provinces] also obtained greater social sector responsibilities [under] the 18th Amendment… However, the outcomes did not measure up to people’s expectations. Key social indicators, like the net primary school enrolment rate, infant mortality, and coverage of tap drinking water showed a degenerating trend instead,” wrote Huang and He.

Jiao has also discussed in detail the dynastic character of Pakistan’s political parties and its implications for CPEC. He has indicated that, while in the past there were just few families sitting at the top of their respective parties, the dynastic trend in politics has presently reached even the local or district level.

“At the local level, it is embodied by several big families occupying and consolidating their spheres of influence, who have formed their own vote warehouses and continue to strengthen the influence of dynastic politics through benefit transmission and vote control,” he opined. Because of the dynastic character, “ordinary people are hardly participating in democratic politics,” Jiao stated.

Jiao argues that, in such a dynasty-based political system, the interests of respective families take preference over everything else. “Even the national interests have never been the priority of Pakistan’s [dynastic] politics, let alone the interests of CPEC for China and Pakistan.”

To sum up, let me state that this is just a tip of the proverbial iceberg. Chinese scholars have written much more than that. A sort of consensus among them, in the words of Huang and He, is that “CPEC seems more challenging and high-risk than other corridors.”

I may add here that the only silver lining in the dark clouds for CPEC in the coming years is in China’s strategic interests in the Indian Ocean region.

The writer is a Sindh-based development communication professional and a former university vice-chancellor. He can be reached at drshaikhma@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 2nd, 2024

‘Demolition of my life’: Chronicling the horrors of forced evictions in Pakistan

Mass forced evictions violate a range of human rights including adequate housing, standard of health, education, social security, security of person, and freedom from cruel treatment.

Dawn.com 

Published May 29, 2024

“My husband, Ghulam, used to put a stall with samosas outside Empress Market. Last time when an anti-encroachment drive took place, police seized his cart without any prior notice,” said Sakina Wali, a 43-year-old domestic worker in Karachi.

“My husband was abused and humiliated by the staff concerned, and we had to pay them a hefty amount of Rs20,000 to get our cart back,” she recalled.

Hundreds of kilometres away in Islamabad, Farmanullah, who is the sole breadwinner for a family of seven, was arrested for committing the offence of “encroachment” and imprisoned for three months, along with a fine of Rs500,000. His crime: selling kulfi outside the Faisal Mosque.

According to a report by US-based group Human Rights Watch, titled ‘Abusive Forced Evictions in Pakistan’, forced evictions of urban poor across the country is a “frequent and widespread” problem. The irony is that because the victims of these operations are mostly from the poor and marginalised strata of society, data reflecting the scale of the problem is largely absent.

Forced evictions are driven by multiple factors, including urbanisation and development projects where the government and private developers acquire land for infrastructure projects, often displacing poor communities without due process and human rights protection.

“‘Anti-encroachment’ drives are another justification used for eviction operations,” the group said, noting that large parts of the urban population live in informal settlements lacking formal ownership documents and this coupled with lack of affordable housing, corruption and inefficiencies make them particularly vulnerable to evictions.

Several other factors provide an enabling environment for evictions such as the rapid pace of urbanisation, housing developments for the affluent displacing poor communities, land grabs by powerful private actors and a legal system that fails to protect the poor, it added.

A section of a stormwater channel in Karachi clogged with solid waste, where authorities claimed that rainwater could not pass through due to “encroachments”, 2021. — Karachi Bachao Tehreek


Colonial-era regulation

The framework of property rights in Pakistan is enshrined under the Constitution. Land ownership, transfer and acquisition are all governed by many federal, provincial and municipal laws and regulations.

Forced evictions in Pakistan rely on the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) — inherited by the British — which authorises public officials to evict people from land with minimal procedural safeguards for those displaced. When a government authority decides to acquire land, whether for public or private purposes, the law outlines the process for acquisition and compensation to affected persons.

“However, the law now permits Pakistani authorities to acquire land for other entities, including public-private partnerships and private companies,” the HRW report highlighted.

It stated that the LAA gives the government “almost exclusive authority to decide what falls within its scope and to displace people to achieve those aims”. Under the law, once the government decides that land is required for “public purposes”, the landowner has no legal recourse but to transfer ownership of the land.

“The LAA treats a title-based relationship with the land as the basis of eligibility and as a result does not cover displacement of ‘informal settlements’, areas recognised by the government that are entitled to some municipal services and protection against arbitrary evictions.

“The LAA also envisages cash payment as the only form of compensation and provides no provisions for relocation and resettlement support for displaced populations,” the report said, adding that the Act had been adapted and incorporated into other laws that regulate land acquisition for sector-specific development.

An impression of the futuristic Ravi Riverfront City project in Lahore, Pakistan. — Courtesy Meinhardt group



Over the years, the LAA’s inadequacies have been widely recognised, with the Supreme Court in a 2018 decision observing the law’s “shortcomings” with respect to compensation. “[It] remains a remnant of colonial times that should have been … amended to cater to our evolving socio-economic circumstances,” the apex court noted.
Anti-encroachment drives

Anti-encroachment operations are a frequently used “method of forced evictions of residential communities, small shops and markets in Pakistan”, the HRW report pointed out.

“In these operations, the authorities assert that evictions are necessary and justified under the law by removing structures that encroach on public lands,” it said.

It observed that Pakistan has various federal and provincial laws that define and, in certain cases, make encroachment a criminal offence. For instance, the municipal law in Islamabad defines encroachment as “illegal occupation of land or procuring its allotment in any unauthorised manner or by illegal means and includes the use of any land otherwise than in accordance with the terms of its lease, license or allotment”.

The HRW said it had documented numerous cases in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi where the manner of forced evictions and demolitions was “abusive, could not be justified as a proportionate measure and violated the rights of homeowners, families and occupants”.

“In almost all cases of anti-encroachment drives documented, the government failed to comply with international human rights standards on evictions, including providing those evicted with an alternative place to live.”

On November 7, 2021, a video of Zakia Bibi, a resident of Karachi’s Gujjar nullah, went viral on Facebook. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation had just demolished her home in an anti-encroachment operation on orders of the top court.

“Why don’t they kill us [all at] once?” she said in the video, which was cited by the HRW. Zakia went on to speak about her husband, who had a heart attack after seeing his house reduced to rubble. She referred to the demolition of her abode as the “demolition of her life” and everything she and her husband had built over a lifetime.

Four days later, on November 11, Zakia died of a heart attack.

“This was not the first death or the last for that matter to happen because of the demolitions. There is an emerging health crisis in the affected communities, directly linked to demolitions. There are multiple heart patients among the affectees of this anti-poor campaign.

“What will become of them? The government is signing their death sentence with every new demolition,” the report quoted Khurram Ali, convenor of the Karachi Bachao Tehreek, as saying of Zakia’s death.

Karachi has seen several anti-encroachment drives in recent years. In 2018, it was the Empress Market where over 1,000 shops were demolished. In 2020, it was the Orangi and Gujjar nullahs, where the evictions and demolitions affected up to 12,000 homes housing 96,000 people, the HRW said.

Karachi residents organise a sit-in to protest the Supreme Court’s ordering the demolition of their houses, 2021 — Karachi Bachao Tehreek


A never-ending list of failures

Pakistan’s judicial system, as highlighted in the report, has failed to protect people from forced evictions.

“Evicted residents often try to seek redress in the courts, but generally find that they are unable to obtain a meaningful remedy. Even when a court decides in favour of residents, it is often too late: their homes and businesses have already been demolished.

“Evicted individuals and communities are only able to contest the adequacy of compensation,” it said. The HRW, however, added that the law does not compensate for the loss of livelihood of the evicted nor requires the government to resettle and rehabilitate the displaced people.

It found that the cash compensation, rarely adequate, is not in accordance with market rates.

Rahim Dad, a 58-year-old farmer with land near the banks of River Ravi, which his family has lived on and cultivated for three generations and which was earmarked for acquisition by the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project (Ruda) in October 2022, termed the compensation he received “a joke”.

“The price that the government puts on our lives and livelihoods is ridiculous. There is no mechanism to calculate the market rate. They take over our lands which is in acres and will build high-rise buildings that they will sell at a rate/price per yard,” he told the HRW.

Apart from the compensation, the evictees also revealed that most of them had not been adequately informed of or consulted for the planned eviction operations.

Moreover, the HRW highlighted that the government either gave no formal notice or issued an insufficient notice before the evictions.

Maria Yaqub, a 21-year-old college student, had been informed that homes in her area, near the Gujjar nullah in Karachi, were marked for demolition, but was not informed when.

Women protest their eviction at a stormwater drain in Gujjar Nullah, Karachi, in 2021. — Maria Yaqoob via HRW

One day in April 2021, she returned home to see bulldozers ready to go to work. She asked the officials present to wait so that she could go in and save the photograph of her late parents from inside the house. She was told to hurry. There was no time to gather her other belongings and books. While she was inside trying to take the photo off the wall, she heard the bulldozers turning on. The giant yellow mechanical claw hit a wall, causing it to collapse immediately.

“I heard screaming and shouting [from outside]. The photo frame slipped from my hands. I ran out and escaped with my life —nothing else,” the report quoted Maria as saying.

While international law does not prescribe a specific notice period before evictions, the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing recommends that there should be a notice period of at least 90 days before any involuntary resettlement.

Further, the HRW noted that rights groups have documented the use of threats, intimidation and unnecessary or excessive force by officials to enforce evictions for development projects. In some instances, the evictions took place in highly charged circumstances leading to clashes between residents and the police.

Under international standards, the government must ensure that all feasible alternatives are explored with the affected community before the evictions are carried out, the report pointed out.

Long-lasting impacts of evictions

International human rights standards ensure that evictions should not lead to homelessness or expose individuals to further human rights violations, according to the HRW report. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has said that “[w]here those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the government must take all appropriate measures … to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available”.

In many cases, the group reported that evictions resulted in homelessness, and adversely impacted access to health and children’s right to education.

The LAA lacks provisions for the rehabilitation and resettlement of evicted individuals, and cash payments are often inadequate and delayed, leading to temporary homelessness and severe financial hardships, the report noted.

In cities, evictions frequently force low-income residents to move to suburbs or villages where their skills may be unusable, resulting in a significant loss of income. For example, Kashif Rehan, an air conditioner repairman in Islamabad, saw his income plummet after being evicted and relocating to a village.

“In its current form, the [LAA] critically remains silent on the issue of rehabilitation and resettlement, offering no recourse to families who lose their land, are inadequately compensated, and are unable to replace their assets or source of livelihood through the market,” Fizzah Sajjad, an urban planning expert, told the HRW.

Razia Khatoon, the sole breadwinner for her family, ran a women’s clothing shop in Lahore’s Anarkali bazaar for nearly 20 years. In 2016, her house and shop were marked for demolition for the metro train project.

“We were given compensation that was the cost of the shop and the house. But the cost of the shop is not only the land and the debris: it is the clients, the customers,” she said. “If I set up a shop in another area as an outsider, it would take me 20 more years to get to the level of sales that I had before the demolition.”

A marquee demolished along Kashmir Highway during CDA’s operation in Islamabad in September 2018. — File Photo


Furthermore, victims of forced evictions, often poor and living in informal settlements, face additional barriers to healthcare.

Citing research by the Karachi Urban Lab in 2020, which focused on 13 informal settlements, the HRW report said that households of eight to nine people lived on plots as small as 20 square yards. About 40 per cent had a family member needing special medical or social care, with 70pc at high risk of contracting viral illnesses.

Zain Ali, an office clerk, was evicted in 2017 when his house in Lahore was demolished for an infrastructure project. His paralysed, 80-year-old father lost social support and access to healthcare.

“After we had to move to the outskirts of the city, I lost all connections with the doctors and pharmacists, the hospital was two kilometres away and I didn’t have the support of the community. My father passed away less than one year after we were displaced,” Ali told the HRW.

The UN special rapporteur on adequate housing stated that evicted individuals needing medical care, including those with disabilities, “should receive the medical care and attention they require to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay”, according to the group.

Special attention should be given to the health needs of women and children, ensuring ongoing treatments are not disrupted by eviction or relocation. Additionally, economic assistance for relocation should consider access to health and medical care.

Moreover, forced evictions severely impact access to education for displaced people. During the construction of Lahore’s Orange Line Metro Train, at least 42 educational institutions were partially or completely demolished.

Forced evictions often leave people temporarily homeless and needing to relocate far from their original homes. Children often drop out of school when parents lose jobs, with many never returning, especially in a country with high school dropout rates. Girls are particularly at risk of permanently leaving school due to factors like gender discrimination, child marriage, sexual harassment, and the insecurity of travelling longer distances.

“Forced eviction and displacement often has disastrous consequences for access to health and education. In Pakistan, particularly for the socio-economically vulnerable segment in urban contexts, the social and communal contacts developed in neighbourhoods are critical for accessing municipal service, getting employment, school admissions, and affordable health care,” said Dr Shehryar, a former civil servant working with displaced groups, told the HRW.

The report cited research by the Karachi-based Urban Resource Centre, which found that an anti-encroachment campaign after the 2020 monsoon rains had disrupted the education of over 30,000 students. This is particularly devastating in low-income areas with already poor enrolment rates. Poverty is a major barrier to education, with even low costs being prohibitive for many families.

Many Pakistani children are out of school due to work, with girls often kept home for housework and caregiving. Evictions exacerbate poverty, pushing more families to send children to work instead of school.

Muhammad Ansar is one such child. He was in grade nine when his education was disrupted after his family home was demolished in Lahore. They moved to Sheikhupura due to financial constraints. Without income, Muhammad and his family took up daily wage jobs, leading him to abandon school for work in a factory, he told the HRW.

The HRW noted that displacement increased travel distance to schools, especially impacting girls. A Karachi resident, who relocated to Lyari Basti, told KUL that her daughter couldn’t continue education beyond grade 10 due to the absence of nearby colleges and her safety concerns about travelling alone as a single girl.
Recommendations

In its report, the HRW recommended comprehensive reforms to LAA to align it with international human rights standards. This includes prohibiting all forced evictions and respecting human dignity.

It also recommended exploring all feasible alternatives to eviction, consulting with affected individuals, and providing adequate notice, legal remedies, and compensation for loss of property. The law should guarantee access to justice, legal aid, and resettlement rights. Importantly, legislation should protect against discrimination, particularly concerning indigenous peoples, and ensure transparent and participatory land acquisition processes, with the right to appeal disputes to an independent body.

The HRW urged the federal and provincial governments to prioritise community participation in all stages of development planning and ensure fair compensation for landholders and occupants. They must prevent homelessness and uphold displaced individuals’ rights to alternative housing, along with access to essential services and livelihood opportunities.

Additionally, officials responsible for excessive use of force or property destruction during evictions should be investigated and prosecuted accordingly.

The group stressed that municipal authorities should ensure evictions are authorised through a fair and transparent process. Officials should receive proper training to uphold international law enforcement standards.

It called on key international actors to provide capacity-building support to local organisations and civil society groups to monitor government compliance with human rights obligations.

Furthermore, the HRW urged governments and financial institutions lending to Pakistan to ensure their policies do not hinder housing rights protection. The group recommended that the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing should raise concerns with the Pakistan government and request a mission to investigate forced evictions.

Header image: White Star/File photo

“The farmer community desperately needs social protection”

Rizwan Hussain, MD & CEO, Salaam Takaful, speaks to Mariam Ali Baig about his mission to provide insurance coverage to Pakistan’s farming community.

MARIAM ALI BAIG

DAWN

PUBLISHED 06 MAY, 2024 


MARIAM ALI BAIG: Let’s start with a brief overview of Salaam Takaful.

RIZWAN HUSSAIN: I have been in this industry for 34 years. I worked with EFU, one of the largest insurance companies in Pakistan, for 27 years. In 2018, my partner and I and our families bought this company, which was then known as Takaful Pakistan Limited. At the time, it was not doing well, so we started to rebuild the image and the business. Today, Alhamdulillah, despite Covid-19 and recent economic stresses, we have become the largest Islamic non-life insurance company in Pakistan. It was a tough and challenging journey.

MAB: Why did you decide to buy this company?

RH: I was fed up. We have the lowest insurance penetration in the region, and this has been the case for the last 30 to 40 years.

MAB: Why is that so?

RH: One, people’s beliefs; halal versus haram; Islamic versus non-Islamic; two, the perceived value of the product for the customer.

MAB: What prompted you to put a significant emphasis on agriculture?

RH: Because I believe people in Pakistan should have the benefit of insurance and social protection.

Crop insurance in different forms has existed for donkey’s years in Pakistan, predominantly pushed by the State Bank of Pakistan through a product known as the Crop Loan Insurance Scheme. However, in our view, the pricing mechanism of this scheme is not beneficial for the farmer and that is why we stepped in and introduced our own product, which is a parametric crop product.

MAB: What is a parametric product?

RH: It is a relatively new concept in the insurance market, and although it has been around for about 10 years, it is only now gaining traction globally, particularly within the social impact space. The companies engaged in parametric products are those that provide coverage for crop damage or damages caused by natural calamities to middle- and low-income people who cannot put themselves back together unless they have some kind of coverage. In this regard, the likes of the Insurance Development Forum, the World Bank and the UN are all engaged in these kinds of initiatives and we believe that if introduced in Pakistan, we could give our farmers the support they need.

MAB: How does this work?

RH: We sell them a product based on a pre-agreed set of parameters, which include excessive rainfall or heat, drought or earthquake, floods and so on. All the parameters are pre-defined. For example, if the heat index hits 50 degrees Celsius over a farmer’s acreage, we will compensate him, no questions asked, and his agreed compensation will automatically go into his bank account. We can do this because we have access to the temperature on his farm on a daily basis through our app. The app also provides farmers with crop advisories, including what to do if the temperature is rising. The beauty of this product is that it requires no human intervention. We do not want to bring in loss adjusters, as this usually creates conflict between the insured and the insurance company. A parametric product may be slightly expensive, but the compensation and coverage it provides are far superior to any product available in Pakistan.

MAB: Do you work with individual as well as corporate farmers?

RH: Yes.

MAB: What is the split percentage-wise?

RH: It would be 95% corporate and five percent individual farmers. The inherent challenge with individual farmers is the lack of penetration, although we have invested a lot in reaching out to them. We have also set up a framework to enable us to go to the farmers directly through NGOs because they trust them. The challenge is the lack of awareness and money. Individual farmers do not have enough money to buy inputs, let alone insurance.

MAB: Do you think a shift to corporate farming would be beneficial to farmers?

RH: It would be because, from the farmer’s perspective, his crop is actually being bought. All he has to do is work with the corporate farming community to produce the required output.

MAB: How technology-driven is your product?

RH: It is all technology-driven. For example, it requires 50 to 60 years’ worth of weather data to even start thinking about it.

MAB: From where do you access your data?

RH: Through local and international sources. Irriwatch in the Netherlands is one of our weather data providers. We are on the verge of signing up for IBM’s data intelligence suite, the GIS system and we are also exploring local solutions, and in this respect, the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission provides an excellent level of data.

MAB: Who crunches the data?

RH: Our in-house team does the data punching and data calibration. This is how we come up with a product that defines the maximum and minimum scope of coverage for the temperature in a particular region based on historical data and trends over the last 10 to 15 years.

MAB: Who manages your app?

RH: Our IT team and Infarmer, our local partner, manage this. After the farmer has mapped his farm, the app will provide him with climate-smart agriculture notifications. The advisory is customised which is why it is important that each farm is mapped because conditions can change every 0.25 kilometres.

MAB: How sophisticated is the farmer?

RH: Farmers are very smart. We send out our field officers to meet them or the communities and train them on using the app; we also provide videos in the local language.

There are almost eight million farmers in Pakistan and only a fraction of them are getting insurance coverage. Yet, the farmer community desperately needs this social protection. For this to work, the community needs to be engaged. We have established almost 25+ partnerships within the ecosystem, including seed and fertiliser companies, NGOs, weather and actuarial modelling companies and banks. There has to be an ecosystem, because only then can we create the required social impact. As an insurance company, I cannot do this alone. I have to create that ecosystem and this takes time. Enabling the technology takes time as well. We have been investing in this product for the last three years.

MAB: Based on what you are saying, the market penetration for this product is very low.

RH: It is almost non-existent. It is only the tip of the iceberg. Farmers don’t have the money. They subsist on a cycle of debt. They buy seeds and fertiliser; they sell the output; and the cycle continues.

On top of that, we don’t have a unified agriculture policy. Since the 18th Amendment was passed, the provinces have a lot more control over how things are run, and the regulatory requirements for each province are different. There has to be a unified push in terms of agricultural policy and how we protect our produce. Unlike Bangladesh, India or Indonesia, where crop insurance is mandatory, in Pakistan it is not. There has to be a fundamental shift so that we look at our produce as providing the country with the food security it needs and you do this by ensuring farmers have access to the facilities they need and by providing them with adequate insurance protection.

Even if the government makes insurance protection compulsory, the farmer doesn’t have the money to buy it.

MAB: What is the solution?

RH: It has to be subsidised. Globally, wherever these schemes have worked, they have been subsidised.

The seed and fertiliser companies and the whole ecosystem should be incentivised so that the cost of the insurance is absorbed by all the stakeholders, including the government and the insurance companies.

For feedback: aurora@dawn.com