Sunday, July 13, 2025

KULTURKAMPF

Thesis and Antithesis of Indian Cinema in Past Decade

Aniket Gautam | 11 Jul 2025

Ambedkarite and Marxist filmmakers, especially Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi, are opposing dictates of the ruling Hindutva dispensation in an uncompromising way.

In continuation of its ruthless neo-fascistic onslaught on artistic freedoms and curtailment of freedom of expression and speech, the film certification board (CBFC) has become an active instrument of the ruling Hindutva regime. In the Indian context, the Censor Board has always created constraints before the release of films containing potentialities of disturbing the common sense constructed and manufactured by State power.

However, the existence of the Censor Board itself has always been a controversial subject since its inception. Despite constant objections from the wide circle of the artists to the necessity of the Board's existence, State power continues to manipulate the creative freedoms in accordance with the interests of the ruling classes and big corporations. Therefore, the question remains – why do the ruling classes want to shape, control and interpellate cultural reproduction?

This cannot be answered without concretely analysing the objective conditions of our time.

Recently Phule, a film made on the life and struggles of the social revolutionaries, Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, who throughout their life collectively waged a war against Brahmanism, feudalism and religious dogmatism, had to face serious outrage from Savarna elites. Even several political organisations of the upper caste elites protested and held meetings against the release of the film.

The film certification board asked its filmmaker, Anant Mahadevan to remove certain words like, Mahar, Peshwai and Matang. Apart from these removals, the board went further to remove dialogues depicting the caste inequalities. Unnecessary cuts and removals hollowed out the radical content and rage of the film.

This case of the film Phule not only revealed the Brahmanism embedded and camouflaged in the caste society itself, but also exposed the fact that any artistic creations concerned with the caste, gender or class, will be either partially censored or completely banned. They will be subjected to the consent from the state power.

Another film, Santosh, which dealt with the caste inequalities and sexism rooted in the Indian social fabric and bureaucratic apparatus, is completely banned in India. The Censor Board, not limiting itself to these films, has also created hurdles before the upcoming film Dhadak 2. This upcoming film is the Hindi remake of the Tamil masterpiece, Pariyerum Perumal. The board has asked the makers of Dhadak 2 to remove certain dialogues associated with caste exploitation. One of them being the “three thousand years of caste slavery”.

One of the commonalities in these films, is that the “caste question” is central to these films around which the entire plot revolves. Furthermore, director Honey Trehan’s film Punjab 95, based on the life of Punjabi human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, is almost uncertain to be released. The board persons have initially asked to make 21 cuts in the films and all the references to the Punjab Police. Later on, the Board extended the number of cuts to 127, making it almost impossible for it to be publicly released.

Beyond these cuts, unsurprisingly, the film certification board has asked for removal of the name of “Jaswant Singh Khalra”. For people unknown to the name, Khalra was a human rights activist from Punjab, who wrote a report on the enforced disappearances of the thousands of civilians in Punjab at the height of insurgency. Unfortunately, Khalra was murdered by the nexus of State apparatus in Punjab. His investigation about the enforced disappearances in the Punjab region posed serious challenges to the violence concealed in the actions taken by the state power. The ruling regime does not even want the name of this martyr to be known among Indians. It is an attack on the collective memory of the survivors of State violence in Punjab.

Film Censorship: Cultural Hegemony of Ruling Class

Italian Marxist revolutionary, Antonio Gramsci, who himself had faced the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, wrote 29 notebooks under harsh conditions in prison. Gramsci's notes were being censored by the authorities during his long incarceration. Keeping that in mind, he successfully smuggled the notes to his comrades. Therefore, he subsequently found different ways of passing his notes and political opinions to the outside world. These notes, later named and concealed in his Prison Notebooks, provided profound insights about politics, culture and hegemony.

Gramsci’s concept of Cultural hegemony is central to his theory. So, what does he mean by cultural hegemony and how it is reproduced by the State? In the simplest sense, cultural hegemony is the domination of the ruling classes produced by both coercion and consent. In Gramsci’s theorisation, civil society was an important sphere of ideological struggle.

Institutions, such as CFBC, operate as the arm of the ruling class to shape the discourse and control masses in nuanced and subtle ways. Belonging to the same tradition, philosopher Louis Althusser elaborated how conditions of consent to the ruling ideology are constantly reproduced by the ruling material force. In Althusser’s conceptualisation, ideology has a material existence and it is manufactured through the ideological state apparatus that interpellates masses into subjects of the ruling ideology and simultaneously everything appears “common sense”.

Both Gramsci and Althusser wrote about how culture plays a dominant role in creating common sense and interpellating masses. If we consider the immediate effect of film censorship in India, it proves that CBFC is one among the many State apparatuses of the ruling Hindutva regime. Only films that serve the interests of the Hindutva ideology are promoted and appreciated whereas films depicting social, historical and cultural realities are either partially censored or banned from public release in India. Artists have neither freedom “from” nor “freedom to do”. This onslaught by the ruling dispensation is also against the rich heritage of the progressive cultural movement in India.

Where Does Hope Lie?

A close friend of the German writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin and symbol of the revolution, playwright Bertolt Brecht famously said, “In the contradiction lies the hope”. Therefore, this is where hope lies. The objective condition of the present times does not strike pessimism, instead it ignites the spirit of optimism. The contradictions between the Censor Board and filmmakers have also led to productive interaction of cultural diversity. However, conditions have certainly intensified against the interests of the films concerned with the social, historical or political content in a definite sense.

While Hindi-speaking cinema is on the brink of getting saffronised in the complete caste and class interests of the ruling ideology, Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi cinema have produced milestone films in the past years.

Resistance can be seen in the films of these regions. The Ambedkarite and Marxist filmmakers have refused to bow down to the dictates of the ruling dispensation with the neo-fascist characteristics.

The film, Court, released in 2014 and is a profound artistic and political creation because it doesn't tie itself in the boundaries of a particular language. It is a multilingual film. The story of the film revolves around the court as the title is named, wherein the Ambedkarite cultural activist, Narayan Kamble is tried. Kamble is accused of inciting a Dalit sewage worker of committing suicide with his protest songs. The movie was legendary in many senses because it captured the terrible conditions of Dalit cultural activists and how they are seen as a threat to State power. Their cultural expression challenges the Hindutva-corporate nexus.

Dissent as the nucleus of Dalit performative arts often makes them vulnerable to seditious laws. We are not unknown to the names of Kabir Kala Manch artists kept behind the bars for their cultural and artistic expressions.

The relevance of Court and its artistic expression can be realised from the fact that Kabir Kala Manch activists Ramesh Gaichor, Jyoti Jagtap, Sagar Gorkhe and Sachin Mali are behind the bars for the past five years and there is no positive sign of them getting bail soon. They are the “Narayan Kambles” of present day India.

Under the same paradigm of Court, are the films Fandry and Sairat (Marathi). Both these films directed by the Ambedkarite filmmaker Nagraj Manjule have dealt with caste and class inequalities predominant in rural Maharashtra. In one of the scenes in Fandry, viewers can see the wall portraying the images of Babasaheb Ambedkar and Savitribai Phule. This particular frame is not a usual expression in Indian cinema. Sairat remains the greatest ever Marathi hit.

Cinema in the South is far ahead in exposing the social realities of our society. The influence of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Periyar and Karl Marx can be seen easily in their films. The way social questions are dealt in Tamil and Malayalam cinema is unmatchable. Material questions of land, class struggle and systemic inequalities are beautifully depicted in their artistic creations.

The emergence of Marxist and Ambedkarite filmmakers like Vetrimaran, Mari Selvaraj and Pa Ranjith have democratised cinema with incredible artistic creations. Films such as Vaada Chennai, Kaala, Kabali, Pariyerum Perumal, Viduthalai, Thangalaan, Karnan, Asuran and Kabali are a never-ending list of treasures of Indian cinema.

In Hindi cinema, the director of the Masaan, Neeraj Ghaywan is a lone Dalit artist, who is able to depict social and material realities of the marginalised sections and reflect on the social and political conditions of our time. His latest film, Homebound, got a nine-minute-long standing ovation at the Cannes film festival this year. Ghaywan is the only person in Bollywood who has publicly embraced his Dalit identity. From being fearful of his Dalit identity to embracing his identity, Neeraj has gone through a long journey. Apart from Masaan and Homebound, his contributions in Geeli Puchi are not unknown to us.

Conclusion

It is evident that the past 10 years in Indian cinema have been decisive in many ways. The three things visible in the contemporary discourse on Indian cinema can be defined as increased film censorship, films oriented towards the ideological interests of the ruling classes, and the emergence of the Dalit-Bahujan discourse in Indian cinema.

Only a dialectical understanding of the cinema discourse can provide concrete insights into the development and decline of popular culture itself. Cultural production is not spared from cultural discourse in contemporary India.

From the abolition of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) to banning of films like Santosh, the state power in its objective manifestation in the CBFC has unleashed an ideological war against any artistic creation having the potential to break the “common sense” created by the Hindutva dispensation.

Artists, filmmakers and writers are also keeping the dissent alive against the cultural hegemony of the dominant classes. Ambedkarite and Marxist filmmakers are opposing the ruling dictates of our time in an uncompromising way. This phase in the history of Indian cinema is the period of Ambedkarite assertion.

If State-sponsored and -promoted cinemas is a thesis, then Ambedkarite-Marxist cinema is the anti-thesis. Rather than being applauded by the Hindutva-corporate neoliberal dispensation, artists like Nagraj Manjule, Neeraj Ghaywan, Vetrimaran, Pa. Ranjith and Mari Selvaraj have decided to serve the collective interests of the toiling masses and ensure that their stories are expressed on the big screen.

The writer is pursuing a Masters in political science at the Department of Political Science, Delhi University. The views are personal.

New Assembly in Naples to Bring Sahel Voices to Forefront

Ana Vračar | 12 Jul 2025

On Saturday, July 12, Naples will host an assembly uniting the Sahel diaspora, AES diplomatic representatives, and local communities to amplify voices from the region.

Rally in Naples on April 13. Photo: Potere al Popolo

On Saturday, July 12, Naples will host a new political and cultural assembly supported by members of the diaspora of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Beginning at 11 am, the city’s iconic Piazza Garibaldi will welcome artists from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, alongside diplomatic representatives from these countries and the local community.

“The political aim is to bring the voice of the Sahel to the forefront in its struggle for sovereignty, development, and security,” Bouyagui Konate of the Patriotic Movement of the AES Diaspora told Peoples Dispatch.

“But it’s also about pushing back against the shifting policies of imperialist and neocolonialist countries,” he added. “Expectations are high for this event because it symbolizes the resistance of the Sahel’s people, but not only theirs.”

Organizers insist that the event will go beyond raising awareness about the new political direction taken by AES governments. It will also serve as a platform to reflect on the necessity of building broader unity across the African continent.

A similar thing was true at last year’s gathering, where left media highlighted the many articulated denunciations of French and European colonialism that echoed through the square. At the time, Contropiano noted that the political mobilization of people from Sahelian states in Italy, long overlooked except by a few, including activists from the Naples social center ex-OPG Je so’ pazzo, would increasingly require attention and solidarity from progressive groups.

Since then, the Patriotic Movement of the AES Diaspora has continued to mobilize, especially in response to the portrayal of AES countries in European media. In April, Konate warned of the strong bias in media coverage of Sahel leaders Assimi Goïta, Ibrahim Traoré, and Abdourahamane Tchiani. “Media outlets keep spreading misinformation, such as AES states hiring mercenaries or working for Russian interests. That’s simply not the reality,” Konate told Peoples Dispatch at the time.

In the months that followed his statement, AES governments have continued taking concrete steps towards independence from West colonial powers. These have included reclaiming control of natural resources like gold and uranium and announcing the creation of the Sahelian Criminal and Human Rights Court to address longstanding impunity, particularly regarding abuses committed by terror groups that emerged following NATO’s attacks on Libya.

In this context, events like Saturday’s gathering in Naples play a key role in strengthening ties between left movements and Sahelian communities in Europe, building support for anti-colonial struggles in West Africa and beyond.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

Capitalism: Rolling Back Welfare Spending to Serve the Rich

Prabhat Patnaik | 12 Jul 2025

Cuts in welfare spending in the US via the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ will soon be followed by similar curtailment all over the metropolitan capitalist world.

Immediately after the war, when capitalism had faced a serious existential crisis, it had adopted a dual strategy to cope with it. First, it whipped up the “red scare” which was absolutely without any justification, in order to terrorise the domestic working class into acquiescing with the system.

Second, it was forced to make adjustments in its modus operandi, of which four in particular deserve attention, namely, formal political decolonisation, the introduction of democratic governance based on universal adult franchise, the acceptance of Keynesian “demand management” to eliminate mass unemployment, and the adoption of welfare state measures everywhere, especially in Western Europe.

These changes were so significant that an impression got around that “capitalism had changed”, that it was no longer the old predatory capitalism which prevailed, but a new “welfare capitalism”.

With finance capital gathering strength during the long post-war boom that followed, and with this finance capital going global, which paved the way for an attenuation of the autonomy of the nation-state and the imposition of a neoliberal regime everywhere, these post-war measures were getting reversed anyway. But this reversal has now acquired an unprecedented momentum.

The open genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinians with the support of metropolitan capitalism has a brutality equalling if not exceeding that of colonial times. The upsurge of neo-fascism and of bourgeois authoritarianism has attenuated the democratic space available to people.

The economic crisis of world capitalism can no longer be treated through Keynesian “demand management” because of the hegemony of globalised finance. And now there is also a concerted effort to roll back welfare spending everywhere, and to devote the resources released from it for making financial transfers to capitalists and for raising military expenditure.

Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” which got passed by both houses in the US and has now become law, is a massive assault on welfare spending. According to the Congressional Budget Office, which makes estimates independent of the US government, this Bill will give tax concessions whose cumulative value over the next 10 years is $4.5 trillion; and the main beneficiaries of the tax concessions will be the rich.

In addition, military expenditure will rise cumulatively by $150 billion and “border security” (that is, expenditure incurred for keeping out immigrants) by $129 billion. All these outgoings are financed through a cut in Medicaid by $930 billion, in Green Energy by $488 billion and in Food Benefit by $ 87 billion.

Medicaid is the programme that is meant to help the most vulnerable sections of American society, such as the old, the poor and the disabled; and curtailing it, as the Bill does, is to hit at the most helpless segments of this society. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is a brazen transfer of benefits from the poorest to the richest.

Of course, the tax concessions are far larger than even the curtailment in expenditures mentioned above. As a result, fiscal deficit in the US is slated to increase cumulatively over the next decade by $3.4 trillion.

The US government, in short, will be borrowing on its own account, and reducing the welfare expenditure it undertakes, in order to simply hand over wealth to the American rich. This is sought to be justified in the name of reviving the economy. But if revival was the objective, then the government itself should have directly spent what it borrowed; instead, it is just handing over all this purchasing power to the rich. Its impact by way of stimulating the economy will be trivial; it amounts only to a gratuitous addition to the wealth of the rich.

A question will arise here. A larger fiscal deficit is disliked by finance capital. Even when the larger fiscal deficit is incurred for financing transfers to the rich, finance capital still does not like it. In fact, this is what Liz Truss, a former British Prime Minister had tried to do; but so great was the objection of finance to her programme that the pound-sterling fell in value and Liz Truss had to resign. She became in the process the shortest-serving Prime Minister in the entire history of Britain, with a tenure of no more than 50 days. How then has finance capital allowed Donald Trump to undertake larger borrowings for making larger transfers to the rich?

Of course, it is still not clear if Trump has got away with a larger fiscal deficit; that is, whether finance capital will not force him to curtail the fiscal deficit further, not necessarily by reducing transfers to the rich but by cutting down welfare expenditures even further.

But Trump does have some leeway because of the fact that the American dollar has a status today that is quite different from that of the British pound sterling. The world’s wealth-holders still regard the dollar to be almost “as good as gold”, and would be unlikely to move out of it even in the face of Trump’s enlarged fiscal deficit. This leeway was not available to Liz Truss when she embarked on her infamous plan to make deficit-financed transfers to the British rich.

The curtailment in welfare spending that is occurring in the US at present is soon going to be followed by a similar curtailment all over the metropolitan capitalist world. At a NATO summit held on June 24-25 in the Hague, a decision was taken to raise military spending in all member countries of NATO to 5% of GDP by 2035. The current spending is about 2% of GDP and in many countries not even that. NATO countries, especially those in Europe, in other words, are planning to raise their military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP in a decade’s time.

Now, the currencies of other NATO countries are not comparable to the American dollar, which is why they cannot raise their fiscal deficits relative to GDP in defiance of the wishes of globalised finance capital. Besides, most European NATO countries, being members of the European Union, are statutorily constrained not to raise their fiscal deficits above 3% of their GDP, which is more or less the level where it currently is anyway.

Since taxing the rich is out, again in deference to the wishes of finance capital, it follows that the rise in military expenditure will have to be effected at the expense of the working people in these countries, which can take the form either of higher taxation imposed on the workers or of cuts in welfare expenditure.

Of the two alternative ways of raising the burden on the workers, cuts in welfare spending are obviously more easily achieved, though it matters little which way is adopted, for both ways entail a decline in the living standard of the workers. The imposition of an additional burden of 3% of GDP on the workers is an immense imposition. The NATO countries, in short, have given clear notice that even officially the days of so-called “welfare capitalism” are over, that the world is back to the days of “predatory capitalism”.

Why have NATO countries decided to raise their military spending? There is, of course, the standard invoking of a Russian threat to Western Europe. But even in the heyday of the so-called Soviet threat that was invoked to justify the Cold War, such high levels of military expenditure had never been witnessed.

Besides, even today, the annual military expenditure of Russia is less than a third of the total annual military expenditure of the European NATO countries alone, even if we leave aside the US. So, the “Russian threat” is just a camouflage.

The significantly higher military expenditure to which the NATO countries have committed themselves is motivated by a desire to protect a crumbling Western imperialist order by using force against all countries that are seen as possible challengers to this order. The bombing of Iran was motivated by this desire; and the coming years are likely to see several such instances of aggression.

It is to prepare for such aggression that the workers of the advanced countries are being made to sacrifice whatever welfare measures they had enjoyed till now. A crumbling imperialism, however, is dangerous in the extreme, for it is perfectly capable of pushing the world to a catastrophe. The recklessness involved in bombing Iran’s nuclear sites testifies to this. Raising the awareness of people all over the world to resist this imperialist recklessness thus becomes absolutely necessary.

The writer is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views are personal.

INDIA

Kolkata: Indigenous Azonian Process Flagged as ‘Game Changer in Achieving Net Zero

Sandip Chakraborty | 07 Jul 2025

Developed by a TERI SAS scientist, the ‘scalable’ process utilises aquatic fern Azolla to absorb and store atmospheric CO2 in a vertical farming structure, through its rapid biomass production.

Seminar on carbon management in Kolkata.

Kolkata: By 2030, India has set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 50% and record net zero by 2070, which means that the amount of greenhouse gases produced should be equal to the amount removed from the atmosphere. Is this attainable?

One such process, the Azonian Process, of carbon capture, claims to be a ‘game-changer’ in this regard. The process was showcased at a recent seminar in Kolkata, titled “Leveraging Carbon and Carbon Management for Profitability: Scopes and Challenges”, organised by think-tank Knowgen Education Services (P) Ltd.

“It’s an indigenous process of carbon capture, the patent of which has already been applied for,” Sridev Mookerjea, a Singapore-based entrepreneur told Newsclick, after showcasing the Azonian Process.

Achieving net-zero emissions means balancing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with their removal from the atmosphere, effectively neutralising the impact on global warming. This is done by first reducing emissions as much as possible and then offsetting any remaining emissions through methods, such as carbon sequestration or carbon credits. Net-zero is a crucial global strategy to combat climate change, aiming to stabilise global temperatures and mitigate the severe impact of global warming.

The primary step entails minimising the release of GHGs from various sources, such as fossil fuel consumption, industrial processes, and transportation.

When emissions cannot be reduced to zero, the remaining emissions are offset by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. This can be achieved through utilising natural processes, such as reforestation, afforestation, and wetland restoration to absorb carbon dioxide. Also, technologies like direct air capture (DAC) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) can be employed to remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere or from industrial sources.

All this requires investing in projects that reduce or remove emissions and purchasing credits for those emissions.

Elaborating on the Azonian Process of carbon capture, developed by researcher and principal scientist Souradeep Basak, the prime mover behind the initiative, and Mookerjea, who is also former member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of CSR of the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said, “The Azonian Process is a nature-based carbon capture initiative. It utilises the aquatic fern, Azolla, to absorb and store atmospheric carbon dioxide in a vertical farming structure, aiming for a scalable and sustainable solution to reduce CO2 emissions.”

He added that “Azolla is a fast-growing aquatic fern with a high capacity for carbon sequestration, absorbing carbon dioxide at a rate that surpasses many terrestrial plants. Its rapid growth and ability to thrive in water make it suitable for vertical farming applications.”

The process involves a vertical, multi-tiered structure that houses Azolla, allowing for continuous carbon capture through its rapid biomass production, effectively removing it from the atmosphere.

“The process is designed to be a cost-effective and replicable model for carbon capture,” he added.

According to Mookerjea, the Azonian process aims to be a scalable solution, “meaning it can be adapted for various institutions and industries. Its nature-based approach is seen as a sustainable complement to technological carbon capture methods.”

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Annual Report 6, annual anthropogenic emissions were estimated to be 59 ± 6.6 GtCO2e in 2019. The historical net carbon emissions since 1850 to 2019 is e 2400 ± 240 GtCO2e [1], with a remaining carbon budget of 500GtCO2 from 2020 onward to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

With the planet already having warmed by about 1.1°C, scalable carbon dioxide removal technologies are essential to achieve a net zero emission scenario in the second half of the 21st century, he said.

Several negative emissions technologies and pathways have been developed, such as direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, ocean fertilisation, biomass energy with carbon capture and storage, biochar, and nature-based solutions such as afforestation/reforestation and enhanced algal cultivation. However, there are drawbacks associated with each of the aforementioned processes, either economic, social or environmental, Mookerjea claimed.

At the seminar, he highlighted some ‘unique’ characteristics of the fern, such as it fixes atmospheric nitrogen, can be used as a protein-rich nutritional feed for fish, poultry and dairy livestock, can be converted into biofuels through transesterification, can be used as bio-fertiliser, offsetting, and manufacturing emissions from nitrogenous fertilisers.

Mookerjea said mathematical modelling studies hypothesise that 1,018,023 km of effective azolla cultivation under their assumed growth equations would be equivalent to sequestering the annual net anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

“In the middle Eocene, blooms of Azolla in the stratified Arctic Ocean may have caused a massive carbon drawdown, metamorphosing the greenhouse earth into the ice-house planet we know today, sequestering an estimated 900-3500 Gt of carbon around 48.5 million years ago, corresponding to a 55-470 ppm reduction in CO2 levels,” he added.

The seminar saw the participation of various scientists, professors and industry experts.

PAKISTAN

Washed away: How unregulated mining turned the Swat River into a killer

A billion-rupee mining industry has quietly transformed Swat’s serene river into a graveyard — deep ditches dug for sand and gravel have erased the river’s natural course, making even shallow waters deadly.

Muzhira Amin

Published July 8, 2025
PRISM/DAWN

There was once a time when the sound of the Swat River — gushing waters in some places, flapping waves in others — echoed across the mountainous valley. For visitors and locals alike, it was a melody that soothed the darkest of nights and harshest of days. That was years ago. Today, the river stands still and quiet under the weight of those who died in it.

On June 27, a family of 13 tourists from Sialkot drowned in the flooded Swat River. With feet soaked in the cool water, they were having breakfast on the riverbank near Mingora. Unbeknownst to them, the water level was swiftly rising, and within minutes, they found themselves stranded on a mound of sand in the middle of the river.

They stood there, waiting for help to arrive. But by the time it came, the family was swept away by the floodwaters, one by one. The deceased included seven-year-old Ayan; Rubina, 45; Ajwa, 18; Sharmeen, 16; Murab, 18; and Tazmeen, 20; from Sialkot. “They all left the house excited for a vacation, but came back home in white shrouds,” a relative mourned.

The screengrab from a viral video shows the ill-fated family from Sialkot, who became stranded as the river swelled around them.

Even Swat mourns. “We are ashamed,” said Fazal Wadood, a resident and member of the village defence committee.

The deaths, a video of which went viral on social media, spurred a conversation on social media — about the inefficiency of the local government, the delay in arrival of rescue services and more. But one important factor attributed to the rise in such incidents, as highlighted by locals time and again, remains missing from the discourse: unchecked gravel and sand mining on the bed of the Swat River.

“It has turned our beautiful river into khandarat (ruins),” rued Wadood. “The water used to be our everything … pride, home, livelihood … but it has been reduced to a disaster now.”

The billion-rupee industry

The Swat River is known to be perfect for mining, given its topography. The river flows in the middle of the mountains, making it abundant in gravel and sand, which is a key component of the construction industry. It is a common practice, not just in Pakistan but across the world.

According to activist and academic Dr Rafiullah, the mining process involves digging ditches in the river, approximately 15-20ft deep and 10-15ft wide, and letting the water fill them. When sand and gravel flow down with the water, it accumulates in these ditches, which are then extracted by changing the direction of the river and are subsequently transported to crush plants.

The mining is usually done during the winter months when the flow of the river is slow, while the extraction takes place during summer.

Over the last decade, the mining industry in Swat has seen a boom, with around 350 crush plants established along the path of the 240km-long river, from Kalam to downstream Kanju. Sand is expensive in Swat with a market value of Rs7,000 per daina — a vehicle used to transport the same — while gravel is sold for Rs3,000, making mining a lucrative business.

“The problem is that such ditches have been dug up everywhere, which has turned the river into a well,” Dr Rafiullah told Dawn.com. “Earlier, there was a set route of the river, and so locals were aware where it was deep and where it wasn’t. But when it was dug up, people could no longer tell this because while on the surface, the water remains still, no one knows what is happening underneath.”

Over the past several years, he continued, the people of Swat have lifted their children in coffins. “They were young boys who went to the river for swimming and bathing.” One of them was Wadood’s 17-year-old nephew, whose body was found in a ditch in the town of Aligrama eight days after he had drowned.

Dr Rafiullah said that the incident of June 27 was also to be blamed on this unrestrained mining. “The miner had constructed a protective dyke to divert the water flow just 300-400 meters from where the family was seated, but it broke down due to flashfloods and heavy rain, increasing the water levels.”

“Within minutes, the family found itself stranded in the middle of the river … the mound of sand they stood on was artificial, a result of mining. By the time anyone understood what happened, it was too late,” he regretted.

Even the investigation report prepared following the incident, seen by Dawn.com, highlighted that water from the Swat River was diverted due to construction work, which allowed the tourists to venture into the river, believing that the water level was low. Subsequently, the chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa issued orders to ban all kinds of mining.

The rights and wrongs of mining

In Swat, mining falls under the Directorate General of Mines and Minerals KP. The department has divided the river into multiple sectors, and under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa River Protection Act 2017 and Mining of Minor Minerals from River Bed Rules 2022, it issues a yearly lease to local contractors.

“A district-level committee identifies blocks for mining through site visits and then forwards them to a district auction committee, which then reserves or fixes the prices to each block and issues advertisements,” explained Ashfaq Ahmed Saleem, the additional director general of the minerals department.

Subsequently, an open auction is held, and the highest bidder is allotted the lease, which includes all the rules and regulations for mining. “Currently, 24 plants are functioning on the Swat River, of which six have been auctioned against a total bid of Rs47 million,” Saleem told Dawn.com.

“Apart from these six blocks, any activity on other blocks is illegal,” he said, adding that monthly checks were conducted to ensure compliance with the mining rules.

Provided by Ashfaq Ahmed Saleem

But locals say violations are common and lament the administration’s inaction to stop them. For one, the mining rules say that “the lease shall neither divert the natural course of the river, nullah, stream […] nor obstruct the natural flow or water”, but reshaping the river’s route is a common practice in Swat.

It further says that the mining should be restricted to a maximum depth of three metres, and the distance from the riverbanks should be one-fourth of the river, and should be no less than 7.5 metres. “What happened here, though, was that they dug up the entire river from one side to the other with trenches as deep as 20-30ft,” Swat-based journalist Sohail Asghar Khan pointed out.

And this, he added, was the major reason behind rising river-related deaths in the region. “If you go towards the Khwazakhela side, you will see 15-20 excavation machines along the riverbed … and this is the case across the valley now.”

When asked about these practices, Saleem said contractors violating the laws were issued notices and, in the absence of rectification, the lease was cancelled.

“As far as mining on unauthorised blocks is concerned, when we catch it, we file a complaint with the police and then a case is sent to the judicial magistrate,” he added.

According to data shared by Saleem, over 830 first information reports have been registered against illegal mining activity since 2018. In 2024-25 alone, 92 FIRs were lodged, of which 21 cases are under trial, while fines were imposed on others. Per mining rules, the punishment for illegal mining amounts to Rs0.5 to Rs2 million and up to three years in jail.

Who is to blame?

For his part, Rehmat Ali, the chairman of the Malakand Crush Association, told Dawn.com that the right way of mining involved using river channels instead of blocking the river or rerouting it as mentioned in the rules and regulations.

“The lessee shall neither divert the natural course of the river, nullah, stream nor obstruct the natural flow of water,” it states.

But, Ali lamented, some people were mining via illegal means. “They are not just harming the river but also us, who are doing this the right way,” he rued. According to him, there were about 67,000 families in Swat that were dependent on mining for their livelihoods.

“We have been doing this legally since 2003. We have licenses from the Environmental Protection Agency and all the other relevant departments,” Ali told Dawn.com. “But those who are doing this illegally are putting the economy of Swat at risk.”

He explained that Swat heavily relied on tourism, which meant the construction industry played a key role in the region, and crush was primarily used for the same, along with roads and bridges. “But when we complain to the government, they fail to take any notice.”

An excavator loads gravel into a tactor-trolley on the bank of Swat River. — Dawn/File

Following the drowning incident, the government last week cancelled all the lease agreements for mining in the Swat River and imposed Section 144. However, despite the ban, locals said mining was carried out at places where the administration was nowhere to be seen.

“In fact, just the day after the tourist family was washed away in the floods, these miners were back on the river banks with their excavators,” Wadood said.

Environmental catastrophe

This unregulated mining is not just claiming human lives but also causing irreversible degradation to the ecosystem of the Swat River and its pristine clear waters. “These waters used to be a lullaby for us, but today, all we can hear is the roar of the excavators and the scraping and crunching of the earth they dig,” said Wadood.

The intensified extraction has rapidly and visibly changed the natural course of the river, triggering a host of environmental challenges such as the degradation of agricultural land, erosion, and the destruction of Swat’s flora and fauna.

“Agricultural land downstream, mostly fields of onion and tomato crops are drying up,” said Sadique Akbar, former professor at the University of Engineering and Technology, Swabi. He told Dawn.com that local farmers, who rely on the Swat River for irrigation, complain that their lands have become less fertile and more prone to flooding and erosion.

The river’s water, once a home to nearly 17 fish species native to Swat, now fails to provide them with the sustenance required and has thus caused them to go extinct. This is not just affecting the livelihood of fishermen, but also diminishing Swat’s appeal to tourists flocking to the region.

“These fish used to find their food hidden in the riverbed, but extensive mining means it is no longer there,” said Dr Rafiullah. “Trout, which was once the saugat (gift) of Swat, is no longer found in freshwater anymore. Whatever is there is farm-produced. Desi trout can now only be found upstream in Kalam or Bahrain, where the water is clean.”

This has taken the livelihoods of fishermen in the region, who are now forced to search for other alternatives. Initially, they could catch up to 6kg-7kg of fish, but now, even if they spend an entire day, they can hardly manage a catch, added Sohail Asghar.

Moreover, the lush green trees that once surrounded the river have now completely vanished. Residents say miners cut them down to create roads that could take their excavators and other big machines to the riverbanks. In addition, miners usually collect sand along the banks of the river, which has taken away its beauty. This, despite the mining rules, which state: “after mining of minor minerals, the debris and hindrance shall be removed from the limits of the river or stream.”

Similarly, seasonal birds that would have stopped by the river earlier for food have now stopped coming there.

Sufyan, a resident of Karachi who recently visited the northern areas, described it in these words: “The Swat I saw in pictures is no longer there; instead, a cloud of dust, the buzzing of machines and trucks are everywhere. It is just sad,” he said.

And then, there is this constant fear among the residents of losing their children. Swat does not have many options when it comes to recreational activities for locals; they were dependent on the river for that too — swimming, sitting on the banks, and fishing. But none of that is possible anymore. The river they once called theirs has become a stranger today; nothing about it is the same anymore. Only memories remain.

And so, the question echoes louder than the lost melody of the Swat River: will anything change before more lives and memories are washed away?

Header image: Men sift sand alongside the Swat River. — AN Photo

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