“Are we not citizens of this country? Or do we perhaps belong to some other country that you seem to want to punish us in this way?” asks Pir Gulam Shah, a resident of Keti Bandar, a sinking coastal area marking the point where the Indus meets the Arabian sea. Shah’s anger resonates with the grievances of a native community deeply agitated at the state of the Indus river delta – a river that has sustained their forebears for thousands of years.

Keti Bandar was once a thriving port. However, over the latter half of the last century, the port’s commercial use has consistently declined to the point that today, only the boats of local fishermen can be seen at the coast. During the same time, a large number of barrages, dams and canals were built along the Indus River, gradually reducing the water reaching the delta and allowing seawater to mix with the fresh water of the delta’s agricultural land.

As a result of the saltwater intrusion, acres of fertile land have been destroyed, significantly impacting the livelihoods of those dependent upon farming. “We were told that all of these barrages and dams were being built for storing water, which would then be sent downstream when needed. However, this still hasn’t happened,” laments Shah.

Like him, many locals in Keti Bandar feel the resentment with the same intensity as one feels the heat and the wind in this part of Sindh. This gradually sinking town lying 150 kilometres away from Karachi may slowly fade into extinction unless the provincial and federal governments take action to address the lack of water reaching the delta of the Indus and the economic and social implications of the shrinking wetlands.

The salty river and the farming crisis

There is a phrase in Urdu “ulti ganga bahna” which translates to “the Ganges flowing backwards”. This idiom, which is used to emphasise a phenomenon directly contradicting common sense and logic, is an accurate phrase to sum up the absurdity of a river turning salty owing to the scarcity of fresh water reaching the delta.

“The water you see here is the salty water of the Indus,” said Nazir Shah, another resident of Keti Bandar. “There was once a time when the sea used to be 100 kilometres farther from the present-day shores of Keti Bander,” added Pir Shah, while speaking of the area where seawater intrusion has devastated the land fertility of the agricultural area.

“This farmland was once fertile. We used to grow large quantities of bananas, papaya, melon, watermelon, bottle gourd and betel leaf. We already don’t have enough water, but if the government builds more canals, all of Sindh will become barren,” worried Pir Shah.

Driving by Keti Bander, one can clearly see acres of land with yields that have died before the harvest season purely due to the unavailability of an adequate amount of non-salty water fit for agriculture.

Dr Altaf Ali Siyal, Professor at the Sindh Agriculture University, noted in a study titled “The Indus Delta: The Impact of Sea Water Intrusion” that an analysis of the annual flow below the Kotri Barrage in billion cubic meters (BCM) from 1937 to 2017 revealed an 80 per cent decrease in water flow. However, it should not take an exceptional economist’s intellect to figure out the impact of water shortage on Sindh’s economy, where the majority of the population earns a living either through agriculture or fishing.

In fact, many residents have tried making up for their lost farming income by fishing however, this too has failed to offer relief since the destruction of mangrove habitats due to reduced water has caused drastic changes to the environment hence reducing the fish population. “The Palla fish used to be abundant here, but the decimation of mangroves has ruined their habitat, and the fish are no longer spawning as they once did,” noted Pir Shah.

This can be corroborated from the website of the Sindh Forest Department which estimated that 90 per cent of commercially important tropical marine fish species, especially prawns, spent at least some part of their life in the mangroves. Therefore, the degradation of the mangroves will endanger up to 250,000 tons of fish caught off the Sindh Coast. (IUCN)

Deforestation, loss of income and migration

Mangrove deforestation has significantly altered the natural landscape of the wetlands, which are neither fit for agriculture nor for fish farming. As a result, the local people, robbed of their primary source of income, are forced to migrate to the cities.

WWF’s technical advisor and fisheries expert, Moazzam Khan, during an interview with the Express Tribune, highlighted the fact that there has been a significant reduction in the numbers of the mangrove species. “There used to be six species of mangroves which have been reduced to just one. This will harm the overall biodiversity of the delta,” said Khan.

While emphasising the economic importance of the mangroves, the Sindh Forest Department’s website claimed that they provide important breeding zones for commercially important marine fish, shrimps, lobsters and crabs, which helped the national economy to earn foreign exchange worth 100 million US dollars annually in addition to providing employment to more than 100,000 people associated with the fishing industry.

Khan too confirmed a reduction in the yield of the fishing industry. “This reduction is aggravated by the Kotri barrage, which has impacted the population of the Palla fish by segmenting the fish population,” noted Khan, whose claim mimics similar concerns raised regarding the segmentation of the endangered Indus river dolphins due to the construction of canals and dams.

Understandably, people frustrated with the state of the economy in the coastal areas are forced to migrate, many often choosing to go to cities like Karachi. According to the Jinnah Institute, approximately 1.2 million people have migrated to Karachi from other coastal regions of Sindh. This is primarily linked to the shrinking of the wetlands of the delta, and the corresponding economic implications.

“The land that we are standing on is a 2,000-acre land, but due to a lack of water not even one acre of this land is fertile. Many people have already emptied, locked, and vacated their homes while others will be doing the same in the coming months and years. There is a state of drought here hence people are forced to leave," said Ghulam Nabi, a resident of Keti Bandar.

It is worth mentioning that the Sindh Irrigation Department had given a drought and water shortage alert in March this year, a development many in Karachi may not even be aware of. In many Western countries, drought like situations necessitate a total ban on non-essential uses of water, such as watering lawns.

Responsible development: The state vs. locals

In a world full of passionate views on international affairs, people are often more outraged about crises and issues that are far from home. Perhaps it is easier to passively implicate oneself in a distant victimhood narrative than to acknowledge and address the suffering of people in one’s own country.

For the people of Keti Bandar, the word “economic progress” is a sour reminder of the futility of their own existence in the wider rat race for development. “As a result of this progress, our lives have been devastated. Does it make sense to irrigate and cultivate land that is a natural desert while abandoning and ruining a land that is cultivable, forcing its people to leave? The canals that they are building are robbing us of our rights. We should be consulted before any such project is announced,” urged Pir Shah.

From the government’s perspective however, corporate farming is required to modernise the agrarian economy fuelled by the Indus, in line with IMF recommendations thereby opening up the economy to the market. Although this is not bad in principle, these projects should be initiated once there is a consensus amongst the relevant stakeholders, which includes people like the ones here in Keti Bandar - small landowners, farmers, and fishermen.

“Before devising a new policy, we should be briefed on whether or not the scheme will benefit us or not. The Green Initiative Program should benefit areas that are already cultivable and already have people living there,” opined Pir Shah.

Many a times, when the government fails to address the basic grievances of people living on the margins, the inclination among society is to turn to charity. Similarly, when people face droughts and conditions similar to the people in Keti Bander, a common instinct is to supply them with aid however, locals from the sinking wetland make it clear that they are not interested in charity.

“We don’t want electricity, or roads, or any economic development projects. Just give us our water. We were happy before and we can be happy again. We don’t need anything from the government except for what’s been a faithful companion for the people of Sindh for thousands of years: the Indus river,” clarified Pir Shah.

At the moment, as far as the eyes can see, Keti Bandar is little more than barren land where nothing except for the occasional red chilli can be cultivated. People who had farmed for centuries were forced to fish but just as they were learning to fish, the fish habitat was also being annihilated.

Economic growth is important, but an ideological commitment to improving people’s lives is critical. The farming project in Punjab may very well be good for the country’s economic growth, but there’s no reason to believe that the average standard of living here in Sindh will improve rather than worsen.

To hammer the point home, Pir Shah shared a morbid request. “You should simply drop the atom bomb on us. We won’t complain or scream since neither the humans nor any other form of life will survive.” Despite their inflammatory nature, sentiments such as these are quite common in Keti Bandar. And this alone should be a wakeup call for the country.

Zain Haq is a freelance contributor

All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author

Source: The Express Tribune