L O N G R E A D S

Making Karachi

Raglan Squire's design for Jinnah's Mausoleum

Shahana
Shayan

May 2016
& Tanqeed
Rajani
Rajani

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 L O N G R E A D S

P artition
under the military dictatorship of Ayub
Khan through a sequence of three
interconnected stories: the building of
Quaid’s Mausoleum, the displacement of
irrevocably transformed Karachi. Of this working-class refugees from the city center
there is no question. The first and better to Korangi, and the dispossession of rural
known transformation was through a communities in Korangi to make way for
violent “exchange” of populations, which industrialization. These little known historic
turned it from a city of Sindhi Hindus and events expose the dark side of
Sikhs to a city of Muslim refugees. The development and make visible the lives of
second change came more slowly as the the politically marginal and economically
new country decided on a future for its vulnerable peoples that it continues to
premier city. A vision of a modern Karachi render expendable.
coalesced around plans for spectacular
monuments, ordered space, and industry. Shaping the nation
Development became essential to the
At its birth, on 14 August 1947, issues of
state's ambitions to modernize Karachi
what the state of Pakistan and the
and bring it at par with other Western
Pakistani citizen would look like were far
cities.
from settled. The country was created as a
This dream of modernity remained ever homeland for Indian Muslims, but without
elusive, but displacement became the key a common language, a homogenous
strategy for its realization. Slum clearance culture, or a singular history to unite them,
and dispossession of agricultural land were its citizens were hardly a coherent nation.
deemed necessary for the construction of The popular desire for an end to British
national monuments and industrial zones. i n fl u e n c e a n d f o r a u t h e n t i c s e l f -
It was a swift and violent process, which government was foundering against the
tolerated little dissent or resistance. realities of a close to bankrupt country
Working-class refugees and rural with no governmental infrastructure or
communities disproportionately bore the party organization. These questions
costs of these projects. They were evicted became all the more vexed when the
from their homes and excluded from the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
new city. The fantasy of development and died on September 11, 1948, just months
the reality of displacement became the after independence.
twin forces of change in Karachi.
The struggle for the exact form of the
This article investigates the story of Pakistani state played out most notably in
development and displacement. It follows the Constituent Assembly. However,
their institutionalization in the 1950s Karachi, the new capital of the country,

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grave in the center and some of his

personal effects arranged in a display
cabinet against a wall. There was an
air of neglect that rankled many.

In 1952, Shehzad Akhtar, a second

grader in the St. Joseph Convent
High School wrote a letter to Jinnah’s
sister, Fatima Jinnah. In an uncertain
cursive, the seven-year old opined,
“We are very much pained rather
A citizen’s design for Jinnah’s Mausoleum. From Shundana Yusaf ashamed to see the Quaid-i-Azam
Jinnah Gate at the I.T.E.C. site, which
quickly became a battleground for the will be occupied by the Quaid-i-Azam’s
future of Pakistan, too. One of the most memorials. The Gate should either be
revealing sites for this struggle
was the mausoleum of Jinnah,
the father of the country.

On his death, Jinnah was buried

in the heart of a refugee colony
on the northeastern edges of
Karachi. The colony was called
Quaidabad, after Jinnah’s
reverential title, Quaid-i Azam or
Great Leader. A Quaid-e-Azam
Memorial Fund (QMF) was
established almost immediately
to raise money for and oversee
the construction of monuments
1Shundana
to commemorate Jinnah.
Yusaf,
“Monument In 1952, the QMF announced A citizen’s design for Jinnah’s Mausoleum. From Shundana Yusaf
without that it would build four
qualities”
(master’s thesis, monuments, including a demolished or maintained in a manner
Massachusetts mausoleum, a mosque, an Islamic center, befitting our beloved leader. What would
Institute of
Technology,
and a university, across the country. the foreigners, who pass this way, think.”1
2001), Appendix However, the tomb remained makeshift: a
5. small one-room structure with Jinnah’s Many people sent similar letters to Fatima
Jinnah. These people felt a deep emotional

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investment in the memory of Jinnah. They the Taj Mahal. To drive the point home, he
also showed a strong understanding of the named his own design the Pak Mahal.
symbolic value of any construction on the
Shundana Yusaf, a scholar who has
site. Abdul Qayyum, a resident of
studied these letters, calls these proposals
Quaidabad, who lived across from Jinnah’s
idealism from below. The radical
tomb, wrote to her in 1949 about his wish
utopianism that swept through Indian
to see a madrassa or mosque constructed
Muslims in the final years of the Pakistan
on the site. In 1951, Pir Syed Asmat Ali
movement, reasserted itself in these
Shah wrote to Fatima Jinnah of a dream
letters, which imagined a clean break with
he had had some three years ago of

Muhammad Gulzar Khan’s Pak Mahal design. From Shundana Yusaf

Jinnah asking his father and grandfather to the colonial past and a future that
instruct him to build a fateh khwani darbar centered the aspirations of the people.
“for the peace of my soul and for Pakistan The unbuilt monument became a site
and for the glory of Islam.” Many others where the future of the country could be
sent in sketches and plans based on forged. As the letters so powerfully reveal,
visions and dreams of the founder of the these futures were multiple. Rather than
country. Muhammad Gulzar Khan from harmonize these visions, the QMF’s work
Bahawalpur advocated for a building along stalled precisely because of a lack of
the lines of great Mughal architecture like consensus on the shape of the monument.

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Finally, in 1957, it was decided to appoint converged with the regime’s image as
an international jury, which would select a modernizers and was just the kind of
winning design from an international internationally acclaimed style that would
competition. Six of the eight jurists were garner plaudits from the West, whose
European modernist architects. It was no favor they were desperate to gain.
surprise then that the jury unanimously
Public reception, however, was far from
chose the modernist design of Raglan
enthusiastic. The Squire model was
Squire & Partners, a British architectural
displayed in Karachi in the very first
firm. Mounted on an elevated platform,
months of martial rule. It provoked a flurry
their monument reached out from six
of angry letters to the editor. One letter in
corners in an exuberant motion towards
Dawn objected to the shape of a six-point
the sky. Its hard, pointed edges were set
star that emerged from a bird’s-eye view
in sharp contrast to the gently rolling
of the design. More importantly, the writer
parabola. It was a style reminiscent of
insisted that whatever the design’s
avant-garde neo-futurism, which was offset
technical accomplishments, “a monument
by a traditional Mughal garden.
which is to belong to and inspire a whole
Squire’s design was approved at a nation should be able to command the
watershed moment in Pakistan’s history. In appreciation and admiration, not of just a 2Aftab Ahmad
October 1958, Pakistan experienced its few high-mosts of academic architects, but Khan, “Quaid’s
Mausoleum,” Dawn
first military coup. Its two-year old of the majority of the people of all (Karachi, Pakistan),
constitution was abrogated and Ayub classes.”2 Dec. 25, 1958.
Khan, the commander in chief of the
He proposed that a committee of
Pakistan Army, became the country’s
“national-spirited architects and laymen”
second president. The state propaganda
jointly prepare several designs. These
machine heralded the coup as a
would receive comments from the public
revolution, meant to sweep away a decade
and then be finalized by multiple architects
of deadlock and corruption. In exchange
“motivated by a desire, not of wining in an
for cumbersome democracy, the people of
architectural competition, but of giving
Pakistan were promised a decisive
proper shape to their nation’s dream of a
dictatorship. Its image, at least at first, was
great national monument to the memory
that of an unbendingly modernist regime,
of the leader who brought that nation into
whose task it was to bring a supposedly
being.”
backward and ignorant people into the
comity of nations. A traditionalist vision of However, a collaborative, consensus-based
Islam had no room in this regime. approach such as this was precisely what
the military regime was loath to adopt.
Squire’s design became a favorite with the
Ayub’s revolution was to be swift and
soldiers who now ruled Pakistan. It

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unfettered by the need to consult the Mr. Squire,” he recalls Mirza saying, “if that
public. old bitch hadn’t been so difficult.”

Opposition that the men in khakis had to With Squire out of the way, Fatima Jinnah
heed came ultimately from an unexpected took the reins of the design selection
quarter. In 1958, Fatima Jinnah came out process. She commissioned the Bombay-
vigorously against the Raglan Squire based architect Yahya Merchant to design
design. She objected to the English the mausoleum. Merchant’s design was a
architect, the international jury, and the towering white marble cuboid structure
western design, which, she argued, completed by a dome. The mausoleum
betrayed everything Jinnah stood for. Long was perched on an elevated platform in
a focal point for the public’s desire of a turn positioned on a 61-acre gardened hill
radically de-colonial future, Fatima Jinnah looking out onto the city. The official
now stepped forward to challenge the publicity material written by Professor Dani
Ayub regime. Her public stature and sums up the spirit of the monument in the
control of QMF money ensured victory. following words: “[It] derives from old but
is not a slavish imitation of the old
Unsuspecting of this tussle in Pakistan,
tradition. Actually it partakes of the Muslim
Raglan Squire flew to Karachi to meet with
spirit of the past but it is created to meet 4 Ahmad Hasan
the country’s leaders. To his utter shock, Dani, introduction
the new demand of the present in the
he was asked to make his design “a little to The Quaid-i-Azam
technique of the present day.”4 Mausoleum in
bit more Islamic” to satisfy Fatima Jinnah.
Pictures, ed. Afsar
3Raglan Squire,
When he demurred, they insisted, “But, Mr. Ayub Khan laid the foundation stone on Akhtar Husain and
Portrait of an Squire, surely you could put a little dome July 31, 1960. It took over a decade for Dani (Islamabad:
Architect National Book
on top, or something like that.”3 In his the mausoleum to finally be completed. Foundation, 1976).
(Gerrards Cross:
C. Smythe, autobiography, Squire describes the Pakistan’s second military dictator, General
1984), 194. sleepless night he spent in Metropole Yahya Khan, inaugurated it on January 18,
Hotel in Karachi agonizing over the 1971. The other three monuments
unexpected turn of events. He was asked planned in memory of Jinnah never
to extend his stay to meet with Fatima materialized. Landscaping of the gardens
Jinnah. But he flew out of Karachi without surrounding the mausoleum had to wait
ever meeting her. another three decades for Pakistan’s
fourth military dictator, General Pervez
He recounts that when he met Iskander
Musharraf, who inaugurated the gardens
Mirza at a cocktail party in at the Pakistan
on December 24, 2000.
High Commission in London some years
later, Mirza took him aside and assured The iconic Quaid-i Azam Mazar is now
him how much he liked Squire’s design. closely associated with the military. This is
“We would have built that thing of yours, partly because of military dictators’

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penchant for monumental projects but just five days after Partition. Her mother,
also because every year on national her brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles
holidays the mausoleum is closed to the were all killed. She managed to escape
public for the army to conduct parades. with her sister by running to the railway
The mausoleum is also guarded around tracks and jumping on to the first train she
the year by highly-visible armed saw. Hamida Bano arrived in Pakistan
paramilitary personnel. orphaned, destitute, and traumatized. She
was one of hundreds of thousands who
However, these later martial accretions
had become homeless refugees because
gloss over the mausoleum’s early history
of the creation of a Muslim homeland in
as a populist victory against the vision of
Pakistan. Instead of finding a home in the
Pakistan’s first military dictator. In its
new country, she, like many other poor
stead, Fatima Jinnah and the public
refugees, found only further displacement.
managed to install a monument that felt
authentic to a newly independent people Hamida Bano spent two weeks in
and reflected their aspirations for a de- subhuman conditions in a refugee camp in
colonized future, which centered the Lahore. State officials then decided that
desires of the people. there was no room for her in Lahore and
boarded her on another train, this time
Yet, this is not the end of the story of
going to Hyderabad. Hamida Bano and her
Jinnah’s mausoleum. The public may have
sister were reunited with their father in
won the contest for the symbolic
Hyderabad, but unable to earn a living,
representation of the country but the
they soon moved to Karachi. They settled
broader struggle for control of the city,
in the informal colony of Quaidabad, which
also fought through the making of the
surrounded the grave of Jinnah.
mausoleum, was won by the military
regime. The mausoleum may have been According to a past resident of Quaidabad,
rescued from the influence of western Chiraghuddin, Quaidabad was already a
modernism but the relationship between thriving settlement in 1948, when his
the state and people would continue to be family came to Karachi from Fatehpur
modeled on colonial patterns, where the Sikri. There was ample open land where
state controlled the people and not the refugees could build their own jhuggis or
other way around. huts. In the initial years, the government
tried its best to deter poor refugees from
Displacing refugees entering Karachi. Those who managed to
enter received minimal state support and
Hamida Bano was twelve years old when no proper accommodation. As an
her village, Narnaul in Patiala, was alternative to permanent housing, the
attacked. It was the day before Eid and government actively encouraged poor

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refugees to squat on open land,

distributing free hutting material and old
Quaidabad, the biggest refugee cluster
army tents. Poor refugees were given no
with a population of atleast 90,000
legal title and intentionally kept in an
people, was the first to be dismantled.
uncertain, vulnerable state.
Residents were given eviction notices just
It was refugee families like that of Hamida a week in advance, and forcibly removed.
Bano and Chiraghuddin that built "Before Ayub, no politician would have
Quaidabad from scratch. These residents dared to remove us,” Hamida Bano
of Quaidabad invested great physical and exclaims. “But Ayub had a new [kind of]
emotional labor in making their homes, power. He sent his military goons to force
communities and neighborhoods. It took us to leave. In four days they evicted us.
Chiraghuddin’s family an entire year to Loaded us on trucks and sent us to
raise money to build their own home in Korangi, miles away from the city, and
Quaidabad. For them, Quaidabad was not gave us this single-room quarter.” Hamida
a temporary arrangement, but became a Bano sees little benevolence in the
place where they rebuilt a sense of government’s move. She warns, “Don’t be
community, of belonging after the trauma mistaken, this was not given to us for free.
and loss of Partition. Nothing is ever free. We had to buy this
quarter from the government. We paid
Even as refugees were building the city
1,900 rupees for it back then.”
home by home, Ayub Khan’s new
authoritarian vision of the “modern city” Mohammad, whose family had also settled
threatened another series of violent in Quaidabad, explains that once plans for
displacements. Jhuggis and informal living, Quaid's Mazar were made, the
which until then had been a matter of government decided to clear all the homes
convenience for the government, were around it. "It was a strange situation,” he
now deemed unacceptable to modern says. “Because of our beloved Quaid, we
living. Frequently described in official were all thrown to various outskirts of the
speeches as 'eyesores' that 'litter' the city, city: some to Korangi, some to Malir, some
jhuggis were reframed in public discourse to Shah Faisal Colony… After repeated
as ugly, filthy and a danger to public clearances, the government arrived at the
5Mirza Ali Azhar, health. The Rehabilitation Minister, General state of Quaid's Mazar as you see it
"Three stages in Azam Khan described the existence of today." A colony that had once received
the life of DPs",
Dawn (Karachi,
jhuggis as "the greatest problem facing the special status from its proximity to the
Pakistan), Oct. country" and ordered a detailed survey of grave of the father of the nation was now
27, 1959. shelterless displaced persons. The survey destroyed because of it.
revealed 160,000 shelterless families
living in 214 refugee clusters in Karachi.5

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Hamida Bano, Chiraghuddin and many in such settlements, especially as the

other families settled in Quaidabad were working class began to organize against
relocated to the new township of Korangi. state ineptitude and violence. It was
A Greek consultancy firm, Doxiadis decided to isolate them in 'self-contained'
Associates, was hired to plan out the satellite townships away from the city
satellite township of Korangi over 3,000 center. Jhuggi clearance became integral
acres of land, ten miles outside the city. to the aesthetics and political stability of
Funded by American aid, the project was the modern city.
touted as the largest mass housing
By August 1959, the first phase of the
initiative in Asia. However, it was also the
Korangi town project was completed with
largest slum clearance scheme of its time.
15,000 quarters ready. However, behind
The showpiece of the new regime’s the row upon row of neat and tidy
commitment to modernization, Korangi concrete houses, there was a complete
was built on the model of post-War absence of all basic necessities of life. The
European urban reconstruction efforts. schools, parks, hospitals, sanitation, and
Presidents of the United States, European roads promised by the regime were
royalty and foreign delegates were taken nowhere to be found. Korangi was a place
on tours of Korangi in the hopes of that no one wanted to go voluntarily;
justifying its authoritarian bent to its compliance had to be enforced by the
western patrons by burnishing its military.
modernizing credentials. As with the
In August 1959, trucks were shifting 200
Raglan Squire design, Doxiadis’ Korangi
families from Quaidabad to Korangi every
betrayed the Ayub regime’s penchant for
day. Upon arrival, housing units were
costly monumental projects aimed at
allocated at random, breaking up family
securing international praise.
units and networks of kinship that had
To the home audience, the Ayub regime existed in Quaidabad. There was limited
6Azhar, " Three proclaimed that this "self-contained water supply in communal taps, and
stages in the life satellite township" solved two biggest electricity was not provided for years to
of DPs."
problems of Karachi.6 It provided decent come. A resident of Korangi, Jameel
living quarters to refugee families who are remembers that when officials had arrived
"huddled up in filthy slums" and cleared to evict them, they made his father wear a
congestion from the center of the city. placard around his neck like a prisoner.
What remained unstated was the fact that The placard included his father's
this clearance made available economically photograph and the randomly assigned
valuable land that could be used more plot number. Although unwilling to move,
profitably by the regime. The military-state they were given no choice.
also saw the potential for political trouble

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Image from Mirza Ali Azhar, "Three stages in the life of DPs", Dawn Revolution Day Supplement, Oct. 27, 1959.

When they arrived in Korangi, they found it running a thriving business distributing
a jungle with wild bushes and animals kerosene oil, lost his livelihood after
everywhere. No basic amenities were shifting to Korangi. Quaidabad’s central
provided. Work for many continued to be location had been key to his success and
in the city, which was not connected to Korangi’s isolation his undoing. He
Korangi by any robust public transport remembers that some people were so
system. When people realized the desperate to leave Korangi that they sold
implications of long and expensive their quarters to anyone interested for the
commutes to work, many abandoned their price of a bus ride back to the city.
plots and went back to jhuggi living in the
It was under these harsh realities that
city center. Jameel’s father chose to stay in
Quaidabad was forcibly dismantled and
Korangi. He left for work early in the
Korangi populated. Poor refugees who had
morning and came home extremely late. It
lost their homes in Partition were
became a running joke in Korangi that
displaced yet again. Pakistan was built on
children could no longer remember their
the backs of multiple displacements of
absentee fathers.
Hindus and Sikhs but also of poor Muslim
Shamsuddin, whose family was also refugees. This process of evictions, which
relocated from Quaidabad to Korangi, forced the people of Karachi into distant
explains that his father, who had been class-based neighbourhoods, produced

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what urban planner, Arif Hasan, calls “a forcibly destroying the way of life of
fragmented city.” The Quaid’s Mazar, numerous indigenous communities, which
which was to be a symbol of a had ancestral ties to the land. Not far from
decolonized democratic future, ended up the Korangi residential quarters where
institutionalizing an authoritarian Quaidabad refugees were shunted to, lived
relationship between the state and the rural and pastoral communities with deep
people. The government could destroy historical attachments to the land, which,
people’s homes and lives in the name of too, faced the threat of dispossession.
the country, modernization, and progress.
Initially, when the government had planned
To many such victims, Pakistan as a
the Korangi township, only 300 acres
homeland for Muslims was a dead letter.
were reserved for industry. By 1966, that
Hamida Bano says, "We kept having to
area had increased fivefold to 1,500 acres.
change houses. My whole life, I have been
Much of this land was forcibly acquired by
shifting from one place to another. What is
the Karachi Development Authority from
this question about 'home'? Home means
indigenous agricultural communities under
nothing to me over here. Home is just
the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. This
temporary four walls that I sooner or later
colonial act entitles the government to
have to move out of. My actual home is
acquire any private land for "public
what I left behind in India."
purposes". The definition of "public
purpose" is so broad as to place no real
Displacing natives limits on government acquisition. The
Ayub’s efforts to ‘beautify’ the city center indigenous communities of Korangi were
through slum clearance were not given any choice in the matter, but
complemented by plans to lay down were offered monetary compensation.
industrial areas on the peripheries of the
Today, the Korangi Industrial Area is
city. Through these twin moves, Ayub
spread over 8,500 acres, carved out by
planned to realize his vision of
steady encroachment of agricultural lands.
modernization and industrialization. The
Driving down the Korangi Industrial Road,
working class refugees displaced from the
the main artery bisecting the area, it is
city center were to provide captive labor to
hard to imagine life before
new industries that would propel the
industrialization. The broad six-lane road is
country into modernity. What Ayub needed
crammed with trucks heaving under the
for his new scheme was land.
weight of goods. The sky is streaked with
It is thought that Karachi expanded into smoke that billows out of tall grey factories
open uninhabited land, but in fact the looming on either side of the road.
sprawling industrial megacity that we know Organized on a grid, divided into sectors,
today cannibalized rural land around it, Korangi wears a look of drab monotony.

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The only memorable landmarks are garish meandering route under the tarmac and
roundabouts on Korangi Industrial Road, concrete of contemporary Korangi.
sponsored by and named after large
It was not only the physical landscape of
factories.
Korangi, but also its economy that was
Rural Korangi, out of which the industrial drastically transformed. Rural Korangi used
area has grown, is divided into five dehs, to enjoy a symbiotic relationship with
Sharafi, Phihai, Dih, Drigh Road, and Rehri. Karachi. Along with the adjoining area of
Each deh is further divided into goths or Malir, it was the vegetable patch of the
villages. While none of these areas have city. Camel carts loaded with fruit and
escaped the effects of industrial vegetable would be sent off to Lea Market.
development, Deh Dih, Phihai, and Sharafi Fodder for camels and horses was also
have been most affected. grown. "Our whole life and culture revolved
around agriculture,” Karim explains. “We
Karim, whose family has been living in Haji
worked hard to provide the city all its
Gul Mohammad Goth in Deh Sharafi for
essentials—fruit, vegetables, milk and
over three generations, remembers a time
meat."
when Deh Sharafi was all agricultural land.
“Korangi was not banjar (barren) as That rural Korangi is now irrevocably lost,
people like to believe,” Karim emphasizes, but that loss was neither natural nor
“It was abad (populated).” There were gradual. It was founded on the unjust
hundreds of acres of rolling orchards. expropriation of indigenous land. Karachi
Trees laden with mulberries, mangoes, Development Authority (KDA) began to
guavas, dates, melons, papayas, and snatch land immediately after the industrial
grapes dotted the landscape. Streams zone was founded in 1960. Karim's
branching out of the Malir River braided grandfather was dispossessed of all 1,200
between fields of crops. “Korangi used to acres of his farmland. Many others
be like heaven,” Karim recalls. suffered similar fates. All the government
left to indigenous communities was the
These rivers and trees were Korangi’s
land on which their houses were built.
landmarks. Karim remembers a stream
called Natha Wangi that ran by his village. Today, 35 of such clusters of houses,
It was the lifeblood of their village, which are called goths still exist. However,
providing water for agriculture and without land to till, their old economy and
amusement for children. Today, there is no way of life have ended. Rich landowners
trace left of Natha Wangi. Even Karim and were able to buy new agricultural land in
his cousins could no longer remember Thatta and other parts of Sindh. Poorer
where it flowed, unable to discern its folks, including non-proprietary farmers
and peasants, had no choice but to labor

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in the factories that sprouted on their the exception to the grim rule of property
lands. The new generation in these expropriation. The people of Goth Shahli
communities has had to face the added managed to retain part of their agricultural
problem of overcrowding. Unable to build land. Yet, even Goth Shahli has not been
new houses on agricultural land, they are able to escape the impact of industrial
forced to live within the demarcated limits development.
of the goths, even as their families
Goth Shahli and the adjacent rural areas
increase.
are tucked away from the bustle of
While they could not legally stop the Korangi Industrial Area. Walls keep it
usurpation, some indigenous families have entirely hidden from commuters on Shah
instead attempted to seek remedy to this Faisal Road, which runs along it. It is only
historic injustice in the courts. Karim's on turning off the main road, just before
family was compensated a mere 3,000 the Shah Faisal Flyover, that one realizes
rupees per acre, while KDA resold their there is a rural world hidden away in the
land at a manifold higher price to factory middle of Korangi. The first thing that one
owners. His family filed a joint appeal in notices is the green fields with a narrow
1960. After pursuing the case for over brook making its way through. Its quiet
forty years, in 2002, the court finally ruled solitude stands in sharp contrast to the
that KDA owed Karim's family 88 million cacophony of vehicles and people on the
rupees. Yet, Karim sees little reason to main road beyond. Past the fields is the
celebrate. “Who will give us this money?” goth itself: a cluster of houses and shops,
he asks. “KDA has only given 2 crores [20 a school, and a football ground. Beyond
million rupees] and refused to give the Goth Shahli, the road leads to a handful of
rest.” other goths of Deh Phihai, whose
agricultural lands are still partially intact.
The other problem is that as the case has
stretched across generations, the number Haji Malik’s family has lived in Goth Shahli
of claimants today stands at over 200. since 1935. His father moved from Malir,
This leaves a mere 440,000 rupees on where his family had been living for
average to each claimant, if KDA were ever generations, to work as a peasant on the
to pay the full amount. No one has even land of the powerful Gabol family. When
attempted to calculate the cost in terms of KDA acquired agricultural land for the
quality of life and lost opportunities from industrial zone, the Gabols saved their
being deprived of a fair compensation for own 300-acre property by convincing the
over fifty years. government of the need for a “greenbelt.”
The land, however, was taken by the bank
Goth Shahli in Deh Phihai, which
to cover a debt in 1968. Bhutto’s
neighbors Deh Sharafi, is in some ways
government nationalized the bank and

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Goth Shahli, Deh Phihai

redistributed the land to the peasants in and used to build the city of
the 1970s. Malik’s family received 55 Karachi. Sand and gravel used to
acres. Today, he and his brothers live with absorb water. When it would rain,
their families in an expansive bungalow in the river would flow and the sand
Goth Shahli, which gives an indication of and gravel would store the water.
the kind of future that other indigenous Now the land is unable to do that.
families have been robbed off.
Arif Hasan explains that 60 billion cubic
Yet Malik is far from sanguine about his feet of sand and gravel has been illegally
family’s future. Where once his fields lifted for construction purposes from
yielded vegetables and fruits in copious seasonal riverbeds in Karachi's rural areas.
amounts, now it can only support fodder, This illegal practice of sand and gravel
which brings poor returns on the market. mining dates back to the construction
He lays the blame on urban and industrial boom caused by the building of Gulshan-i
development. Iqbal and DHA in the 1970s and has led
to irreparable top soil erosion. Where the
Development has destroyed our
Karachi Development Plan of 1975-85,
river,” Malik says. “The river banks
envisioned 85 percent of Karachi’s
used to have sand and gravel
agricultural needs would come from its
before. But this was all removed
immediate hinterland, today those lands

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can barely sustain fodder. Urban residents suspect the real reason for
development in Karachi was built not only DHA's interest in their land is to build a
on expropriated rural land but also out of road to connect DHA Phase 9 outside
it. The river and the land became the very Karachi to the city. “Development,” Malik
raw materials needed to construct the city. says, “did not happen for us. It was always
Rural communities and land were in the name of the nation but it was never
cannibalized by urban and industrial for us."
expansion.
On displacement
The Malir River today is no more than an
open sewage line. It not only bears waste Displacement, the original trauma of
from residential areas, but is also the Partition, has become institutionalized in
dumping site for toxic industrial effluents Pakistan. It is the ignored cost of the
from Korangi and Landhi Industrial Areas. desire for industry, modernity, and
The water flowing in the Malir River past development. It is a cost that poor
Goth Shahli is a seething putrid black, refugees and disempowered indigenous
whose stench assaults the senses from a communities disproportionately bear. The
considerable distance. Agriculture in Goth refugee and the indigenous are not viewed
Shahli no longer depends on the river. as rights-bearing citizens by the state but
Instead, water is pumped out of the water rather as dispensable lives. Over time,
table, which recedes further with each both refugee and indigenous communities
season. Goth Shahli is a living example of have been strategically excluded from the
the multiple threats that urban modern city, caught between forces of
development poses to indigenous constant unsettlement and precarious
agricultural communities. resettlement. Their eviction by the state is
not only an indication of the (non)value
However, the declining quality of the soil is
placed by the state on their lives, but also
not Malik’s only concern. Expropriation of
proof that there was no place for them in
land continues at a slow but steady pace.
the ideal city of Pakistan. If displacement is
In 2006, when the government built the
a strategy targeting de facto non-citizens,
Shah Faisal Flyover, it took an acre of his
then upper-middle class urban Muslims
land. Once again, Malik was powerless to
emerge as the true citizens of Pakistan.
stop the government.
They not only remain safe from the threat
New development projects continue to of displacement, but also reap the lion’s
threaten the precarious existence of Goth share of the benefits of its better know
Shahli. Defence Housing Authority has twin, development.
recently surveyed their land and intends to
Ayub's era is remembered both for rapid
build a park with a walking track here. Its
economic growth and entrenched

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economic inequality between classes.

However, it was also the time when
industrialization and modernization were
valorized as unquestionable aspirations for
the nation. As the dispute over the design
on Quaid's Mazar shows, in urban
Pakistan vociferous debate can be had on
the form of this modernity, but never on its
costs. Displacement, the dark underbelly
of development, continues unabated and
unexamined today.

Shahana Rajani is an artist and curator based

in Karachi. She is a co-founder of the Karachi
Art Anti-University.

Shayan Rajani is a PhD candidate in history.

His research is on the social and spatial history of
Sindh.

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TQ
May 2016 Tanqeed 17