Floodwaters Give New Life to Pakistani Class Dispute

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

A small community of fishermen displaced by flooding is living along an embankment near Nowshera in Pakistan’s northwest.

THATTA, Pakistan — Despite being flooded out of their homes and forced to camp on embankments, there is one community that is happy about Pakistan’s worst floods in living memory. They are the fishermen of the Indus River delta, whose livelihoods have diminished over the years from a lack of water, and who welcome the sudden abundance.

The New York Times

“It is a blessing,” said Yar Ali Mallah, 21, who comes from a long line of fishermen living in the delta, at the southern end of Pakistan. “When good water comes, our livelihoods will improve, fish will come,” he said.

Yet even as the fishermen rejoice at the floodwaters, other, more powerful figures are calling for more dams and irrigation projects upstream to contain the water flow and prevent such wide-scale destruction in the future. The “superflood” has reopened longstanding disputes over water management all along the Indus River, which runs the length of Pakistan, and many of the poorer victims fear that they will once again be ignored in favor of rich and powerful interests.

Pakistan’s government will have to grapple not only with the needs of millions of people who suddenly lost homes, crops and livelihoods, but also with the explosive political repercussions over water distribution and how to spend reconstruction assistance fairly.

“Unless there is a radical break from the past, new measures are likely to favor large World Bank-funded projects that sequester still more of the resources of this river into the hands of the powerful, rather than focusing on the long-term survival of marginalized communities such as delta fisherpeople or smallholders in the upper reaches of the valley,” Alice Albinia, author of a book on the Indus, “Empires of the Indus,” wrote in an e-mailed reply to questions.

The damage done to the Indus delta by nearly 100 years of extensive irrigation upstream — perhaps the largest in the world — is well documented. It has made Pakistan a food and cotton exporter and helped enrich landowners the length of the river. But so much water is used up that the Indus, one of Asia’s greatest rivers, runs virtually dry before reaching the delta, where the river empties into the Arabian Sea.

The lack of river water has allowed sea water to inundate some two million acres of the delta, destroying once fertile paddy fields and killing off coastal mangroves, which are the natural breeding ground for fish, say leaders of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, a nongovernmental organization that works to support the rights of the fishermen communities.

Floodwaters, with their nutrient-rich silt deposits, are critical to the survival of life on the delta and of fish stocks, said Gulab Shah, a social worker and district president of the Fisherfolk Forum in Thatta.

“The River Indus has so many canals, dams and barrages that water does not come into the river, and because of the shortage of fresh water, the fish catch has gradually decreased,” he said.

The fishermen say their fathers and grandfathers recall netting far larger catches in their day. The famous Palla fish, a saltwater fish and delicacy here in Sindh Province that would swim up the Indus to breed, has not been seen for years, said Allah Dino, 30, another fisherman.

The fishermen live a precarious life in wooden shacks on islands in the river delta and fish in the small freshwater lakes created by the meandering river. A group camped on an embankment just outside Thatta, a river town about 70 miles east of the southern port of Karachi, said that over the last 40 years they lost their homes four times because of floods and once because of a cyclone. Each time they rebuilt their houses without any help from the government, and will do so again, they said.

They are more concerned about better regulation of the river that would allow the natural flood cycle to replenish the delta, they said. “The permanent solution is continuous water in the Indus and for it to flow into the sea,” said Mr. Mallah, the fisherman who welcomed the floodwaters. Yet they have powerful competitors for the water upstream who say the floods show that Pakistan must build more dams to collect the monsoon rains and produce more badly needed electricity.

The Nation, a Punjab Province-based daily newspaper, began a campaign this month for one of the most controversial dam projects, the Kalabagh dam, which is opposed by communities in the northwest of Pakistan whose land would be flooded, and also in this southern province, where people fear it would cause even greater water shortages in the delta.

The case for the Kalabagh dam has long been deadlocked by fierce disagreements between Pakistan’s four provinces, and in particular by the most powerful and populous province, Punjab, against the other three — Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan and Sindh — which complain they have always been shortchanged in the decisions over natural resources.

Even the military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf failed to push the project through during his nine years in power because of resistance in the provinces. The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, a strong advocate of the dam who has done a study on the issue, said it was necessary to meet pressing electricity and water demands of Pakistan’s growing middle class. Pakistan does not have a dam to catch the heavy monsoon rains, and if Kalabagh had been built it would have prevented the recent flood damage in northwestern Pakistan, he contended.

Yet the people of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, formerly called the North-West Frontier Province, who have long opposed the dam because it would deluge their lands, said the floods had proved their long-held position that towns like Nowshera, which suffered badly in the flooding, would be harmed more by a dam below the town at Kalabagh.

In Sindh, the fishermen, and also many farmers, oppose plans for more dams and irrigation projects on the Indus, and advocate turning to coal power rather than hydropower for Pakistan’s electricity needs, Mr. Shah, the Fisherfolk Forum representative, said.

For the fishermen, it is simple. “We want to continue our fishing,” Mr. Mallah said. “It is our ancestral profession.”

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times A small community of fishermen displaced by flooding is living along an embankment near Nowshera in Pakistan’s northwest. THATTA, Pakistan — Despite being flooded out of their homes and forced to camp on embankments, there is one community that is happy about Pakistan’s worst floods in living memory. They are the fishermen of the Indus River delta, whose livelihoods have diminished over the years from a lack of water, and who welcome the sudden abundance. The New York Times “It is a blessing,” said Yar Ali Mallah, 21, who comes from a long line of fishermen living in the delta, at the southern end of Pakistan. “When good water comes, our livelihoods will improve, fish will come,” he said. Yet even as the fishermen rejoice at the floodwaters, other, more powerful figures are calling for more dams and irrigation projects upstream to contain the water flow and prevent such wide-scale destruction in the future. The “superflood” has reopened longstanding disputes over water management all along the Indus River, which runs the length of Pakistan, and many of the poorer victims fear that they will once again be ignored in favor of rich and powerful interests. Pakistan’s government will have to grapple not only with the needs of millions of people who suddenly lost homes, crops and livelihoods, but also with the explosive political repercussions over water distribution and how to spend reconstruction assistance fairly. “Unless there is a radical break from the past, new measures are likely to favor large World Bank-funded projects that sequester still more of the resources of this river into the hands of the powerful, rather than focusing on the long-term survival of marginalized communities such as delta fisherpeople or smallholders in the upper reaches of the valley,” Alice Albinia, author of a book on the Indus, “Empires of the Indus,” wrote in an e-mailed reply to questions. The damage done to the Indus delta by nearly 100 years of extensive irrigation upstream — perhaps the largest in the world — is well documented. It has made Pakistan a food and cotton exporter and helped enrich landowners the length of the river. But so much water is used up that the Indus, one of Asia’s greatest rivers, runs virtually dry before reaching the delta, where the river empties into the Arabian Sea. The lack of river water has allowed sea water to inundate some two million acres of the delta, destroying once fertile paddy fields and killing off coastal mangroves, which are the natural breeding ground for fish, say leaders of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, a nongovernmental organization that works to support the rights of the fishermen communities. Floodwaters, with their nutrient-rich silt deposits, are critical to the survival of life on the delta and of fish stocks, said Gulab Shah, a social worker and district president of the Fisherfolk Forum in Thatta. “The River Indus has so many canals, dams and barrages that water does not come into the river, and because of the shortage of fresh water, the fish catch has gradually decreased,” he said. The fishermen say their fathers and grandfathers recall netting far larger catches in their day. The famous Palla fish, a saltwater fish and delicacy here in Sindh Province that would swim up the Indus to breed, has not been seen for years, said Allah Dino, 30, another fisherman. The fishermen live a precarious life in wooden shacks on islands in the river delta and fish in the small freshwater lakes created by the meandering river. A group camped on an embankment just outside Thatta, a river town about 70 miles east of the southern port of Karachi, said that over the last 40 years they lost their homes four times because of floods and once because of a cyclone. Each time they rebuilt their houses without any help from the government, and will do so again, they said. They are more concerned about better regulation of the river that would allow the natural flood cycle to replenish the delta, they said. “The permanent solution is continuous water in the Indus and for it to flow into the sea,” said Mr. Mallah, the fisherman who welcomed the floodwaters. Yet they have powerful competitors for the water upstream who say the floods show that Pakistan must build more dams to collect the monsoon rains and produce more badly needed electricity. The Nation, a Punjab Province-based daily newspaper, began a campaign this month for one of the most controversial dam projects, the Kalabagh dam, which is opposed by communities in the northwest of Pakistan whose land would be flooded, and also in this southern province, where people fear it would cause even greater water shortages in the delta. The case for the Kalabagh dam has long been deadlocked by fierce disagreements between Pakistan’s four provinces, and in particular by the most powerful and populous province, Punjab, against the other three — Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan and Sindh — which complain they have always been shortchanged in the decisions over natural resources. Even the military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf failed to push the project through during his nine years in power because of resistance in the provinces. The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, a strong advocate of the dam who has done a study on the issue, said it was necessary to meet pressing electricity and water demands of Pakistan’s growing middle class. Pakistan does not have a dam to catch the heavy monsoon rains, and if Kalabagh had been built it would have prevented the recent flood damage in northwestern Pakistan, he contended. Yet the people of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, formerly called the North-West Frontier Province, who have long opposed the dam because it would deluge their lands, said the floods had proved their long-held position that towns like Nowshera, which suffered badly in the flooding, would be harmed more by a dam below the town at Kalabagh. In Sindh, the fishermen, and also many farmers, oppose plans for more dams and irrigation projects on the Indus, and advocate turning to coal power rather than hydropower for Pakistan’s electricity needs, Mr. Shah, the Fisherfolk Forum representative, said. For the fishermen, it is simple. “We want to continue our fishing,” Mr. Mallah said. “It is our ancestral profession.”