The irrigation infrastructure in Sindh tilts towards status quo, and has failed to bring about socio-economic change
Mehreen Omer
Daniel Haines in this remarkable work on the politics of irrigation in Sind (or Sindh as it is now called) shows how the Pakistani policymakers have always sought technological fixes to social and political problems and in turn have only managed to further aggravate them. He examines how the Pakistani state encouraged infrastructure development in Sind to promote its own legitimacy and authority. The Sukkur, Ghulam Muhammad and Gudu barrages reshaped the agrarian economy of Sind but also demonstrated that the government was now in full control of Sind’s environmental base. The governments subsequently argued that since the technological development in Sind required centralized management, the provincial legislative authority cannot be given its due powers. This allowed the state to do away with the need to cooperate with elected representatives, as the barrages and canals legitimized its authority. After Independence, the successive governments lacked any support in popular representation and so exploited the idea of material profess as a way to firmly establish its authority, under the garb of ‘nation-building’. Many of their interventionist policies were justified under the guise of ‘progress’. The Sukkur barrage already in colonial times was revered as a symbol of British might.
The society in Sindh had been structured along rural power which rested amongst the landlords, better known as the ‘zamindars’. The claim that the state was trying to develop the area by giving priority to the refugees and the common man was nothing but rhetoric, as the state accommodated the previous land ownership patterns in its development policies. The state’s dependence on the rural magnates i.e. wealthy lords, meant that changes in the irrigation system of Sind could not be used to foster a socio-economic revolution in the area. This was in sharp contrast to the state of affairs in Punjab, where the colonial government was able to construct a balance of power between the different elements of the agrarian society.
The author also explains that the Pakistani government did not follow the modernization precedents of Western patrons, and while the latter focused more on people than infrastructure, the priority of the Pakistani government was to develop infrastructure at the expense of people. He also explains that neither the colonial nor the post-colonial administrations used irrigation projects as precursors to agricultural development. Many other aspects for modernization in Sind were overlooked, like education and the transport sector. This book is a timely publication considering the recent tensions in Sindh fueled largely by it being neglected by the federal government and not given enough provincial autonomy. The floods in 2010-2011 continue to reinforce the importance of the Indus river and stands as proof that the builders of canals and barrages did not care about the environment at all. In the end, none of the modernization policies of the governments really make Sind ‘modern’ in the end. This book meticulously elucidates the internal politics of Sindh and reasons how they are affecting its development today.
Building the Empire, Building the Nation
Development, Legitimacy, and Hydro-Politics in Sind, 1919-1969
Author: Daniel Haines
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Karachi.
Pages: 281; Price: Rs. 995
The writer is a status quo critic by habit and a marketing scientist by profession. She tweets @mehreen_omer.
