I couldn’t sleep last night. We’ve become immune to horror stories on a regular basis in Pakistan, but the death of a six-day old infant in the I-11 sector slums in Islamabad during a government drive to demolish the settlement shook me to my core.
Countless questions keep running through the mind but nobody seems to have the answers.
The media has not raised any serious inquiry, nor has it initiated a genuine discussion on the issue, either by the standing parliamentarians or by the two members of parliament elected from Islamabad – from the PML-N and the PTI.
In this piece, I will try to ask the questions that have been plaguing my mind and will attempt to arrive at some reasonable answers on my own; pieced together from various sources. I hope this will begin the important discussion about the fate of hundreds of ‘katchi abadi’ settlements in Islamabad and in several Pakistani cities.
Why is this happening? Who are the residents of the I-11 basti?
The I-11 sector slum or ‘basti’ is also called the ‘Afghan basti’; this is where the Islamabad authorities’ eviction operation is ongoing. The fact that it is called an ‘Afghan’ basti is a misrepresentation of the nationality of its inhabitants, since most of them are Pakistani citizens from Fata or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and not Afghans.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has on record informed the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that the residents are Pakistani citizens. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2012 and in 2014, also informed the court that to their knowledge and in their surveys, there were no Afghans in the I-11 sector's katchi abadi. In fact, a camp of sorts for Afghan refugees is indeed situated in the capital's I-12 sector.
So not only are the evicted I-11 katchi abadi residents Pakistani citizens, they have built Islamabad in all its phases of construction over the past 40 years. The Awami Workers Party (AWP) has profiled several of the residents and as a result their professions and backgrounds are available for doubters to check. Many came to the capital as a result of military operations and natural disasters in their hometowns and villages.
Also read: An anti-poor society
For the longest time, the Islamabad administration has found it okay to host these settlers who came to the capital from all parts of the country to construct the various sectors we all so comfortably live in. Many of the residents today, post-construction phase, have become vegetable sellers and work in the sabzi mandi (vegetable market) in the capital's G-sector which feeds Islamabad. A generation or two of the settlers have been born in this area and have been servicing Islamabad while living in I-11.
Why was this particular basti targeted?
Why has this basti come under the CDA's gaze? Is it by accident or by design? And why now?
Apparently, this is how the story began: A resident of the basti went to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to get his Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) card made. Nadra refused him his constitutional right, saying the person's residence had been declared as unregularised. The concerned person appealed to the IHC, where things took a whole other turn and instead of a resolution of the CNIC issue, the settler community itself came under fire.
The CDA, the Interior Ministry and the Commissioner Islamabad were hauled into the court which demanded to know why this katchi abadi existed and why it had remained so in the capital. It is unclear what the government officials said before the court which eventually ordered the removal of the settlement.
Who owns the land?
There are 25 similar katchi abadis across Islamabad. Why then has CDA singled out I-11?
The rumours that I-11 is owned by private citizens and owners and not CDA are inaccurate. The petitioners – in both the Feb 2014 IHC order and in the Supreme Court petition– clearly state that I-11 is government-owned public land. Thus, this settlement is on state land and thus not an encroachment on private property.
The demolition that ensued this week is backed by this order of the IHC issued in Feb 2014.
Also read: Two operations
As a resident of Islamabad, I am ashamed to see such violence and inhumanity against the most vulnerable in our society. Citizens living on the periphery of observation and access to justice have met the full wrath of an inhumane state structure.
No member of parliament – and we have two from Islamabad – has stood on the side of the disenfranchised in their hour of need.
What does the law say about katchi abadis?
The demolition of katchi abadis is not only depriving residents of their fundamental right to life and access to housing under Article 9 of the Constitution, but also blatantly ignores their right to due process, guaranteed under Article 10-A of the Constitution.
What does our Constitution say about this? Do we have the right to have a roof?
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Constitutional clauses pertaining to basic amenities and shelter needs of Pakistani citizens. |
In the list on the right you will find the various Articles from the Constitution of Pakistan which stress the state's role and responsibilities with regard to housing.
Pakistan has also ratified the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which means it has assumed the responsibility to not only provide its citizens with adequate housing but ensure a certain standard of living. The government is supposed to respect and protect its people’s right to shelter.
Furthermore, the 2001 National Housing Policy declares that there shall not be any eviction from a katchi abadi unless the residents are relocated as per resettlement plans (para 5.2.1).
The more civilised world has determined that the right to housing is not a privilege of the few, but a right, an obligation for the state to provide to all citizens. In our world, none of the many self-proclaimed pro-poor political parties (except the AWP) has taken up this issue on behalf of the poor in these past three decades. How could so many hard-working Pakistani people be ignored? Why hasn’t any government seen it fit to provide them with the dignity of basic housing?
Other katchi abadi policies
The National Housing Policy 2001 clearly states that katchi abadis are not illegal settlements, but are defined as:
“‘Informal settlements comprising more than 40 houses’, which can be registered and regularised based on when they were built. The preferred official policy is to improve the abadis where they are, but if any abadi is to be removed for extraordinary reasons, that can only be done after working out a detailed resettlement plan in consultation with the residents.’”
Thus, the state has in fact acknowledged the housing crisis and the settlements all over, with the intent of regularising these over time.
According to the 1998 report:
“In 1998, there were 19.3 million households in Pakistan, with average household size at 6.6 persons and occupancy at 3.3 persons per room. The overall housing stock comprised 39 per cent kucha houses mostly without proper water supply, 40 per cent semi-pucca houses, mostly without planned sanitation or sewerage system, and 21 per cent pucca houses.”
In Sindh, the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority (SKAA) addresses the katchi abadi population. One of its main functions is to regularise and then develop the abadis. The settlement, however, has to first qualify as a katchi abadi as per the official definition, for it to be granted a legal status.
Thus, the settlement should have been in existence before March 23, 1985; it must have a minimum of 40 dwelling units; it should not be on a hazardous location or on area reserved for developing infrastructure and basic amenities such as roads, water lines etc.
Settlements located on land owned by provincial and federal government land-owning agencies can be regularised. Read more here.
The role of the state machinery: IESCO
The electricity company which provides energy to Islamabad also reflects the attitude of the state towards its poor. Although the settlement is considered ‘illegal’, it has provided electricity to them, not on an individual household levels, but a single connection, which is then internally divided by some system adopted to collectively pay the electricity company’s bill.
When I asked IESCO how they had provided this facility to an illegal colony, they thought it better to give the abadis a connection and receive payment, than have them steal electricity. Fair enough. So the state is happy to extract dues from vulnerable citizens, but maintains a threatening Damocles’ sword over their heads by not regularising their abode’s legal status?
Negative fallouts
Since the I-11 basti is primarily inhabited by Pakhtuns, many sense that there is an ethnic targeting at play. The constant labeling of Pakistani citizens as Afghans, meaning ‘not us’ is very disconcerting.
In a nation which has not been able to forge a strong national inclusive identity, continuing this marginalisation and alienation on the basis of ethnicity is a dangerous game. There will be a growing number of people who will start associating with their ethnic identity instead of the national one; and a growing anti-state sentiment may result from this.
Conclusion
Targeting only one katchi abadi out of 24 in Islamabad raises many questions.
Are the residents of the remaining katchi abadis serving the elite of the city and hence protected by them? Is the government land they are squatting on not equally ‘valuable’ for CDA? Why hasn’t any government seen it fit to address the crisis of the urban poor public housing?
Pakistan is a state which has subsidised industries, services and given public lands for elite housing complexes and business schemes. So why has it not considered giving the most vulnerable Pakistani citizens their own country’s land for shelter?
Who is all this land for?
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