[🇵🇰] People of the Indus: Portraits from a changing river
- By ghazi
- Pakistan Social & Current Events
- 4 Replies
People of the Indus: Portraits from a changing river
On a journey from mountain to sea, The Third Pole meets people whose lives are intertwined with the nourishing, destructive and evolving Indus.Alefia T. Hussain
January 28, 2024
On its 3,100-kilometre course from the mountains of Tibet to the Arabian Sea, the mighty Indus River flows through foothills and plains, national parks, lands that have been denuded of their forests, fertile farmland and bustling towns. Along the way are dams and barrages, with large hydropower and irrigation projects affecting the natural flow of the river.
The Indus provides almost 90 per cent of the water for agriculture in Pakistan, but its waters can also take lives through floods. For the herders, farmers and fishers of the Indus basin, the river is a way of life, providing them with livelihoods and sustenance, yet it possesses the power to strip them of their homes, businesses and livestock with just one flood. They fear as well as revere the river.
Floods are an ever-looming threat in the Indus basin. Between 1950 and 2010, 21 major floods killed a total of 8,887 people, while immense floods in 2022 killed more than 1,700 and displaced nearly 8 million. The government estimated that an additional 8.4-9.1 million people would be pushed into poverty as a result.
The Third Pole travelled down the Indus, from the mountains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the north to the desolate villages of Sindh in the south, meeting people who depend on the river. We heard stories of a changing river and evolving relationships: many contend that engineering interventions like dams and barrages have transformed the Indus’ once free-flowing and predictable character, rendering it volatile and unforgiving. But almost nobody mentioned climate change, despite this being a key factor behind the unusually intense monsoon rains that caused the catastrophic 2022 floods.
The main locations visited by The Third Pole during its journey along the Indus River
‘The people of Gilgit-Baltistan are at the mercy of the Indus’
Most people in Khaplu and Skardu towns, where the Shyok River meets the Indus in Gilgit-Baltistan, know of Muhammad Jan and the homes he runs for destitute children.Muhammad Jan says that in this area, surrounded by towering mountains, the relationship between the Indus and its people is defined by fear and destruction. Here, most of the river’s water comes from glacial melt in the Karakoram mountains. But climate change impacts are jeopardising the food security and livelihoods of local people, increasing poverty levels.
Muhammad Jan in front of the Apna Ghar, a home for destitute children, he set up in Skardu (Image: Alefia T Hussain)
“The people of this area are at the mercy of Indus. It hits the poorest the hardest,” says 57-year-old Muhammad Jan.
Muhammad Jan started supporting destitute children in 2002. More than two decades on, he houses 96 boys and 23 girls aged between 5 and 18 in homes called “Apna Ghar” — or “[our] own house” — in Khaplu and Skardu. “They are the children of shepherds or labourers or farmers living on slopes and terraces built along the Indus. They cannot afford one meal a day of roti [bread]. They do not own land and live in small one-room huts together with their animals and meagre belongings. They are at the mercy of nature.”
The Indus River at Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan (Image: Hamid Hussain Skardu)
According to Muhammad Jan, the destruction caused when the Indus overflowed in 2010 was the worst in his memory, leading to many requests for admission to the Apna Ghar. Three brothers and one sister were admitted after their house was washed away by floodwaters in Balghar; they are all still studying, the eldest in college. He supported a girl whose father and three siblings died when their house collapsed as the Indus raged through Hoto village; she is now pursuing a degree in botany.
“I do not want them to live a troubled life because the Indus, in its various moods, has not been too kind to them,” says Muhammad Jan.
‘The power project has further impoverished the village’
Having cut through the Himalayan, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, the Indus reaches Kohistan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.“The Indus is an integral part of our landscape. Yet, we prefer to keep a distance from it due to its formidable force,” says 32-year-old Shams ul Haq, whose home is perched about 900 metres above the river in Kohistan, near a small hamlet called Dubair.
Shams ul Haq standing on a mountain path in Kohistan, with the Indus in the background (Image: Hamzah Hashmi)
Ways to earn a living in Kohistan are limited, and residents are able to grow just enough maize, wheat and vegetables on their small, terraced farms to sustain themselves. Haq runs a development organisation to help residents acquire an education and set up small businesses. Floods have hit Kohistan four times since 2010, and in 2022, Dubair’s bazaar, located close to the river, was washed away. “The shop owners have abandoned the village and resettled in nearby larger towns,” says Haq. Dubair is the location of the 130-megawatt (MW) Dubair Khwar hydroelectric project, which became operational in 2014. The village is also located 75 kilometres downstream of the under-construction 4,800 MW Diamer Bhasha dam, scheduled for completion in 2027, and 10 kilometres downstream of a 4,320 MW run-of-the-river dam being constructed at Dasu.
“Though we are surrounded by power projects, my village has power for only a couple of hours during the day. Our homes get electricity only at night,” says Haq. Most homes in Dubair are powered only by solar energy.
Haq explains that during construction of the Dubair hydropower project, local people willingly surrendered their agricultural land and even the village graveyard to developers to build infrastructure for the dam. They received what he considers to be “adequate compensation” for the land. However, many of these families then migrated to cities like Mansehra to establish new businesses there. As a result, he says, “the project has further impoverished the village”.
A view of the Indus as it winds its way downstream through the rugged mountains of Kohistan (Image: Hamzah Hashmi)
He hopes that when the Diamer Bhasha and Dasu dam projects are eventually completed, they will provide power to local villages and open up easy access to the rest of the country. “[I hope] more people come and inhabit Dubair, to liven up the markets.”
‘My family experienced life and death on the boat’
Fifty-five-year-old Bashiran Bibi grew up on the Indus. Her ancestors lived on boats, travelling between Kalabagh in Punjab and Sukkur in Sindh, trading goods. In her childhood, she says, the river provided abundant water, food and trading opportunities for her family to thrive. “I learned to cook, eat and live on the boat. My family experienced life and death on the boat. We used to get off the boat only to bury the dead,” she recalls.Then, after an array of dams and barrages were constructed in the mid-20th century to regulate the river’s flow and irrigate millions of acres of farmland on the fertile Punjab plains, the water level of the Indus fell. Meanwhile, fast-moving trucks on highways became the preferred mode of goods transportation. Bashiran Bibi’s family had to abandon trading along the river in the 1970s, as “the water became too shallow for our big boats, often 80 to 100 feet long.” Her family was forced to settle in Kot Addu in south Punjab, and take up fishing as their new profession.
Bashiran Bib
1706019379-0/White-Leopard-Kerthar-National-Park-(1)1706019379-0.jpeg "a white leopard shot dead within the limits of kerthar national park photo express")
1706019379-1/White-Leopard-Kerthar-National-Park-(2)1706019379-1.jpeg "A white leopard shot dead within the limits of Kerthar National Park. PHOTO: EXPRESS")
