karachi

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The Flood Affected Population in Sindh Rebuilding Lives and Livelihoods: The Case for Structural Reforms (2011)

This research report was written for Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Karachi and was published in January, 2011.

Pakistan’s devastating floods caused by extraordinary rainfall in July-Sept 2010 affected over 20 million people, causing 1,985 deaths and injuries to 2,946 people. The floods wreaked havoc, washed away crops and rural settlements, flooded towns and urban centres, damaged roads, bridges and irrigation canals, schools, hospitals and all social and physical infrastructures. The disaster led to unprecedented displacement of 1,550,000 people from flooded areas to dry places, mostly nearer homes and to urban centres in the home districts. A large number of people from the affected districts in Sindh, took refuge in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad. The families who had resources, assets and support systems in dry districts cities stayed with their relatives and friends. The majority of the IDPs who lost their abodes, meagre assets and means of livelihoods had to take refuge in shelters and makeshift camps put up by the provincial governments, NGOs and international humanitarian agencies. The displaced persons in the camps overwhelmingly belonged to the lowest stratum of society.

In addition to relief work, PILER undertook a profiling and livelihood needs assessment survey to gauge socio-economic indicators and the livelihood status of the IDPs prior to the floods and get an idea of their future plans and aspirations. The objectives were to share the findings with relevant stakeholders (i.e. state, civil society, resource institutes) for possible linkages that would facilitate the IDPs in the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase and provide a basis to the PILER advocacy inputs towards a rehabilitation plan that commits to upgrading the living and work conditions of the IDPs and facilitate their access to fundamental rights and citizenship based entitlements.

Click the link below to view the full report:

The Flood Affected Population in Sindh  – Rebuilding Lives and Livelihoods: The Case for Structural Reforms

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Karachi’s Ethnic Violence – Women and Crisis Management: A Study in Microcosm (2000)

This research report written for Shirkatgah, Karachi was published in The News, Pakistan on 21 May, 2000.

According to media reports, an average of 630 violent deaths (95 per cent male) per year was recorded in the city of Karachi during the ten-year period from 1990-99. No accumulated figures were released or studied–by any quarter–of men arrested/tried/incarcerated by criminal courts or gone underground. Yet media reports and unofficial estimates indicate that these figures ran in thousands. Armed conflict/ethnic strife in Karachi, thus, has left innumerable (middle and lower-middle income) families without male wage earners, leaving thousands of women and children survivors to cope with psychological trauma and economic hardships.

The following story presents in a microcosm the turbulent life of women affected by forces beyond their control, and attempts to document, courtsey Shirkatgah, the sheer grit and courage of women, and their struggle for survival.

Click the link below to view the full report:

Karachi’s Ethnic Violence – Women and Crisis Management: A Study in Microcosm

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The World of the Wandering Circus

Dated February 2000. Previously unpublished.

The sunlight on that 22nd January 2000 forenoon had washed away the magic of the previous night. Shorn off the glitter and the glamour, the circus arena and the surroundings were bathed in a homely, rustic glow. The tusk-less elephant stood morosely, flapping its ears. The white majestic horses with long manes had their nozzles in the hay bins. The panoramic cupola of the tent was folded up, exposing a criss-cross of thick ropes and poles still pegged on the dusty ground, giving ample space to the children artistes to glide by on their roller skates. The full circle of the make-shift stadium was broken as the workers pulled apart the raised iron benches and were busy stacking them. The stage floor was half gone, exposing the wagon of the caged lions. The raised floor of the musical band was still up, hanging in mid-air, with a disorderly queue of drums and other instruments. Beyond the remains of the stadium, were rows of small tents pitched side by side. Some of the curtain doors were flung open, exposing artistes on bed, curled up in comforters, some yawning, some still asleep, with the crumpled shiny costumes of the last show heaped on the top of the huge zinc trunks.

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Notes from a Diary: Independence Day

(First published in Daily Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan, in its Sunday Magazine edition, on 10 August 1997. Later published in Sampark: Journal of Global Understanding, Pakistan: an age of violence, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2004, New Delhi)

14 August 1996:  It’s quiet outside. No traffic. But something is amiss. On this 49th anniversary of Pakistan. What is that? I try to figure out. Oh, yes. Now I remember. It`s the sound of cannon-fire. Twenty-one salutary shots to be exact, in the morning. Yes, I didn’t hear cannon-fire this morning. We are too far away from the Naval post in Manora Island. Is it 25 km or 30 km from Gulistan-e-Jauher?

I recall the morning of the Independence Day just a year after the 1965 war with India, when I was 13; I had woken up with a start at the sound of the cannon-fire and thought another war had begun. ‘Do you hear this sound?’ In panic, I had rushed to my parents’ bedroom. ‘Go back to sleep. They are celebrating Independence Day’, my father had told me. But somehow, for many years, that salutary cannon-fire kept disturbing me annually. Why can’t they fill the air with chimes, or some kind of music, instead of this thunderous, terrifying, terrible sound?

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A Story of Karachi: Life in Liaquatabad and Elsewhere (1995)

Coming from Hasan Square, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, past Ghareebabad, you would find the left footpath of the main road leading to Al-Karam Square dotted with red-hooded stalls. I had noticed them for the first time a few years back. That evening they seemed to have sprung up all of a sudden, out of the pulsating, violence-ridden, notorious Liaquatabad/Ghareebabad cauldron. The bright red sheets tied up with balusters, reddish brown earthen jars, their mouths covered with white kerchiefs, and a bearded fellow–donning white kurta, pyjama and cap–on each stall: I had marvelled at this fleet of qulfi-wallahs, at their spirit, panache and determination to earn a living decently in these miserable times, in Central District, Karachi. A few odd customers, probably residents of the nearby lanes, were sitting on chairs, and a car or two were lined up on the kerb, ordering the Ghareebabad speciality. Indeed, it was delicious.

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