A requiem for the river folk of the Indus

Rivers flowing down for thousands of years have nurtured civilizations, cultures and people around their banks. It is truer of the fabled land of the five rivers, which is the heartland of Pakistan. Indus, the main river, and one of the longest, 3,180 km originates in Western Tibet and joins the Arabian Sea, curving through Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan and irrigating a massive network of canals. The plain topography of the Punjab, Sindh and parts of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa draw enormous amount of waters from the rivers— Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. Sadly, Pakistan gave up its rights over three other rivers to India in 1960.

There is much talk of the green revolution, crops varieties and the agricultural economy and fruits of Pakistan thanks to canal irrigation, but hardly any information about, or discussion of the riverine communities living on the banks of the Indus.

Once, there were thousands of such communities making a living from the river, and along its banks from the vast natural forests. They had traditional occupations based on local resources and the skills had passed on from one generation to another. Having grown up close to the Indus in the southern Punjab region, I have seen many of these communities vanishing away with the loss of forests, land, boating and fishing rights. More powerful actors have taken over everything that used to sustain the economy of the riverine people.

Fisher folk used to live on boat homes and would sail from one place to another but within familiar, ancestral areas. On the banks that would shift with the river changing directions they had huts made of local forest wood twigs and covered with hay thatch. At the right time in the season, they would harvest long flexible shoots and branches and weave baskets of varying sizes. Reed grass found in abundance in the forests was the material for making mats for flooring and roofing of mud houses in the entire region. It was before the age of synthetic carpets, gravel and cement floors and every thing plastic. With time, not only did the market for the products of the riverine communities keep shrinking, but the forests too fell victim to a growth in population and capitalist agriculture. Heavy tractors, bulldozers and water turbines converted the virgin land along the riverbank into green fields of sugarcane, wheat, mustard and bean crops. The rich soil top renewed every year with monsoon floods brought in bigger players into the land business. The riverine communities, fragmented, as they are and without any voice, lost use of the land. As forests disappeared, so did the traditional profession of weaving baskets and mats.

Fishing and boat transport were their old professions. They owned the boats and would ferry people across the river. There was a time when they would not charge in cash, but collect grains from each family at wheat harvesting time. As the numbers grew, the passengers would pay the boatmen in cash. As the boat transport flourished, the government of Punjab introduced the licensing system, auctioning boat ports. Illiterate and cutoff from the wider market economy, the boat people had no idea where to go and how to get a license. Local influential, mostly politically connected activists and political families obtained licenses. Having lost a natural right to modern law, the boatmen became workers. The licensees, making millions, bought their own boats, employing some of the old professionals to work for them. These communities moved away from these lands, some became day laborers or began sharecropping.

There was a time only the riverine communities would catch wild Indus fish and sell them to nearby villages. All varieties of fish were plentiful, cheap and available throughout the season. It was the government of the Punjab claiming rights over fish resources of the rivers terminated what I insist, was the natural right of the fishing people, and one they had enjoyed for thousands of years. The ‘bigger fish’ entered the market: local political families with heavy pockets and bureaucratic connections. Fishing licenses of various patches of water would go for millions, and the traditional fishing folks didn’t stand a chance. They lost out. Now I see them fishing for others for a daily wage or portion of the catch. Modern technology of fishing and rapid transport has connected river fishing to the big cities of the country. The licensees, the middle men and the restaurant owners have taken over the entire business, leaving the fish folks to become mere laborers.

Regrettably, bad laws, political influence and the greed of the modern economy have wiped out too many such communities. Only a few traces and memories remain, with witnesses like me who too will fade away with the passage of time. What a requiem to ‘modernity.’

- Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Twitter: @RasulRais