Democracy in Action: Petitioning the State

March 6: A session on democracy, examining the mechanisms
which citizens use to voice their concerns in the context of the
Thar Coal Project, was held at Aman CED. The panelists for the
talk were: Bheem Raj, a Lecturer at the Karachi University who
has been involved in litigation for environmental justice in
interior Sindh; Sohail Sangi, a veteran journalist who also
teaches in the mass communication department at Sindh University
and has published articles in several journals including Awaami
Awaaz and Dr. Raza Gardezi, project manager at Shehri, a
citizen-led initiative in Karachi. The moderator for the session
was Dr. Nausheen Anwar, author of a recently published book
‘Infrastructure Redux’ and a Social Sciences and Liberal Arts
Professor at IBA.
Dr. Anwar began the talk by expressing gratitude to Dr. Faiza
for organizing this session and thanked the panelists for coming
to IBA to speak on this topic. The first speaker, Mr. Sohail
Sangi, then spoke about the issues in the Thar Coal Mine
Project. Development schemes commenced in Thar in the late
1980s. Thar has an area of approximately 21,000 square feet, out
of which 40 percent comprises of coal mines. However, land
acquisition is done on the basis of an Act from 1884, which is
more than two hundred years old. Moreover, the benefits of
development are not given to the local population. In many oil
and gas fields in Sindh, the land has been taken on lease. In
the case of Thar, the land is being taken from the people by the
government. Mining of these coal fields will also lead to a
shortage of water in this area. Thus, both water and land are
being taken from the people; nothing is being left for them.
‘How can this be development?’ questioned Mr. Sangi. ‘It is a
form of destruction instead.’ Mentioning how this project is not
benefitting the locals, he said that only 5 workers in the Engro
team are from Thar.
The next speaker, Dr. Raza Gardezi, spoke about the low level of
awareness amongst citizens regarding the Thar project. This is
in stark contrast to the essence of democracy. The people of
Thar cannot take a stand; it is a marginalized society.
Therefore, we have to take a stand for them. There are two
litigations in Thar currently – one filed by a seven year old
girl and the other filed by Mr. Leela Ram. However, large
corporations such as Engro have immense power which favours them
in these cases. ‘Apart from having outdated legislation,
Pakistan is also an overly legislated country – before the
commercialization of land a public hearing is held, before
charging parking fees on a road, a public hearing is held,’
stated Dr. Gardezi. ‘Public litigation does help, but each of us
has to do our bit.’
The last panelist, Mr. Bheem Raj mentioned how the lives of
Tharis will be affected because of this project. Only the
Hyderabad Judicial Committee is working on this cause. The
compensation scheme has also not been decided on and Engro has
announced that they will not resettle anyone despite stating
that this area will be uninhabitable in the future. ‘There is no
hope for us, which is why we are protesting,’ said Mr. Bheem Raj.
The floor was then opened for questions enquiring about the
number of companies working in the Thar Project and whether this
has generated local employment. The answer to the latter
question was that none of the locals have benefitted from this
project. The session was quite insightful and one hopes that the
Social Sciences department organizes more of such thought
provoking talks.