KARACHI, Oct 16: Millions of people have been anxiously waiting for the regularisation of their goths and kutchi abadis in Karachi, as snail-paced bureaucracy seems least interested to alleviate sufferings of these less privileged people.
More than 40 per cent population of Karachi resides in these kutchi abadis and goths dotted all over 18 towns of the city. Karachi, presently the seventh largest city of the world, a few centuries back was a small village of fishermen named Kolachi. It grew bigger in pre-British period and became Karachi. During the British era, its population expanded and it got the status of a large city; however, after the independence of Pakistan the mammoth influx of migrants from India completely changed its face and all of sudden it emerged as a mega city.
Karachi has always been dotted by numerous small goths, many of them have lost their identity and become urban settlements as creeping urban city gulped them down in the process of razing and relocating, while some 2,000 goths and kutchi abadis managed to survive and they are still present in all 18 towns of the city. However, due to abject poverty, illiteracy and lack of political awareness, these villages lagged behind in every walk of life from their newborn urban cousins. Every government ignored these goths and till today a majority of them is deprived of basic civic infrastructure, as well as, ownership rights.
The issue of goths got a massive importance in February this year when City Nazim Mustafa Kamal claimed that goths and kutchi abadis that sprang up before 1985 would be regularized, while all similar settlements emerging after 1985 were encroachments and therefore illegal.
This startling statement made visible ripples in political scenario, besides creating immense unease amongst the residents of these goths and kutchi abadis. The city government started razing some small villages in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Baldia and other towns, which created protest demos against it. In the first week of May 2006 came the botched operation of razing Sikander Goth, during which a villager was gunned down and many others injured when police and some masked armed political workers opened fire on the protesting villagers. The political backlash of this event was massive, as all political parties belonging to opposition strongly condemned the city government in and out of the assemblies for demolition. Protests, demos and strikes were observed in the width and breadth of Sindh and the coalition provincial government, as well as, district city government Karachi were forced to retreat.
The anti-goth drive gained a decisive momentum when the Pushto-speaking population of Karachi supported it from the platform of Loya Jirga of Pakhtoon Action Committee. A massive protest rally of Loya Jirga of Pakhtoon Action Committee that paralyzed road traffic of the city for many hours provided much food for thought for policymakers at the provincial and city government level and forced them taking a U-turn regarding the goth-razing policy.
In the first week of June, Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim ordered that no action should be taken against 803 villages of Karachi, as per recommendation of Village Demolition Inquiry Committee. He also ordered that no action should be taken against any goth or locality with 50 or more villages without informing the provincial government in advance.
To pacify millions of angry and polarized citizens, he took more fire-fighting measures and set up a Goth Regularisation Committee headed by Sindh Minister for Mineral Resources Irfanullah Khan Marwat.
This committee has yet to submit its detailed report regarding the regularisation of goth, as the fate of the villagers hinges on the findings and recommendations of this report. However, many early indications seemed positive. In June 2006, City Nazim Mustafa Kamal announced setting up a special Goth Infrastructure Development Fund for chalking out separate development plans for goths of Karachi, rehabilitation of their infrastructure and provision of basic facilities estimated to cost more than Rs3 billion. He said that the city government wanted to further develop goths and make them at par with other developed areas.
In the third week of August 2006, Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad Khan invited a delegation of the Pakhtoon Action Committee to the Governor’s House and told it that the government had declared 803 goths of Karachi as permanent goths while the fate of 549 kutchi abadis would be decided soon.
Moreover, the chief minister also announced that goths in the whole province would be regularized and more facilities provided to them under the Sindh Rural Development Scheme.
It is true that Karachi could not be made a modern urban mega city and economic and trade hub of the region till developing and modernizing its teeming goths and kutchi abadis. Razing and pulling down is not the answer to this sensitive issue as more than 40 per cent of total population of the city lives in these settlements.
The delaying tactics could not solve this issue, either. The undue delay of issuance of the report of Goth Regularisation Committee headed by Irfanullah Marwat could not be termed a welcome sign, as the slum problem is worsening and aggravating by every passing day. This is high time to take the bull by the horns, and bring all backward localities of Karachi at par with the urban ones, so as to make this great city a true mega urban centre.—PPI
