The I-11 slum dwellers have long been battling for recognition, as the Capital Development Authority has attempted to evict them as illegal slum dwellers. Ahsan Kamal explores the politics of the excluded in Islamabad.

On February 10, they came, them men. In fancy cars and loaded vans. They brought big bulldozers and armed policemen.

These CDA men, all seven of them. They had come to enforce the writ of the state, armed with the rule of law.

“We are Pakistani!” One by one, all the 18 men, repeatedly told, them young and them old.

“We are all Pakistani here!” said their tongues and their protesting eyes. They came out to protest, to protect their homes.

“But you are mistaken. You are all Afghan. Honestly. Be gone! For we claim this land in the name of development and capital and authority,” said the seven CDA men.

Because the CDA was them. The Capital Development Authority.

***

“Aman, Salamti aur Behtri” is what the CDA calls the operation to evict the 8,000 dwellers of the I-11 katchi abadi, adamant that they are merely enforcing the rule of law and carrying out orders.

The name suggests CDA desire to continue its branding strategy for those who still choose to see Islamabad as the model, planned capital of General Ayub Khan- a general who wanted to bring modernisation to a nation, from the top-down – to build dynamic metropolis of Constantinis A. Doxiadis, the Greek architect who looked at the ancient civilisation of Taxila for his inspiration for the design of the capital city.

Doxiadis divided the city into a grid layout, with each sector designed to the needs of different classes.

In a loose sense, the class status and grade in the bureaucratic and military hierarchy determined how far you were intended to live from the Margalla hills and how large the size of your plot was.

Doxiadis, however, did not plan that those who came to build the city would actually stay.

Migrants from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa laid the foundations of the city.

Their temporary encampments gradually became permanent settlements.

As the older residents of the Margalla hills were gradually displaced from their ancestral homes, the new poor took their places.

For the development of a metropolis requires the blood and sweat of the toiling masses.

Doxiadis had imagined an “infinite city” growing horizontally.

He did not plan for those who came to build the city. He did not plan for those who clean this city and keep it running.

Left to their own guises, these communities have displayed enormous resourcefulness in negotiating access to basic necessities, and even getting a seat on the table.

CDA has a katchi abadi cell, where representatives from the 11 recognised basti’s are formally incorporated in the decision-making structure, though with limited influence.

This has not been due to the good-hearted nature of the planners though.

Organised political action by local residents and activists, some of them belonging to the new left-wing Awami Workers’ Party, have been central to gaining this ground due to struggles  over two decades.

Theirs is politics beyond voting calculus and elections. Theirs is a politics of the excluded.

But the recent drive to evict I-11 residents brings in new dynamics.

It also makes clear that old alliances among the katchi abadi cannot be easily extended to other bastis.

CDA, the police and state authorities may like to think of the issue in terms of legality and illegality, but at the heart of it the issue seems to be about citizenship, exclusion, and structural inequality.

***

On December 2012, the National Assembly’s sub-committee of the Cabinet Secretariat ordered the eviction of all illegal settlers in Islamabad by January 15, 2013.

According to the CDA, the operation was postponed till February 10, 2013 because of Tahir ul Qadri’s long march on the capital.

On that February morning, the residents came out and stood in front of the bulldozers.

They also presented the CDA officials and the police with a court stay order, which prevents any actions against them till the next hearing, scheduled for March 5 but now extended to April 20, 2013.

“This has been going on ever since we came here thirty years ago,” says Fazal Shah, a local resident and one of the four heads of the local action committee.

The latest threats of evictions started almost a year ago, but in the past, the residents had been told to leave on the grounds that they were Afghans and illegally occupying the area.

The issue of legality is not that simple. The National Housing Policy of 2001 requires that before any evictions are made, a proper resettlement and relocation plan must be prepared in consultation with the local residents. This does not appear to be the case.

In CDA’s books, I-11 abadi is by default an Afghan abadi. Out of the 31 katchi abadis, slums, and squatter settlements of Islamabad, only 11 are officially “recognised” by the government.

The criterion for this recognition and the resulting regularisation of katchi abadi is rather simple. All the abadis that existed before 23 March 1985 are deemed as regular.

Afghan migration certainly had a role in increasing the number of slums and katchi abadi’s across Pakistan.

The first wave of large-scale migration began in 1980s, as our Generals and Jihadis were waging God’s war in Afghanistan. By 1988 there were almost 3.3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

The constant civil war and Taliban rule meant that an inflow of refugees continued, though many refugees returned home.

By 2002 almost 5 million Afghans had been repatriated from Pakistan and Iran to Afghanistan.

Between 2005 and 2006, the Pakistani governments started the registration process of all Afghans living in Pakistan.

The current estimates stand at about 1.7 million, most of whom have been born in Pakistan during the last 30 years.

Prior to 2006, almost 25,000 Afghans were living in various refugee camps in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

The camps, including the I-11 basti, were officially “closed”.  In 2009, CDA once again issued eviction notices to the I-11 katchi abadi residents, but agreed to work out a relocation plan with UNHCR.

Around 3,000 Afghans were moved from the I-11 katchi abadi to a location in I-12.

UNHCR officials claimed that the gesture suggests that Pakistanis still cared about the Afghan refugees.

But who cares about the Pakistanis?

The battle of the I-11 abadi residents is partly the battle to get recognised as a Pakistani.

A recent survey by UNHCR and CDA reveals that of the 8,000 residents of I-11 abadi, only a thousand or so can be classified as Afghan refugees.

A vast majority of the people come from Mohmand Agency, Bajaur agency, Mardan, Peshawar, Charsadda and other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.  Laiq Jan, a resident who has been engaged in this battle for the past two decades, says that the legal route was first taken by the residents in 1998.

When local authorities tried to evict these dwellers, they went to court and in 2001 the Lahore High Court issued a verdict against the CDA.

Locals once again took the matter to court in 2005 and 2006 when a fresh round of evictions was started. However, as the matter died down the case was not pursued.

Now, once again, the local residents have taken a stay order. But they are also using other channels in an attempt to resolve this problem.

***

Media reports show that politicians from mainstream political parties have visited CDA offices asking them to reconsider their position.

Sources from the abadi claim that they have been told by ex-Members of the National Assembly and senators that CDA has repeatedly claimed in its briefings that the area had been “cleared” in earlier eviction operations and has been reoccupied. The locals tell a different story.

“We have been living here for the over three decades, and they tell us that we are Afghans.” says Fazal Shah.

“We are not Afghans. We are Pakistanis.”

What of the politicians who are taking up their case? Fazal Shah says that it is all a voting game.

The residents of I-11 abadi are registered to vote in Islamabad NA-48. They were first registered as voters in 1986.

Another local, Laiq Jan, claims that most of the residents have their NIC (National Identity Card) from Islamabad which makes them eligible to vote here.

In all likelihood this will be a block vote of several thousands and Mian Aslam of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Faisal Sakhi Butt of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and Anjum Aqeel of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have visited the abadi after the latest eviction drive.

“Most of these politicians only come here for votes. They haven’t done anything concrete for us yet,” says Jan.

The residents await the court hearing date, set for April 20, 2013.

They have also been promised by senators and politicians, some of whom belong to the tribal areas, that they will arrange meetings between them and the CDA. But no real progress has been made.

***

Unlike some of the older katchi abadis of Islamabad, the I-11 abadi is composed mostly of mud brick houses.

The huge industrial warehouse-like structure of the Metro shopping center across the street paints a stark contrast.

This contrasting image, of a slum next to a super-market, is a recognisable image belying the contradictory nature of neo-liberal globalisation.

None of the practices that are common to most super-market chains, particularly the exploitation of workers, is deemed illegal.

The slum dwellers are, in the eyes of the state, illegal, if not alien (Afghan).

But residents of the I-11 basti came out in numbers to prevent the destruction and looting of Metro supermarket, back in September 2012 when a crowd infused with religious fervour attacked the place to protest the release of the film mocking Prophet Mohammad.

The state and police, missing in action, is all too eager to use force against the residents who by all standards are performing their “civic duty.”

The rise of slums in Pakistan has more to do with illegal encroachments, refugees and alien residents.

UNDP estimates that almost 35 per cent of the urban population in Pakistan lives in slums, squatter settlements, and katchi abadis.

The National Housing Policy of 2001 puts the figure at 50 per cent.

This means that approximately 23 to 32 million people in Pakistan are slum dwellers.

This constitutes a small but significant share of the one billion slum dweller across the globe.

Out of the million people living in Islamabad, almost 150,000 people live in Katchi abadis.

The yearly growth rate of slums in Islamabad is estimated by UNDP to be around 6.7 per cent.   

Slums emerge when the state turns a blind eye to its people, in the neo-liberal logic of letting market forces rule.

The annual additional housing requirements are estimated to be around 570,000 units, while the annual supply is 300,000 units.

Suffice it to say that most of these new units are not meant for low income groups.

“All we want is the same deal as the ‘regular’ abadis,” says Nasir Khan, another resident-activist from I-11.

“We are not demanding something unique. We are also Pakistanis. We are merely asking for a place where we can live in peace.”

“Live in Aman. Salamati, and Behtri,” the CDA slogan seems to be mocking them poor denizens of I-11, “Only if you can prove you are Pakistani and legal.”