‘Ugly’ Islamabad

There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for Pakistan’s low-income residents as the Supreme Court has said that the government must provide the poor with shelter. The SC bench was hearing a petition by the Awami Workers Party (AWP) and the All-Pakistan Katchi Abadi Alliance against the action taken by the Capital Development Authority and police against a katchi abadi in the I-11 sector of Islamabad in August. This incident left around 10,000 people homeless. The apex court’s observation cited the government’s constitutional obligation to protect the life, liberty and dignity of its citizens. The court noted that the government had ignored a number of directives to come up with a mechanism of dealing with the millions of Pakistanis who live in katchi abadis or informal settlements throughout the country. While various provincial governments, including Sindh and Punjab, have come up with appropriate laws to register and regulate informal settlements for low-income residents, the federal capital still remains without such legislation. The CDA, in the meanwhile, has threatened to demolish around 40 different informal settlements within its territory using the logic that the residents are actually part of the ‘land mafia’.
To add insult to injury, the CDA in its response to the SC has now used a different – and reprehensible – logic. It argues that if katchi abadis in Islamabad were left as they were, Islamabad’s Muslim majority could be threatened by Christians; according to the CDA the katchi abadis mostly comprise Christian residents. Not only does this argument go against the fundamental rights of minorities, it has revealed the deep-seated resentment against religious minorities that is shared by those in positions of power. The SC has asked for a regulatory framework for giving shelter to the urban poor. It has also raised questions over the mushroom growth of speculative housing schemes throughout the country which are threatening our agriculture sector. It is ironic that even though coverage of the recent local bodies election in Islamabad recognised that the winners and losers of the election would be decided by how the city’s informal settlements vote, the CDA seems to have no place for them in its vision for the future of the capital city. These ‘ugly villages’, according to the CDA, distort the ‘beauty’ of Islamabad. The CDA also seems to think that regulation only encourages more informal settlements. The last logic is certainly correct, but for a different reason. Where the government has not created any new schemes to house the urban poor, the poor are left with no option but to form informal settlements. The CDA’s reply to the SC weakens its own case by exposing its sheer bigotry. The highest court in the country is doing a good job of forcing the government to take notice of the plight of the shelter-less poor. But whether this will lead to any significant change in the government’s priorities still remains to be seen.