The Indus River remains colonised, declared activists, lawyers, and civil society members at a climate justice conference in Karachi on Sunday, calling for resistance against extractive policies and the erasure of indigenous knowledge.<\/p>\n
Arranged by the Climate Action Centre, \u2018The Indus Resistance Conference\u2019, held for the first time, is a forum aiming to amplify the voices of \u201cfrontline defenders\u201d against the exploitation of natural resources.<\/p>\n
The first of its kind, the conference brought together women, the working class, lawyers, students and journalists committed to the cause of climate justice. Pakistan was ranked as the most vulnerable country to climate change in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Indus River is on its deathbed,\u201d said Yasir Darya, founder of the Climate Action Centre (CAC), as he initiated the one-day conference, addressing resource theft and climate injustice in Sindh.<\/p>\n
He called for granting the river \u201cpersonhood status\u201d to ensure its preservation against what he termed \u201ccolonial policies, water theft, and capitalist interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
Advocate Abira Ashfaq of CAC\u2019s Green Chamber, speaking to Dawn.com, explained what the status of personhood for the Indus River would mean: \u201cIf we can have people look at the rights of the river, perhaps that could be a roundabout way to get them to look at other ecological damage that is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cIf a corporation can have legal standing, then why can\u2019t a body of nature?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would also be a way to bring in other ecological conversations into the fold \u2014 about poverty, about canals on the Indus, about villages, rural rights, the rights of women farmers,\u201d Ashfaq said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about how indigenous people have knowledge, which we often take as wisdom \u2014 but it is knowledge that is never taken into account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calling out the state\u2019s \u201chypocrisy\u201d on water resources in Sindh, former Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) vice president Zubair Abro criticised the contrast between Pakistan\u2019s domestic policies and its international stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan justifies water allocation on the basis that it is a lower riparian country, but in the same breath, it denies that right to lower riparian areas within the country,\u201d he said while speaking at a panel discussion at the event.<\/p>\n
He also noted that the existing water distribution treaties \u2014 the Indus Water Treaty and the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord \u2014 do not include any provisions for climate or environmental preservation. Abro called for a revision of the agreements.<\/p>\n
Challenging what she described as \u201cimperialist extractive policies\u201d enacted by the state on the river, Advocate Romisa Jami said that the Indus River has been made into a commodity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was never meant to be a commodity,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
She urged the audience to view the issue through the lens of \u201cdecolonisation\u201d. While the Indus River is an entire ecosystem for the people of Sindh, \u201cto colonial masters, it offers an opportunity for extraction\u201d, said Jami.<\/p>\n
She attributed the loss of sustainable agricultural practices to the \u201cbuilding of irrigation projects by the British Empire\u201d. Jami emphasised that people have come to \u201cinherit our colonial past, which has always been profit-driven and never human-centric\u201d. She recommended an overhaul of the existing system as the only way forward.<\/p>\n
Speakers also raised alarm over recent canal construction and corporate farming initiatives introduced under the Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI), which sparked protests across Sindh, particularly in Baberloi, where demonstrations continued for days until the canal project was shelved. However, the corporate farming initiative remains in place.<\/p>\n
Advocate Kazim Mahesar, activist Amar Haseeb Panhwar and Advocate Riaz Sabzoi \u2014 who were involved in the protests \u2014 spoke during a panel discussion on resource theft, warning that corporate farming was \u201cjust a guise for land theft\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are told to go to court against these decisions, but with the 26th Amendment in place, the doors of justice have been closed for us,\u201d said Panhwar.<\/p>\n
Mahesar alleged that \u201cSindh\u2019s land has been stolen under corporate farming\u201d. He added, \u201cIt\u2019s not that we are against development \u2014 we only stand against destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n
He further argued that such development projects \u201care only for the elite\u201d, adding that \u201cthere is nothing in it for the common man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Indus River remains colonised, declared activists, lawyers, and civil society members at a climate justice conference in Karachi on Sunday, calling for resistance against extractive policies and the erasure of indigenous knowledge. Arranged by the Climate Action Centre, \u2018The Indus Resistance Conference\u2019, held for the first time, is a forum aiming to amplify the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10042,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions\/10042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}