Pakistan Bulletin
An up-to-date and informed analyses of key issues of Pakistan.
Abira Ashfaq: Pioneering Human Rights and Environmental Justice in Pakistan
August 2024
Abira Ashfaq is leading transformative efforts in human rights and environmental justice in Pakistan through her legal advocacy.
Abira has extensively worked with social movements and eco movements in Pakistan. She researched and wrote about natural resources rights and movements defending their right to land, water, and minerals in Pakistan as well as on urban resilience and communities forced to migrate because of loss of livelihoods. She has also worked in Karachi developing campaigns around housing rights and on highlighting gendered impacts of forced evictions as well as challenging international financiers that have funded projects that are harmful to the environment.
The Knowledge Forum interviewed Abira in April 2024 to discuss her work on eco movements, her experiences with housing justice struggles, the state of dynamism and deficits in the local movements, and the strategic areas and capacities requiring support
On Her recent work:
Basically my work as a movement lawyer for the past four years has been in Malir, and Gujjar Orangi in Karachi. So I will give you a brief synopsis of Gujjar Nala issue. As you know the Supreme Court had issued an in 2020 (instructing clearing of drains for the purpose of protection from rain and flooding. However, this forced eviction of the population settled around the area, many of whom had a lease from the government.) And approximately 7,000 affectees were identified. So a wide range of Human Rights were violated. We won a number of cases, and we lost a few of them too but we have continued it and now because of this, we are at this position in 2024 that we are finally looking at rehabilitation.
Strategies that helped the movement win
Firstly, the people’s movement must be very strong. When the movement of the people is strong then it helps with legal strategies and this is exactly what happened. The politics of Orangi was a politics of solidarity and intelligent strategizing. The community in Orangi time and time again, held discussions in town halls. We had a marriage hall in Orangi which we utilized as a community space for four years. We held meetings in it, we ran town halls sittings with local men and women and also gave space to the children to express their voices through art. our townhalls, after a process of six months we prepared a reply for the Supreme Court that these are the issues and questions of the affectees.
Apart from the movement, our work with the United Nations was very successful because we got five rapporteur engaged – Housing rapporteurs, Women Human Rights Defenders, rapporteurs for People Living in Extreme Poverty, and People with Mental Health Problems. Five to six rapporteur signed on to the 2 communications that were sent to the Government of Sindh. These created the moral push for the Government of Sindh to do actual work and not just issu an order that is never implemented and that is forgotten. Alongside we continued our activism, including legal and international, and movement building.
We challenged the World Bank too, over their project called SWEEP (which aimed to mitigate high flooding risks caused by the accumulation of solid waste in the city’s natural drainage channels (nullahs) and was used as an instrument to carry out the demolition drive by the government). We approached their grievance mechanism in New York and got our case admissible. So the merits of this was that when the hearing came, the World Bank engaged with us. And so for the past three years, the World Bank has been continuously engaged with our Orangi and Gujjar Nala community. To the point where our leaders are speaking to them directly and they have also been invited to the Naala.
Last October we were also able to initiate engagement with certain other United Nation bodies that is the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. Now next year the committee on economic, social and cultural rights is going to review Pakistan’s performance as a signatory of the ICESCR. This year, they are doing preparatory meetings for this. So they have approached us as stakeholders.
Abira Ashfaq’s relentless advocacy has achieved key victories in protecting environmental and housing rights, fighting damaging projects and highlighting importance of rehabilitation.
Apart from engaging UN, World Bank, and movement building our prime battle ground has been litigation in the courts, from the Sindh High Courts to the Supreme Court, and now in the Supreme Court. Before this we also went to the Tribunals. And we facilitated in the tribunals to get stays and then for 3 years we held constant meetings with the Commissioner Office. We went to every department that was related to the matter of housing, communities, and workers. While the case mostly relates to the Local Government Department, we went to the Labour Department too to demand their attention over the plight of Orangi women who were doing home based work and lost that work due to demolition of their houses.
(For strategy, you have to explore all options). For our work on forcible evictions in Malir, I will give you an example. There was a goth (village), Haji Ali Mohammad Gabol Goth. (The handymen of the developers would regularly harass them demanding that they vacate their land). The police would slap FIRs terrorism charges on our people. So we thought of a very radical strategy. The next time the handymen came to the goth, we went to the area police station to lodge an FIR against them. Of course the police refused. We then we took the 22C application and went to Malir Court and we still didn’t get it. But the point of doing this was only to show that they are the real criminals.
On movement against construction of the controversial Malir Highway
Look, my work was to stop the funding of Asian Development Bank and that I did. We finally won that case. I have to explain to people that it is not easy to stop a project unless and until you have a stay from a local port. And the Asian Development Bank does not have jurisdiction to stop a project. They can only say and only do this that they can stop their own money by saying that they agree with the community activists that this project is environmentally unfriendly. (In so far as that is concerned) we won that case. And in April we got a very good eight page long verdict. But within the last year, the Sindh High Court did not give issue a stay order, so we have no legal ground to stop them unless and until we get the statement.
On preparing for the movement on the Education City being planned in Malir, which is an agriculture zone of Karachi?
We are preparing litigations because leases of the local zameendars (landlords) have been cancelled overnight. There are three kinds of leases applicable in the zone: livestock, agriculture, chicken farming. These leases were valid for over five decades. So this is over five decades of agricultural role being formalized and legalized. And then the interim government suddenly passed a policy to turn this region into Education City and change the land use condition from agriculture to commercial. How can an interim government make this decision? Now all the zameendars went to the Board of Revenue to renew their leases, and they were told that now this policy has been introduced so you cannot renew it anymore.
We are preparing litigations because leases of the local zameendars (landlords) have been cancelled overnight. There are three kinds of leases applicable in the zone: livestock, agriculture, chicken farming. These leases were valid for over five decades. So this is over five decades of agricultural role being formalized and legalized. And then the interim government suddenly passed a policy to turn this region into Education City and change the land use condition from agriculture to commercial. How can an interim government make this decision? Now all the zameendars went to the Board of Revenue to renew their leases, and they were told that now this policy has been introduced so you cannot renew it anymore.
So legally, the state has changed a custom as well as a law. The original custom was that that whenever the lease was to be renewed, a “Jirga” of elders would engage and confirm land use by the locals in terms of who is using it for farming, for livestock, for grazing purpose and for chicken farming. This was a custom that was enmeshed with the formal law. The zameendars used to share water for irrigation and provide easement, that is, how their lands were used as a path for people. They would predominantly employ women as farm workers who would also receive vegetables for their households and fodder for their animals in return for their services. Zamindars would also provide food to the women farmers and sharing their grievances. This kind of communal arrangement is completely contrary to what the World Bank envisions.
If you look at World Bank’s project CLICK – one of their goals is to monetize every transaction. They don’t want ultimately a woman farmer to be getting vegetables for her home and fodder for her animals from the same land where she is working. I talked to one farmer who had 16 acre of land. He had 8 workers and seven of them were women. He said that it is our custom to give meals two times a day to his workers. So, his wife and daughters cook food for them. Is this documented? Right? We all like to look at landlords as stereotype waderas and zameendars. (Of course there are zamindars who would sell their ancestral land for real estate, like we saw in the case of Bahria Town but there are others too who promote communal benefits.)
In terms of our strategy, (with time) the Sindh Indigenous Alliance has become very dynamic and mobile. The spirit behind it is local actors such as Hafeez Baloch, Akhtar Kalmati and Salman Baloch. These three have done a lot of work and last summer we even did an indigenous school for the youth. We raised Rs 200,000 from it, just like from common citizens. We took the students to an excursion to the lands that are now facing occupation. We showed them the whole old graveyards of Chaukhandi. Next, we did a two-day session at the Institute of Business Administration so that they could learn about the law, the art, the activism, and the antiquities. And now the students can add it in their CV and they can use it in their applications. So it’s very important to build young people’s (capacities and exposure).
On the Karonjhar Struggle
This is again a legal battleground. It was very ably fought by Sajjad Chandio who is associated with a nationalist party, and is a brilliant criminal lawyer. He was appointed as an amicus curiae by the Sindh High Court. He argued the case of Karoonjhar and was able to get that granite mining suspended in October of 2023. The government fought back vehemently, but the action was stopped legally (which was a very powerful message from activists).
The government employed all tactics. In the next hearing in December 2023 instead of employing the Advocate General, they appointed a private lawyer to argue on the government’s behalf, which was very unusual since this is a public case and the tax payers’ money goes into paying for AGs to represent the government. The judges started arguing between themselves regarding how to approach this (act by the government). As Sajjad was travelling, I appeared before the bench (as I am a licensed High Court lawyer and) I am allowed to appear in person and I told them that look this is actually much deeper. However, this was just performative and because they allowed him to argue and proceeded on the merits.
So all this is a part of the process in movements. The movement is not me. I am just a technician. I am just giving my expertise here and there. The real movement was of those lawyers who raised their voices for Karoonjhar from Mithi and Islamkot’s bar associations. And they continuously filed cases.
If we look at the decision from the Sindh High Court – the British colonizers were responsible for a lot of our destruction but they did leave us with one useful law – “One Monument”, under that law the whole Karoonjhar is considered one monument. And the judge and the Sindh High Court had said that we cannot parcel it. Because of its integrity is. It is part of the Aravalli Range which is one of the oldest rock systems. It has geographical and archaeological significance for the human race. Kirthar and Karoonjhar have come up before the World Heritage Committees as having universal value. Luckily, Justice Hassan Rizwi was cognizant of the historical significance of the region. Firstly, they noted that a private lawyer was enagged to represent the government. And secondly they said that the antiquities and Hereditary Private Advisory Board should present their opinion. This hearing was held last December. It is April now and the next hearing has not yet happened.
In the meanwhile we started our work. So we have started building regional alliances. So we connected the lawyers from Thar and Sindh to the lawyers of Karachi. And then we engaged a legal group in Islamabad that works in South Asia and it’s called, “ IProbono”. They work in Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, on environmental and human rights issues. So we are trying to build a movement. We held a conference in IBA and called all the Karoonhjar activists there.
Abira stresses the critical need for specialized technical expertise and research in advancing eco-movements, emphasizing the gap in available resources and support.
On what kind of resources are needed for sustained eco movements in Pakistan
There is serious dearth of technical experts. The stories and reports that we present in courts and at public forums don’t just come from town hall meetings. These happen through surveys and researches.
I am trained to be a lawyer right? I am not trained to do geological research. I am not trained to do mapping of regions that are under land grab threat. So I have to rely on experts. There are many people who have studied technical disciplines such as geology, but they had to give up because there are no jobs in such fields. We need more geologists, experts in land ecology, historians, environmentalists, wildlife experts, bird experts; even for wildlife, we need specialties Sadly, our local universities produce experts that facilitate demolitions through drone surveys.
Local activists who have studied specialized fields such as geology or history have made excellent contribution to the local eco movements. We have a colleague with bird watching as hobby. He became our documenter for our litigation work (listing number of birds at risk because of land use conversion). One of the victims of the Gujjar Nala eviction driive, Akhtar Kalmati did mapping of the houses because he is a geographer. So he is an activist as well and he is also a victim and he is the one producing data.
We need to fund people who can document the environmental resources that we have, and present proposals on how to protect and preserve them. We would need geological and archeological expertise to build the Karoonjhar case.
For how long can I argue on the statutes that the British have made. You need expert material, you need to educate the judiciary of the value of this and produce a counter narrative. We need efforts to create counter knowledge, sub-alter knowledge that we can then format in legal ways and present to the court as documents or evidences allowed in court. This is a huge gap in our movement.
Personal struggles and movement: On how she identifies personal challenges being in the centre of these movements?
Being in these movements for the past four years, I can say we have had amazing successes. Although these successes may not be visible on the ground. We have managed to get Rs 1bilion rehabilitation package for the affectees. We stopped World Bank and ADB funding in these projects that were harming communities’ rights.
I have become vibrant and loud over the years because I have had to. Women have to. But my role is not larger than life.
But let me tell you how patriarchy creeps in in these movements. They use gender or age shaming as a tactic. When they see me (alone at the forefront) they try to undermine me. There is competition for credit. They would like to take credit for successive and blame me for any failures. Then I just say to them that you are doing a disservice to the cause. If I have become the face of the movement then political jealousy is not going to solve this. Others have to do the same kind of work.
Our mobilization strategy is designed to include a lot of people. The face of the movement should also be broader. But that does not mean that I or anybody else should get undermined.
And I understand the politics (in movements). But I’m not going to shy away from my work because that’s what they want. And women are harassed in this way. Even if you do good work, they will threaten and intimidate us.
The other challenge is the ugly competition by men to undermine women. They challenge community women’s participation in meetings with delegates of the World Bank and UN. They make assertions such as “What do these women know about these issues?”
(Despite all this, I don’t think I feel out of place) I was built for this life. This is the life that I wanted. When I was in the US, I had a good practice in the jails. I was a deportation lawyer and I loved my work. But coming back to my goth, my city is special, because I am obviously, as I say in every interview, from Lyari.
I grew up in Gandhi Garden which was connected to Lyari. My father was born in Lyari. He spoke Balochi. So my grandfather was, you know, even now in Lyari, we have land allocated to us in Baghdadi. So I am connected to that culture.
And this is the kind of political and legal work I always wanted to do. I have finally been able to do it.
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