The vast landholdings of Pakistan’s ‘feudals’ have supported a way of life for centuries
NOT SO long ago Hamir Soomro, for years head of the architecture faculty at a college in Karachi, decided he wanted to devote more time to the land that has been in his family’s hands for generations.
He never imagined that months later he would be faced with a sunken estate and thousands of displaced sharecroppers. For the past three weeks, Hamir has spent much of his time making the slow journey to Rahimabad, an all but deserted town surrounded by 1,200 acres of Soomro farmland, now mostly submerged. To get there, first he must drive until the road disappears under water, and then take a small speedboat.
The Soomro name goes a long way in Sindh, a province which, more than any other, illustrates the power of Pakistan’s big landowning families or “feudals” as they are sometimes known. Perhaps the most famous example is that of the Bhuttos, the political dynasty which elicits quasi-religious fervour in Sindh.
In the 1930s, Hamir’s grandfather helped initiate the Sukkur barrage – a 66-gate dam that revolutionised agriculture in the province and today holds back floodwaters higher than anyone has ever seen. He then served as premier of Sindh. Rahimabad is named after Hamir’s father.
The Soomro lands employ some 3,000 people. Rahimabad is home to a further 7,000 who rely on the land for their subsistence. The floodwaters that have washed southwards from Pakistan’s mountainous northwest since late July have been nothing short of catastrophic for the Soomro holdings and all who farm them. Ironically, the tillers had, in recent years, fretted about their crops suffering due to too little water.
Hamir and the sharecroppers, who grew rice during one half of the year and wheat the rest, now face the prospect of no harvest for 12 months or more.
For Hamir that means financial hardship, but for those whose families have worked the land for decades it may mean the end of the only way of life they have ever known. “The look of fear I have seen especially on some of the older people’s faces really saddens me,” says Hamir. “They are traumatised and in a kind of daze because they have never experienced such a situation before.
“Their families have lived here for centuries. Many of them have never ventured further than their villages – they never felt the need to. Now they have been dislodged from all that is familiar. The lucky ones are living in shelters but those who are not so fortunate are on the roads. These are dignified people who have always sustained themselves from the land and all of a sudden they have been reduced to beggars queuing up for food.”
Hamir has been fundraising, organising the distribution of food and medical supplies and providing his speedboat to those who want to check on what is left of their homes. Soon he will bring architect colleagues to Rahimabad to discuss reconstruction plans. Right now it is little more than a ghost town.
“It feels very eerie because this once bustling town now contains just a few men who have decided to stay on. They are marooned. It is like an island.”
As the days pass, the sense of desperation increases. “I’ve had people cling to my legs and say we hope you are not going to leave us,” says Hamir. “I tell them I am not going anywhere. I tell them this too shall pass and we will again have happier times.”
The Pakistani government has said it will investigate widespread allegations that floodwaters were deliberately diverted by landowners and officials to protect their estates at the cost of flooding poorer, more populated areas. Dismayed by such behaviour, Hamir recalls what his grandfather did during the deluge of 1942: “He flooded his own land to save the city of Shikarpur. There are examples in this very region of people who led the way and showed others how to behave in a crisis, but this is sadly lacking today.”
Hamir predicts much turmoil ahead – upheaval that could reshape Pakistan in unpredictable ways. “In the short term these people – remember they have nothing to eat and nothing to go back to – may try to take the law into their own hands because they want to feed their children and families,” he says. “But in the long term I think we are talking about a change in mindset because those most affected will start questioning things. I personally think these events will lead to something of a soft revolution.”