 The once seamless tracts of no man’s land in Gwadar have already been appropriated by investors from other parts of the country.
Minutes after landing in Gwadar, it appears poverty is just about the only thing that’s equally distributed in Pakistan. The small outpost of a town on the western Makran coast may have had its rich and poor all these years but the divide is only just becoming visible as the richie-rich and the nouveau riche arrive.
They come from all over and in all categories: real estate wheeler-dealers from Karachi and Lahore, skilled port workers and technicians from Singapore and China, semi-skilled labourers from Punjab, construction contractors and labourers from Sindh and Punjab, and, nuclear-family holidaymakers in their flashy SUVs from Karachi. The aforementioned have come here to make hay, the last mentioned for a family timeout away from the pressures of the big city.
All outsiders go by the ubiquitous tag of ‘Punjabi’, regardless of their origins -- and that’s not exactly a term of endearment. The influx is outnumbered by that of local migrants from nearby villages who lost everything to flash floods and have perched their thatched huts on what appears to be no man’s land along the airport road. But appearances can be deceiving in this vast, open countryside which seems to be under a perpetual state of sandstorm. Instinct tells you if it’s not the high-intensity desert winds that blur the vision, it will be the scorching sun that is no less menacing, shining as it does on a land that does not even have an aquifer under it to quench the settlers’ thirst. Yet, they come here in droves.
These once seamless tracts of no man’s land have already been appropriated by big and small investors from other parts of the country. The shanties occupying the land seem to be on the move, not towards their intended destination, Gwadar, where they came to seek work, but on the back track to where they came from. Much of the new development is taking place north of the town, towards the mainland.
Gwadar town sticks out like a panhandle into the Arabian Sea. Measuring some five-odd kilometres from north to south and a mere kilometre from east to west, it is flanked on the two sides by clear blue-aqua-green water bays; on the southern tip a massive cliff stretches out like a three kilometre-wide dike, stretching 23km along the open sea. It is largely on this cliff that the rich and famous have invested in land and DHA-like sprawling road works of a housing scheme are in the making. Pakistan Navy occupies some 14km-long stretch of the cliff on the eastern side; the western-most tip with a scenic beach is reserved for a five-star resort, a second one to be built on the cliff, and the housing estate lies in between.
Looking north from the cliff gives a bird’s eye view of Gwadar town and its two bays; on the eastern side of the cliff are also located the new seaport and the jetty. This side of the panhandle is barricaded at three points and manned by Frontier Constabulary to screen only the relevant people wishing to enter the port area. These include technicians and some local and immigrant workers who have to walk a good kilometre to get to the dockyard. The area is out of bounds to all others. Looking south from the cliff offers a panoramic vista over the wide, deep-blue sea.
In the town proper, tiny roads and narrow lanes zigzag their way through mud-lined hamlets and many shabbily built two-storey structures, old and new. The new bazaar area stretches along the old Airport Road and the old one, the Shahi Bazaar, lies in a small alley which is partially covered with tarpaulins along the eastern bay area. It is flanked by an open common where goods are loaded and off loaded by manual labour -- a scene right out of the 17-century fishing village that Karachi had started out as.
The bazaars offer only everyday merchandise and essential food items. The town is home to a population numbered anywhere between 30,000 to 100,000, as variously claimed. The deputy nazim (mayor) says the figure was over 50,000 in the 1998 census, and is now double that. The residents are mostly the age-old Baloch settlers and fishermen, with a sprinkling of recent migrant workers and petty traders. Migrant workers include rural Baloch and Sindhis, while traders are mostly Pashtoons and Punjabis.
Most of the fresh produce is brought here from neighbouring Iran, from the international border some 80km to the west. So are diesel and petroleum products, basic linen and everyday bric-a-brac. With atta becoming a rarity in recent weeks, flour too is being brought over from Iran and sold at Rs40 a kg. No formal trade exists between Pakistan and Iran from near Gwadar, but daily essentials change hands, with enough family ties on both sides to keep the supplies coming. The only formal supply coming out of Iran under a bilateral contract, now holding for five years, is the port city’s electricity.
Only the Gwadrians having travelled to Karachi or Quetta may have an inkling to what loadshedding is.— MR
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag1.htm
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