For nearly two weeks, residents of Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh have staged mass protests against corporate farming and the controversial construction of new canals along the Indus River. The people of Sindh, who already struggle with water scarcity, view these canals, which will benefit corporate agriculture in upstream Punjab province, as illegal. They demanded that the federal government of Pakistan reverse its decision and scrap the canals.
These protests gained significant traction, particularly on social media, where the hashtag #NoMoreCanalsOnIndus has garnered over 2.5 million tags on Facebook in only a few months. In the real world, demonstrations have spilled onto the streets in almost every city across Sindh.
The situation escalated when Sindh’s lawyers organized a sit-in protest at the Baberlo bypass in Khairpur, blocking roads that connect Sindh to Punjab. The lawyers’ protest disrupted transportation and commercial activities in the region, and inspired other protesters in various cities to also block routes leading to Punjab. They all made the same demand: that the federal government cease the new canal project on the Indus River.
Amid the demonstrations, Pakistan’s Prime Minister’s Office backtracked from its earlier support for the canal project, saying, “No new canals will be constructed without mutual understanding and consensus among all provinces.”
The controversy began in February of this year, when the Green Pakistan Initiative was officially launched in the Cholistan region. This initiative is supposed to transform agriculture and provide comprehensive support to farmers. The goal is to cultivate an additional 600,000 hectares and to mechanize the existing 20 million hectares of agricultural land across the country. In order to irrigate a total of 1.9 million hectares of currently barren land, the government plans to construct six canals, two each in the provinces of Balochistan, Punjab, and Sindh. Five of these canals will be built along the Indus River, while the sixth will be constructed along the Sutlej River to irrigate the Cholistan Desert, which is in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.
Sindh, located downstream, has concerns regarding the construction of these canals. Local fear the diversion of water to irrigate land in Punjab would further deprive Sindh of its rightful water share.
The Sindh government, in a summary presented to the Council of Common Interests, reported that according to the Indus River System Authority’s own water accounts, Sindh has faced an annual water shortage of approximately 13.7 percent over the last 25 years, from 1999 to 2023.
Sindh has long faced drought situations, with records of a severe drought as early as 1871, long before the establishment of Pakistan in 1947. However, according to the Sindh government’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority, the province is experiencing an increase in both the severity and frequency of droughts. This is primarily due to a decrease in rainfall during the summer season and rising temperatures caused by climate change. Drought conditions in Sindh are one of the most severe disasters facing the country, with “severe to extreme drought-like conditions” affecting much of southern Pakistan, as reported by the country’s Meteorological Department. Currently, eight districts in Sindh, including Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Qamar Shahdad Kot, Sanghar, Khairpur, Sukkur, Umerkot, and Tharparkar, are experiencing moderate to severe drought conditions. These districts are at risk for very severe drought hazard levels.
The people of Sindh protested against the construction of controversial canals on the Indus River due to concerns that it will exacerbate water scarcity in the province, which could lead to more droughts. This water shortage would not only threaten the agriculture-based economy of Sindh but also the livelihoods of its residents. According to a World Bank report, Sindh plays a crucial role in the economy of Pakistan. The province relies heavily on irrigated agriculture, with 77 percent of its agricultural land being irrigated. Despite this, Sindh faces a significant water scarcity issue, especially during the summer months prior to the monsoon season.
In addition to issues related to canals, the protesters in Sindh were also calling for the withdrawal of corporate farming. As part of the Green Pakistan Initiative, 1.9 million hectares (or 4.8 million acres) of land have been identified for corporate farming across the country. This includes 811,619 acres in Punjab, 52,713 acres in Sindh, 47,606 acres in Balochistan, and 74,140 acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. So far, 364,000 hectares have already been allocated to private firms. Farmers in both Sindh and Punjab have protested against land grabbing for corporate farming.
The protests were led by the lawyers of Sindh, primarily by Aamir Nawaz Waraich, the president of the Karachi Bar Association, who was recently attacked and injured for his opposition to the canal project. Despite this incident, Waraich stated, “The protest will remain peaceful; however, if the government takes illegal actions, we will respond accordingly.”
The protesters began their long march from the Sindh High Court in Karachi and have been holding a sit-in at the Babarlo Bypass for almost two weeks now. Aside from a few incidents that allegedly attempted to disrupt the protesters, the sit-in protest has remained peaceful.
Besides lawyers, Sindh’s nationalist political parties – particularly Qaumi Awami Tehreek, a party led by Ayaz Latif Palijo – have also played a vital role in these protests. According to a summary of his remarks by Dawn, Palijo said that “the canal issue concerned the entire country, and everyone should raise his voice against it.” He added that “the future and survival of Sindh were linked with the Indus River and if Cholistan and other canals were built, the province would lose its water share.”
Even aside from water-sharing issues, there are concerns about the feasibility of the Cholistan Canal. Hassan Abbas, an independent water and environmental consultant based in Islamabad, described the Cholistan Canal as an “unscientific” project. According to his assessment, a canal system requires flat and stable land, which is not present in the Cholistan Desert. “Water does not know how to climb a sand dune,” Abbas said.
Despite questions about the feasibility of the canal project and ongoing protests across Sindh Province, the federal government has not yet canceled the initiative. In response to the protests, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called for a meeting of the Council of Common Interests on April 28 – moving forward the originally scheduled date of May 2 – to discuss the issue. It was anticipated that the government would reconsider the canal project and potentially cancel it entirely.
At first, the lawyers rejected the April 28 announcement from the central government, calling it ambiguous. They vowed that their protests would continue across Sindh until there was an official announcement canceling the canal project once and for all. But late on the evening of April 29, the protesters declared victory, announcing that the sit-ins would be ended, with the exception of the occupation of the Babarlo Bypass. The lawyers’ group leading the protests said that several demands, particularly the question of support for corporate farming, still remain unresolved.
The people of Sindh have come together to stand up against the center in order to protect and demand their legal rights, and current indications are that they have won a major victory, with the canal project put on hold indefinitely. The ramifications for the rest of Pakistan, where the tension between provincial rights and central government policies is marked, could be profound.