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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Pakistan's cities are expanding much faster than the
overall
population. At independence in 1947, many refugees from
India
settled in urban areas. In the 1950s, more than one-half
of the
residents of several cities in Sindh and Punjab were
muhajirs. Some refugee colonies were eventually
recognized
as cities in their own right.
Between 1951 and 1981, the urban population quadrupled.
The
annual urban growth rate during the 1950s and 1960s was
more than
5 percent. This figure dropped slightly in the 1970s to
4.4
percent. Between 1980 and early 1994, it averaged about
4.6
percent. By early 1994, about 32 percent of all Pakistanis
lived
in urban areas, with 13 percent of the total population
living in
three cities of over 1 million inhabitants each--Lahore,
Faisalabad, and Karachi.
The key reason for migration to urban areas has been
the
limited opportunity for economic advancement and mobility
in
rural areas. The economic and political control that local
landlords exercise in much of the countryside has led to
this
situation.
The urban migrant is almost invariably a male. He
retains his
ties with his village, and his rights there are
acknowledged long
after his departure. At first, the migration is frequently
seen
as a temporary expedient, a way to purchase land or pay
off a
debt. Typically, the migrant sends part of his earnings to
the
family he left behind and returns to the village to work
at peak
agricultural seasons. Even married migrants usually leave
their
families in the village when they first migrate. The
decision to
bring wife and children to the city is thus a milestone in
the
migration process.
As cities have grown, they have engulfed surrounding
villages, bringing agriculturists into the urban
population. Many
of these farmers commute to urban jobs from their original
homes.
The focus of these individuals' lives remains their family
and
fellow villagers. Similarly, migrants from rural areas who
have
moved to the cities stay in close touch with relatives and
friends who have also moved, so their loyalties reflect
earlier
patterns. The Pakistani city tends to recreate the close
ties of
the rural community.
Pakistani cities are diverse in nature. The urban
topology
reflects the varied political history within the region.
Some
cities dating from the medieval era, such as Lahore and
Multan,
served as capitals of kingdoms or small principalities, or
they
were fortified border towns prior to colonial rule. Other
precolonial cities, such as Peshawar, were trading centers
located at strategic points along the caravan route. Some
cities
in Sindh and Punjab centered on cottage industries, and
their
trade rivaled the premier European cities of the
eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries.
Under colonial rule, many of the older administrative
cities
declined. Where the British located a trading post
(factory) near
an existing administrative center, the city was typically
divided
into old and new, or European, sections. New towns and
cities
also emerged, especially in the expanding canal colonies,
Faisalabad (formerly Lyallpur) is such a city. The town of
Karachi expanded rapidly to become a center of rail and
sea
transport as a consequence of British rule and as
consequence of
the opening of massive irrigation projects and the
increase in
agricultural exports. Thus, Pakistan's two largest cities,
Karachi and Lahore, illustrate how differing regional and
sociocultural histories have shaped the variations among
Pakistan's cities.
Karachi absorbed tens of thousands of muhajirs
following independence in 1947, grew nearly two and
one-half
times from 1941 to 1951, and nearly doubled again in the
following decade. Karachi is by far Pakistan's largest
city and
is still rapidly growing. In the early 1990s the
population
exceeded 10 million.
Karachi's rapid growth has been directly related to the
overall economic growth in the country. The partition of
British
India into the independent states of Pakistan and India
prompted
an influx into Pakistan of Muslim merchants from various
parts of
the new, Hindu-majority India. These merchants, whom
sociologist
Hamza Alavi refers to as salariat, had money to
invest and
received unusual encouragement from the government, which
wanted
to promote the growth of the new state.
Karachi at first developed in isolation. Relatively few
people from outlying areas were engaged in running its
factories,
and the city had little impact on Pakistan's cultural
fabric. But
when the economies of southern Sindh and parts of Punjab
began to
expand, large numbers of migrants flooded the city in
search of
work (generally low-paying jobs), and Karachi become the
hub of
the nation's commerce. The city, however, also has serious
problems. It has the poorest slums in the country, and it
suffers
from serious interethnic conflict as a consequence of the
influx
of many competing groups. It was the site of considerable
violence in the late 1980s as muhajirs solidified
their
local power base vis-à-vis the Pakhtuns and native Sindhis
(see Subversion and Civil Unrest
, ch. 5).
Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city, contrasts
markedly
with Karachi. With just under half the population of
Karachi, it
is regarded as the cultural nucleus of Punjab. Residents
of
Lahore take special pride in their city's physical beauty,
especially in its Mughal architecture, which includes the
Badshahi Mosque, Shalimar Gardens, Lahore Fort, and
Jahangir's
tomb. In the earliest extant historical reference to the
city, in
A.D. 630 the Chinese traveler Xuan Zang described it as a
large
Brahmanical city. A center of learning by the twelfth
century,
Lahore reached its peak in the sixteenth century, when it
became
the quintessential Mughal city--the "grand resort of
people of
all nations and a center of extensive commerce."
The economy and the population expanded greatly in the
1980s
in a number of other cities. The most important of these
are
Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Wazirabad, and Sialkot in Punjab;
Hyderabad in Sindh; and Peshawar and Mardan in the
North-West
Frontier Province.
The nation's capital was situated in Karachi at
independence.
General Mohammad Ayub Khan, who assumed power in 1958,
aspired,
however, to build a new capital that would be better
protected
from possible attack by India and would reflect the
greatness of
the new country. In 1959 Ayub Khan decided to move the
capital to
the shadow of the Margalla Hills near Pakistan's third
largest
city, Rawalpindi. The move was completed in 1963, and the
new
capital was named Islamabad (abode of Islam). The
population of
Islamabad continues to increase rapidly, and the official
1991
estimate of just over 200,000 has probably been much
exceeded.
Data as of April 1994
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