Karora Power Project: development at the cost of indigenous resources?

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Few understand relationship between Karachi and the sea better than the fisher-folk &ndash; who inhabit both. Almost half-a-million strong, these fishing communities are currently engaged in a struggle to preserve the ocean and their indigenous ways of life.

Fatima Majeed is an activist and resident of Ibrahim Hyderi, a four-hundred-year old settlement located in modern day Bin Qasim Town. She contends that the fight for indigenous foods and recipes is a part of the larger struggle against the fisher-folk&rsquo;s cultural erasure and systematic displacement in Sindh.

Majeed is an active member of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), and daughter of its prominent member and activist Majeed Motani. She says that her father taught her activism, while her mother taught her how to cook.

Her latest project Mahigeer is named after their community. Majeed honours and harmonizes her parents influence and communal struggle, by championing traditional cuisine as a form of resistance. 
Mahigeer is a food service company based out of Ibrahim Hyderi, which aims to &ldquo;reintroduce Karachi to its original and indigenous coastal cuisine&rdquo;. They are avidly involved in promoting traditional seafood recipes, cooking methods, food histories and fishermen folk-lore.

&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been struggling for the rights of fisher-folk alongside my father, since I was a child. We&rsquo;ve always been involved in grassroots organizing to protect our livelihood and work towards a better future. With time, I&rsquo;ve learnt that we must keep developing new methods of resistance. To keep our existence intact, essence established and even just to stay alive &ndash; we need new ways&rdquo;. She goes on to say that &ldquo;as fisher-folk, food is connected to all parts of our livelihood. Our cuisine&rsquo;s invisibility in Karachi&rsquo;s culinary culture - highlights the larger power imbalance at play&rdquo;.

Majeed has also been cooking under her mother&rsquo;s supervision since she was 10-years-old. Her large eyes twinkle, as she laughs and recalls burning her fingers in hot oil while learning how to fry pakoras. But just as quickly as her eyes light up, they darken and her expressions harden. She says that &ldquo;food is part of a larger struggle and fighting for its recognition is just as important as our other struggles&rdquo;. Food isn&rsquo;t merely about recipes and taste, Majeed passionately contends that &ldquo;each ingredient&rsquo;s journey to the pot is a struggle on its own&rdquo;.

She painfully explains that &ldquo;behind this food and our kitchens are people, places, ocean and seafood. Dumping toxins and chemical waste in the sea and coastal lands is equivalent to violently stealing from the indigenous fisher-folk, as it compromises our food and subsequently our culture&rdquo;. Majeed goes on to say that food is a source of joy and celebration for her community, making its preservation and proliferation increasingly important.

A history of cultural erasure 
Zubeda Birwani is an oral historian who documents the impact of climate change and development on Karachi&#39;s coastal communities. She is a member of the fisher-folk community. She told Lok Sujag that before the colonization of Sindh, most of Karachi&rsquo;s land was owned by indigenous fisher-folk tribes. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t just settle in Karachi &ndash; we have built the city and Sindh, but our contributions, history, culture and food have all been erased&rdquo;, she lamented. 
Birwani believes that the fisher-folk&rsquo;s displacement and erasure begins from the Partition. The largest population in pre&ndash;partition Karachi was the middle class Sindhi Hindu&rsquo;s, whose departure from Pakistan, was devastating for Sindhi culture. Since seafood was a major part of Sindhi Hindu cuisine, their daily demand for fish was a primary source of income for the fisher-folk, and their consistent demand for seafood stabilized the local fishing economy. 
Suddenly, within a few years, Karachi became famous for Delhi Nihari and Lucknavi kebabs instead of fresh, local seafood. Rather than assimilating in Sindhi culture, the dominant migrant groups were rigid about their culture and food. 
Birwani laments how seafood is no longer the primary source of meat for the city, and is only seen as a commodity for export. 
She fondly reminisces how &ldquo;growing up, we had so much fish and prawn available, that we never cared or had time to cook daal (lentils) or inland vegetables. We have a variety of seasonal fish which makes our food fresh, healthy and rich. From the spices to traditional techniques of marinating fish &ndash; we are physically and spiritually connected to our food&rdquo;. 
Ahmer Naqvi is a Karachi based writer who is passionate about Karachi&rsquo;s cuisine. He organizes guided tours into culture, history and diversity of Karachi&rsquo;s cuisine. He has collaborated with Mahigeer on food tours in Karachi.

Naqvi wonders why despite living by the sea, most Karachi&rsquo;ites don&rsquo;t eat seafood? For him, the answer lies in city&rsquo;s seventy-five-year-old historical imbalance in power and visibility. He holds socio-political and structural inequalities responsible for why local produce is not available in Karachi&rsquo;s restaurants. He says that the erasure of indigenous culture can be easily traced, by simply looking at what is available to sell and eat. 
Naqvi agrees with Majeed, that food is intensely political. He says that one cannot understand Karachi&rsquo;s culinary culture without talking about the sea; and the extraction and exploitation of its resources. Naqvi&rsquo;s decision to work with food in various capacities is rooted in his belief that it provides an opportunity for people to resist oppressive realities. 
In order to comprehend the fisher-folk&rsquo;s ancient relationship to the sea, Karachi&rsquo;ites must challenge and change the &ldquo;fake narratives and histories&rdquo; surrounding these communities. He claims that food and culture are the best vessels to bring about such changes. &ldquo;When one sits down to eat a community&rsquo;s food, the question of why it has never been eaten before is easier to ask and answer, rather than beginning the conversation with erasure&rdquo;.

The culinary debut 
Mahigeer&rsquo;s inclusion at the 10th annual Karachi Eats food festival in January 2023 provided such an opportunity. Amidst the 125 food stalls serving international and regional cuisine like dumplings, philly cheesesteaks, tacos, pani puri, lo mein and &lsquo;sarsoon ka saag&rsquo; were Majeed&rsquo;s prawn karhai and fried mushka (saltwater fish) with &lsquo;gajjar ka achar&rsquo; and fresh green chutney. 
For three days, Majeed stood in her stall wearing brightly coloured shalwar kameez &ndash; a hall mark of fisher-folk clothing &ndash; giving Karachi a taste of its oldest cuisine. With a captivating, unwavering smile Majeed effortlessly switches between frying and searing, unbothered by the long lines waiting for her food. 
Wiping off sweat from her forehead, she ardently says: our food is unique and tells the stories of our culture and practices. But despite being delicious, our cuisine is not promoted nor can you easily find it anywhere. 
She bemoans how in the name of development, fishing communities have been systematically excluded and displaced from Karachi and the Sindhi coastline. &ldquo;For example, this is the first time we have gotten a chance to partake in a food festival that has been happening in the city for a decade&rdquo;.

It is interesting indeed, that the festival claims to pay homage to Karachi&rsquo;s local culinary culture and restaurants, but prior to Mahigeer in 2023, there was no representation or inclusion of indigenous fisher-folk cuisine.

For Majeed, this is not an isolated occurrence. She grew up watching food channels which highlighted diverse Pakistani recipes, but never her cuisine. &ldquo;We have been excluded in food &ndash; just as we have been overlooked in our other contributions and claims to this city&rdquo;.

<h2>Of seafood and spices</h2>

In coastal fishing communities, recipes are passed down through generations of oral traditions. According to Majeed, women are primarily responsible for transmitting old recipes, methods and cooking techniques. However the labour of bringing ingredients to the kitchen and taking cooked food from kitchen to the table, is a collective effort.&nbsp; &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get this taste anywhere along Karachi&rsquo;s coastal belt &ndash; there are different techniques of cooking and each fishing village&rsquo;s food is unique&rdquo;.

Majeed radiates with joy and pride as she describes the traditional food still found in Ibrahim Hyderi. &ldquo;Everything gets a hint of talhar mirch (a dried red chilli). And if prawn kebabs are being cooked in one house, then everyone in the neighborhood will be able to smell them &ndash; they have tantalizingly distinct aroma.&rdquo;

Prawns are a preferred meat source for the Mahigeer. Prawn biryani, prawn pulao with soya, shark fish karhai and koftay are some of the staples in most households. Handling prawns requires a sophisticated skill set. Majeed explains the intricate process required to prepare the meat for cooking:

&ldquo;First the prawns are boiled and strained. Then we lay them out on a cloth under the sun to dry, which takes around three to four days. Once the shells are properly dry, we put the prawns in a bag and beat them till the shell separates from the meat. After this the prawns are ready to be steamed for gravy, or roasted on the grill for pulao&rdquo;.

<h2>The struggle is real</h2>

As always, Majeed&rsquo;s smile is wide and her voice soft whilst she talks about her traditional food. And as always, her smile disappears along with her softness, when circling back to her community&rsquo;s current hardships. &ldquo;This ocean is the vessel for our work and culture. We put up with harsh weather conditions, just as we face economic disenfranchisement from the current socio-political climate. But our people take on every challenge. Think about the multiple ways in which our rights and ways of living are violated &ndash; and just how difficult it has become for us to have our ingredients. These ingredients are our sustenance as well as our main source of income&rdquo;.

Naqvi also claims that fishing communities are being cut off from their native fishing lands and have been disenfranchised politically. They live in abject poverty and are completely ignored by the state. Meanwhile, &ldquo;the only relationship Karachi has with the ocean anymore is as the place where they dump all their garbage&rdquo;.

Love, loss and faith in the Kalash valleys

Today, despite their primordial relationship with the ocean, fisher-folk can barely access the fishing ports in Karachi due to permit issues and discriminatory policies. This reality is extremely hurtful for Birwani, who claims that the fisher-folk are now being treated as outsiders. &ldquo;They ask us where we come from, and our food is looked down upon in disdain&rdquo;. She contends that the histories of displacement are deeply connected to the concerns of food and water. For Birwani, it is essential to question how cuisines from migrant communities are thriving, but indigenous people are not even allowed to put up food trucks by the ocean?

Projects like Mahigeer are the future of indigenous resistance. They combine age old wisdom, with the optics and experiences of new-age activism. As Majeed eloquently puts it, &ldquo;The Mahigeer people, are one of the oldest communities in the world. We are the earth&rsquo;s inheritors and the ocean&rsquo;s protectors, and this food is a celebration of our history&rdquo;.

Sorry, This Story Has Been Unpublished.