Infrastructure, Development, and Displacement in Pakistan's "Southern Punjab"

This article explores the relationship between infrastructure, uneven development, and displacement in Pakistan's "Southern Punjab". It focuses on three historical episodes spanning the colonial era to the present: (1) agricultural colonisation during the colonial/early post-colonial period; (2) the Great Indus Flood of 2010; and (3) contemporary initiatives to develop energy infrastructure in Southern Punjab within the framework of CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. These three episodes correspond with colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary phases of infrastructure-led development respectively in a history of dispossession and displacement that problematises common sense understandings of infrastructure as enabling and connective. Popular mobilisation and resistance are examined through the phenomenon of Siraiki ethno-nationalism, which infuses struggles for environmental justice in Southern Punjab. The article also considers the parallel and entwined role of state-sponsored infrastructures of Islamist militancy in creating an increasingly hostile environment for Siraiki nationalists and other progressive social movements.