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.
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