Ever since the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) began, superfluously unreal pictures have been painted such as projecting Gwadar as a future Singapore or Dubai. Even now, the mega project is touted as a destiny-forging project for both countries, Pakistan and China, though ground realities tell an opposite and contrary picture.

Official data of both Pakistan and China say the initial worth of the project was $47 billion. However, as per updated figures of 2020, its overall value is $62 billion, a whopping figure. The project makes tall promises of building and upgrading infrastructure, improving Pakistan’s fragile economy and setting up Special Economic Zones.

Gwadar in darkness

Still, Gwadar, the epicenter of the project where Gwadar port lies, continues to live in unabated darkness. Gwadar city is located on the Arabian Sea in western Balochistan. The province has been boiling with historically rooted grievances for decades. Living in the coastal areas, the native people of Gwadar depend on the sea for their livelihood. From the very beginning of the CPEC project, its exaggerated charisma has failed to shower any blessing on people of Gwadar.

Today the plight of Gwadar is exposed to the world in the shape of “Haq Do" movement or Give Us Our Rights movement in which hundreds of thousands of local people are on the roads seeking basic rights. Although the protests in the port city, which has shot into international prominence in the last few years, have been happening over a period of time, the movement in Gwadar under the leadership of Maulana Hidayat Ur Rehman Baloch has attracted a massive number of people across Balochistan, especially from the Mekran region. 

The protesters in Gwadar led by Hidayat Rehman Baloch have a 17-point charter of demands. The prime focus is on ending “the humiliation of the residents of Gwadar” at checkpoint points set up in the name of security; prevention of illegal deep-sea fishing by Chinese trawlers, and permission to continue to do border trade with Iran.

“The people of Gwadar are on the roads not for demanding new amenities of life but to stop the intervention of authorities in their sources of earning,” says Baloch. After more than two weeks, the "Haq Do" movement managed to mobilize on the roads a huge number of people - including a large number of women and even children  - who chant slogans seeking freedom from checkpoints and trawler mafias. As long as the population of Gwadar remains sidelined and deprived, the CPEC can never be a success.

CPEC ignores Balochis

The policies related to CPEC were designed without taking the people of Gwadar into consideration; the poor dwellers of Gwadar were only given lip service. As a result, the "Haq Do" movement - which is a simmering volcano waiting to erupt - has altered the paradigm of local politics drastically.

The current situation reflects starkly on the fact that CPEC has done very little for the progress and development of the native people of Gwadar. No matter how much the statistician, economists and politicians wax eloquent about the project by brushing the residents’ problems under the carpet, the harsh realities won’t simply disappear. It seems the CPEC is more of a profit-driven rather than a development-oriented project.

(The writer is a columnist based in Balochistan, Pakistan. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at nizambaloch149@gmail.com)