Environmental Injustice: Exploitation of Sindh’s Natural Resources in Pakistan

Abstract

Immediately after the creation of Pakistan, attempts were started to obliterate the proven history of Sindh as its being a separate state and nation, having its own creed, heritage, culture, language and traditions. Sindh is enriched with oil and gas resources but people of Sindh are living in pathetic conditions. The majority of people who resides in natural resource-enriched regions find difficulty to meet their basic needs. The surrounding area of oil and gas fields are polluted, local people bear the burden of this pollution. The aim of this paper is to understand that why natural resource-enriched soil of Sindh’s people live in abject poverty and lag far behind in human development indicators. The prevalence of internal colonialism has been noted in this study where a dominant ethnic group Punjabi in control of a government systematically exploits resources of Sindhi people. This is an environmental injustice with Sindhis resulting from their subordinate and peripheral status in Pakistan.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v4n1s1p9