FOR much of its existence, Islamabad has had the pride of place for Pakistan’s rulers, precisely because it is not the typical Third World megacity. Sleepy, green and as elitist as it comes, the Islamabad that will come into being in the not too distant future threatens to be even more elitist, restless and disastrously grey.
The word is that the (new) capital is going to resemble a mix of Manhattan and Shanghai, even while it retains the scenic splendour of the Margalla Hills. But will there even be any Margalla Hills to speak of after they have been subjected to the current regime’s delusions of grandeur?
Consider what is already happening to the city’s working-class population. Over the past few months, mass evictions accompanied by repression in both the city’s katchi abadis and historical villages have rendered thousands of families homeless. By all accounts, the rulers intend to leave nothing standing, potentially wiping out the homes of half a million people. According to the 2023 census, Islamabad’s total population is a little shy of 2.5m; the ‘world class city’ being advertised will come into being by displacing one-fifth of the people who already live here.
For those whose memories are short, Islamabad did not exist a little over six decades ago. There were, however, many villages, shrines, the Soan river and its tributaries and a unique local culture. All of this was to be sacrificed at the altar of Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s vision of ‘national development’. Nevertheless, many markers of this past have refused to wither way. Think of Saidpur, home to historic Buddhist and Hindu heritage; also the Bari Imam shrine, which attracted devotees for almost two centuries before Ayub Khan launched his Islamabad scheme.
The ‘world class’ city will displace thousands.
The ‘new’ Islamabad being touted by the current regime will do away with all of this for good. The pitch is that five-star hotels will pop up on what is currently the rubble of thousands of homes in the vicinity of Bari Imam. Many other high-rise buildings, even skyscrapers of Manhattan vintage, are also on the cards. Yes, capitalist modernity has always flattened existing histories and geographies, especially in the case of the global metropolis. But is there any method at all to the madness that is ‘new’ Islamabad?
Real estate developers have already run riot on the outskirts of the capital. Gated housing schemes have proliferated everywhere from the new airport on the northwestern tip of the city to Rawat in the south. Every single developer claims high occupancy rates, but there is significant anecdotal evidence of schemes lying idle while plot files are circulated by state functionaries and brokers who have perfected the art of the shady deal. Don’t forget that this is happening while 500,000 working-class residents are being threatened with homelessness.
Beyond the madness of housing as an unaffordable commodity for those most in need is the devastation of local ecologies; Islamabad’s water table is now perilously low, in many cases finding water means drilling almost 1,000 feet (300 metres). The cruel irony is that unbridled construction has in certain sectors triggered entirely new forms of urban flooding during the monsoon season. The building binge is also the primary cause of winter air becoming increasingly poisonous; the capital which once boasted heavenly air is now not that far off smog-infested Lahore. If the ‘world class city’ plans reach their fruition, the one thing that can be said for sure is that air and water will, like housing, be highly scarce commodities.
As for the construction of a new ‘park’ in the Margalla foothills, it is worth being reminded that the Margalla and Shakarparian areas are already notified national parks. Which literally means that all kind of construction is banned. But of course, Pakistan’s militarised ruling class has never really been too bothered by the few pro-people or pro-nature legal protections that exist in this country. The CDA’s own master plan has been moulded time and again to suit the whims of the rich and powerful. And the latter always resort to brute force when required.
Islamabad is certainly not Waziristan or Awaran or D.G. Khan or Thar or Ghizer, remote peripheries where colonial statecraft and ecologically ruinous extractivism are rules rather than exceptions. But what we have seen happening in the capital over the past few months, and the plans that have been announced for what comes next, clarify that peripheral populations and disposable ecologies exist everywhere. And repression is the fate of anyone who stands up to say no.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2026
