Mangla Dam

Q. What has the Mangla Dam in Pakistan have to do with the fact that many of Bristol's taxi drivers are 'Mirpuris' from Pakistan?

A. Many Bristol Pakistanis originally came from Azad Kashmir, a region in the northwest of Pakistan. Most were born in the district of Mirpur within that region. Because Pakistan had been left without adequate access to water as a direct result of the 1947/8 settlement separating India from Pakistan, the Mangla dam in Mirpur was planned.,

The completed Dam was to flood the city of Mirpur and surrounding villages and the wholesale compulsory purchase of land in these areas displaced many thousands of people. To avert widespread unrest, some of those displaced were offered financial compensation as well as passports, which before then, had been difficult for rural people to obtain and thus began a large-scale exodus to all over the world including Britain. Mirpuris already established the UK felt bound to afford traditional hospitality to those displaced. According to one source, Mirpuris constitute the largest group amongst Bristol’s first generation of ‘Pakistanis’ .[i]

EPE Bristol met Khadim Hussain, a Tee-side based writer from Pakistan, when researching the Mangla Dam/Bristol link.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[i] Lack of control of irrigation headwaters was a particular grievance. See Himal Southasian a magazine published and distributed by The Southasia Trust, Lalitpur, Nepal http://www.himalmag.com/2003/november/commentary_2.htm; It seems the Mangla Dam project was supported by the World Bank. “The World Bank (WB) took the initiative to facilitate negotiations between India and Pakistan that continued for 10 years and culminated in signing of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in 1960. The Indus Basin Project (IBP) was the mechanism to implement provisions of IWT and comprised: three storage reservoirs (Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma)” World Commission on Dams, Case Study. Pakistan: The Tarbela Dam and Indus River Basin’ http://www.dams.org/kbase/studies/pk/pk_exec.htm; Poems from ‘Going for a Curry’ the works of Khadim Hussain’, http://www.neukol.org.uk/teesblog/index.php/gfac?cat=257 ; Apna Jhelum Website http://www.apnajhelum.net/, accessed 4 March 2007. Jeffery, 16. Interview with Rais Hyder..; Hussain, A Century of Migration, 94-95; Khadim Hussain, Going for a Curry? A Social and Culinary History, (Middlesbrough:Ed Zuban Press, 2006), 38-39.