On a sunny early January afternoon, two thousand fishermen, farmers and activists gathered on the dry river bed outside Kotri Barrage in Pakistan, the final dam before the waters of the Indus flow into the Arabian Sea.
“Send this message to Islamabad, send this message to Pindi: we will not drink your gutter water!” shouted one activist, referring to Rawalpindi, where the army is headquartered. “We reject the canal!” roared the crowd.
The protests were against a Rs200bn ($720mn) project to build canals that would divert water upstream to eastern Pakistan. There, an agricultural company led by the military, Green Pakistan, hopes to turn a large swath of desert into fertile farmland that will guarantee a steady supply of grain and attract investment from Gulf states.