Reza Ali’s Pakistan

That the census has been postponed yet again, is a pathetic decision. The delay leaves room for disgusting analyses of what passes as urban development. Looking for engines or drivers of economic growth, a lot of kite flying has taken place. There is, however, a distinguished exception and in many ways, a lone warrior: Reza Ali. He began his monumental work, Urbanisation Research Programme, soon after the publication of the results of the 1981 census. It was followed by an analysis of the preliminary results of the 1998 census. Over time, this self-financed research programme of a dedicated individual produced a detailed analysis of the census results over the entire century i.e., from the 1901 census to the 1998 census. The consequential research output could be the envy of the well-funded, with or without donor support, institutions employing a large number of professionals. Firstly, the basic work of compiling the 100-year census data was completed. Secondly, an urban places map and data sheet based on the 1998 census was produced. Thirdly, the effects of the migration at independence on settlement pattern were studied. Fourthly, the programme completed its work on rurality in 2011 — Pakistan the Rural. Lastly, in 2013, the programme presented its monumental work — Pakistan — An Emerging Spatial Geography. Finally, there is the programme in the works to complete this huge effort whenever the new census takes place, if at all. Walking now with the help of a stick, Reza Ali is losing hope, though.

By its own definitions, the 1998 census declared 32 per cent of Pakistan as urban. In 1999, Reza Ali challenged this result. According to estimates based on his work, the urban population was much more. The census defines what is urban and assumes all else to be rural. The 1981 census defined urban in administrative terms. Thus, the population living within the administrative boundaries of towns, municipalities and cantonments, was counted as urban. It was a departure from the definition adopted in the censuses held from 1861 to 1972. Besides municipalities, civil lines and cantonments, the census commissioner could include any continuous settlement of at least 5,000 persons. Some demographers have worked out that these settlements, left out by the census definition, contain a sizeable urban population, taking the total to 40 per cent.

Reza Ali insists that the problem with the existing definition is not just that it miscounts the population. More importantly, it distorts the understanding of urbanisation as a process, by reflecting an incomplete degree of agglomeration. Following the internationally accepted definition based on measurable indicators of population density, urban core and proximity to the city, albeit with higher thresholds, he was able to capture human settlement concentration. This meant that all of Balochistan except Quetta, large parts of Sindh, Khyber-Pakthunkwa and south Punjab were rural. These are also the areas where inequalities across space have been rising. However, the rest of Pakistan is not all urban, though still higher than the census definition. There is what he calls urbanising areas between the rural and the urban areas. As he puts it: “The urban/rural divide appears as a gradient, rather than a dichotomy — life changes in a variety of dimensions along the urban-rural route: from fields and intensive cultivation, villages and small market towns, to larger towns, small cities and the cosmopolitan city.”

Based on Reza Ali’s concept, and by lumping together urbanising and urban areas, an economist estimated that Pakistan was 47 per cent urban in 1998, with the future projected at 70 per cent by 2030. What does it imply for future policy? For formulation of policy, the urbane (and cultivated) Reza Ali would let fools contend.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2016.

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