Nasirabad district: a canal-fed plain on the eastern edge of Kachhi

Introduction and location

Nasirabad is a plains district in the east of Balochistan, along the border with Sindh. It is part of the flat, hot and dry region known as the Kachhi plain, but it is known for its canals rather than for mountains or desert. Since the British period, farming in the area has depended on water from Sindh’s canals. For this reason it is counted among the densely populated agricultural districts of the province.

According to the 2023 census of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Nasirabad district covers 3,387 square kilometres and has a population of 563,315. This includes 287,902 men, 275,395 women and 18 transgender persons. The population density is 166 persons per square kilometre, several times the Balochistan average, and about 19 per cent of the people live in urban areas. In the 2017 census the district’s population, according to its present boundaries, was 489,779 (the actual count within the boundaries of that time was 487,847). This means an average annual increase of 2.37 per cent. A household has 6.4 members on average.

According to the census table, the largest unit of the district is Dera Murad Jamali sub-division. It covers only 281 square kilometres but has a population of 265,822. About 946 persons live in every square kilometre and 40 per cent of the population is urban. The other units are Tamboo tehsil (149,518), Baba Kot tehsil (53,661), Mir Hassan Khosa tehsil (53,400), Chhatar sub-division (32,276) and Landhi tehsil (8,638). According to the provincial census report, the tehsils of Mir Hassan Khosa and Landhi were formed after 2017 by separating some mauzas of Tamboo, Baba Kot and Chhatar and some mauzas of Bhag tehsil of Kachhi district.

According to the provincial report, the population of Nasirabad Division in 2023 was 2,044,021, which is 13.72 per cent of the total population of the province.

History

The district takes its name from the “Nasirabad tehsil” of the British period, although the boundaries of that tehsil differed from those of today’s district. According to the Sibi volume of the 1907 “Baluchistan District Gazetteer”, the tehsil was a narrow strip about 104 miles long and one to twelve miles wide along the northern and western border of Jacobabad district in Sindh. Its area was 852 square miles. At its far eastern corner stood “Lom Tower”, where the borders of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab met. According to the gazetteer, its physical conditions were like those of the Kachhi province of the Kalat state: canals, perfectly level land, intense heat in summer and little rain.

The area was a “niabat” of the Kalat state. According to the gazetteer, its revenue was first held by the Political Agent at Jacobabad. After the Baluchistan Agency was formed in 1877 it was handed over to that agency, and in 1883 a tehsildar was appointed there. But the administration was dual. Irrigation was in the hands of Sindh officers, while the tehsildar fixed the revenue and the Khan’s deputy collected it. The gazetteer writes that the faults of this dual system showed more in civil and criminal matters than in revenue.

To end this confusion, the Khan of Kalat, through an agreement of 17 February 1903, handed over the administration of the Nasirabad niabat to the British government in perpetuity. According to the Sibi gazetteer, in return an annual payment of Rs1,15,000 was fixed, and a further Rs2,500 for the lower lands of Manjuthi, making Rs1,17,500 a year in all. The Viceroy ratified the agreement on 14 May 1903. In October of the same year the Southern Baluchistan Agency was abolished, and Nasirabad was made a separate sub-division and attached to the new Sibi district. According to the Kachhi gazetteer, in the same agreement the Khan also accepted that the lands in Lahri, Bhag and Gandava that could in future be irrigated from British canals would be leased in the same way. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer also mentions this perpetual lease of 1903.

According to the gazetteer, in 1903 the headquarters of the tehsil was renamed from Nasirabad to “Yateabad”. Important villages of the time included Hamidpur, Manhipur, Sohbatpur, Rojhan and Muhammadpur, which was also called “Usta”. Sohbatpur is today a separate district.

People and languages

According to the mother tongue table of the 2023 census, Nasirabad is among the most multilingual districts of Balochistan. The largest language is Balochi, which 243,392 people, or about 43 per cent, give as their mother tongue. Brahui is the mother tongue of 128,273 (nearly 23 per cent), Sindhi of 119,187 (about 21 per cent) and Saraiki of 68,454 (about 12 per cent). Speakers of Pashto and Urdu are very few.

This diversity is old. Citing the 1901 census, the Sibi gazetteer says the population of the tehsil was then 35,713, and that the Sindhi, Jatki and Balochi dialects were spoken there. The major tribes included the Rinds (with Jamali, Khosa, Chandia, Lashari, Leghari and Mughairi branches), Umranis, Magsis, Dombkis, several Brahui tribes and about 12,000 Jats. According to the gazetteer, the main occupation of the local population was farming.

Today the district faces a major challenge in education. According to the provincial census report, Nasirabad is among the five districts where the literacy rate is 30 per cent or less, and also among the eight districts where more than 70 per cent of children are out of school.

Economy

Nasirabad’s economy rests on farming, and farming rests on canals. According to the Sibi gazetteer, the tehsil was irrigated in the past from two major Sindh canals, the Desert Canal and the Begari Canal, and their branches. In 1904-05 the canal-irrigated area was 103,085 acres. Of this, 71,348 acres were irrigated by the Desert Canal and 31,737 acres by the Begari Canal, while rain-fed cultivation was only ten per cent of the total area. According to the Imperial Gazetteer, the cultivated area in Nasirabad rose from 76 square miles in 1880-81 to 165 square miles in 1902-03.

According to the gazetteer, the main crop here was the kharif, in which jowar, sesame, rice, cotton and indigo were grown, while the rabi crops were wheat, gram and oilseeds. The Imperial Gazetteer writes that Nasirabad was the only tehsil in directly administered Baluchistan where indigo and gram were produced. Muhammadpur (Usta) was famous for leatherwork.

The climate is harsh. According to the gazetteer, the weather of the area is like that of Upper Sindh, which was called “perhaps the driest in the world”, and annual rainfall was only three to five inches.

Places of interest

Canal system: The district’s main distinction is its canal-irrigated fields. According to the gazetteer, the Shahi Wah, Frontier Rajbaha, Uch Rajbaha and Manjuthi branches of the Desert Canal and the Nur Wah and Sar Wah branches of the Begari Canal irrigated the region.

Dera Murad Jamali: According to the census, this is the most densely populated and most urban part of the district, home to nearly half of its population.