Despite the fact that an increase in housing is neither new nor recent, most of my informants seemed to believe it was. Yet, the extent of growth in the housing sector appears to not be simply linked to post-earthquake reconstruction, as it was visible in
the preceding years to the earthquake. For instance, while in the 1998 Census the number of houses for Bagh District was 53,275 (of which 38% were considered
pakka),125 the housing survey conducted by ERRA in early 2006, to ascertain the number of houses eligible for reconstruction compensation, accounted for 94,752 houses. In other words, according to ERRA there was an increase of about 56% in housing structures in the preceding seven years to the earthquake. Although this figure might have been inflated, there had been an increase in housing, which was directly linked to an increase in remittances. Building a house is considered a preferred way of using remittances especially, as many of my informants often stated, in a region where there are very few opportunities to invest. According to the World Bank (2012) dataset on workers remittances for Pakistan, remittances received in the country were of the order of US$ 2-2.5 billion annually from 1980 until 1990 (peaking at US$ 3 billion in 1983), decreased to a range of US$ 1 billion to US$ 2 billion annually from 1990 to 2001, then increased to US$ 4 billion for the 2002-05 period, and have been increasing at the rate of US$ 1 billion per year ever since. A reasonable number of houses destroyed in the earthquake were in fact fairly new and some were even unfinished. Nevertheless many locals believed that this increase was recent for a series of reasons, which I will now elaborate on. Firstly, it seems that the slower increase of housing construction before the earthquake might have passed unnoticed or, at best, was not as visible as compared to a drastic shock like the earthquake, after which houses had to be built. While previously people built their houses throughout the years, after the earthquake they built them almost simultaneously, thus giving the feeling of a rapid increase in housing.
Secondly, many informants used a perception of population growth and population pressure to justify what they saw as an increase in housing and a potential shift from joint family systems to nuclear. Increasing family numbers was a strong reason for building new houses, preferably with extra divisions for future generations. These new houses were costly to build, even for many migrant-sending families, as remittances were spent over time in daily household consumption, children’s education, and social events such as weddings and funerals. Before the earthquake people would often just build extensions to the existing houses. Post-earthquake, many felt that government
125 Pakka means cooked, ripe. In housing it is used for houses that are solid, usually made of concrete, bricks and/or stone. The opposite term is kaccha (raw, unripe), for houses made of adobe or mud.
compensation and the need for reconstruction gave them an incentive to build separate houses, to ‘steam off’ population pressure. This population pressure, though, might not have been as high as people perceived. Growth rates in Bagh District are relatively lower compared to PaK as a whole. As seen in Figure 5, while there was a steady yet fast increase in population in PaK, in Bagh the increase had been more subdued. Still, as families had augmented and living space was becoming smaller, they said, many opted for building more houses, rather than create attachments to the older houses. “Earlier
everyone used to live in one house but now they live nearby [in separate houses]”, said
Jameela Bibi, a resident of Serabad. Often these new houses were built in the same plot where before the earthquake there was a single house, thereby creating a cluster of buildings, a compound, due to the limited availability of land and as a way of maintaining patrilocal residence. In effect, these new houses became extensions of what rooms used to be, i.e., where before a joint family in a larger house would allocate rooms to households, today these rooms have been detached and given their own roofs. Where before the roof was the unifying element of the joint family, in a reversal of space – from above to below – it now appears that the courtyard has taken this role.126 This trend though, was not the only one adopted in the region post-earthquake; in many families married brothers decided to pool in their resources and build a single larger house, others built a simple three-bedroom house and rebuilt the older house as their winter house-cum-kitchen, and others even built something like semi-detached houses, with a nuclear family per floor. Many, especially the poorer ones and the ones who did not get access to compensation, built what they could, which often meant the same house spatially, but with a tin roof.
126 Besides roofs, in the next section I further explain what households shared and not shared before and after the earthquake.
Figure 5 – Population Growth in Pakistan-administered Kashmir
Source: P&D AJK, 1980; 1990; 2008
Thirdly, a misunderstanding regarding entitlement to government compensation became an incentive to build more houses. The total compensation given by the government to rebuild a house in the earthquake-affected areas varied from Rs. 25,000 (minimal damages) to Rs. 175,000 (complete reconstruction). Housing compensation was given in four tranches for destroyed houses: an initial Rs. 25,000 to cover immediate shelter needs, Rs. 75,000 for mobilisation, Rs. 25,000 upon completion to plinth level (base), and Rs. 50,000 upon completion of the walls. For partially destroyed houses, after the initial Rs. 25,000, people were entitled to one single instalment of Rs. 50,000. As a large number of the population was entitled to (and received) the first tranche, at this point a misunderstanding developed on who was entitled to compensation and how much. According to news reports, soon after the earthquake Musharraf promised that the “Federal government will construct and provide a new house in place of [a] razed
house in NWFP and AJK” (PakTribune, 2005). While the vast majority of the
population in PaK understood “compensation” as total compensation, the Federal government, despite what its leaders said to the press, meant ‘partial subsidy’. Also, as the initial instalment was given to households – identified by stoves – and not houses –
identified by roofs – most assumed that the rest of the instalments would continue this way. The government, on the other hand, had other plans:
“If more than one family are residing under one roof and during the initial damage assessment Rs. 25,000 were given on the basis of stoves, second tranche will only be given to one who is the owner of the house and undertaking will be obtained from other residents that they have no objection on subsidy given to one person who will build the house on behalf of all.” ERRA (2006a)
As Raza said, “you had to show [the government] that you were rebuilding your house” according to the new directives in order to get compensation. This obligation to rebuild, together with the perceived promise of funding, especially for those who received the initial instalment, became an incentive to build more houses.
Building a house, especially a pakka one using new materials, became an endeavour far more expensive than many predicted, including the locals and the government. In their initial assessment the ADB and the World Bank stated that a “typical home in the
affected areas houses 6-7 persons, is 400 sq. ft. and consists of one or two main rooms, a veranda and a bath and kitchen which may not be attached” (2005). This depiction of
an average house in the earthquake-affected areas of both PaK and KP, became the one adopted by the government to the detriment of places like the villages surrounding Chinati bazaar, where it fell short of the real picture of a house. In this area a typical home housed more than seven persons, was 500 sq. ft. and consisted of three or four main rooms, a veranda, and a bath and kitchen often not attached. On top of that,
“material quantities and construction costs were estimated (…) as they existed prior to the earthquake” (ADB/WB, 2005). One of the immediate effects of the earthquake was
an inflationary increase of the cost of construction materials and labour. Rebuilding a simple three-bedroom house with a simple tin roof would initially cost from Rs. 400,000 to Rs. 800,000. As total compensation was of Rs. 175,000, people had to make up the difference by using their savings, by borrowing, or by increasing their income. As time passed, despite a feeble attempt by the government to regulate costs, construction expenditures increased, linked to increased inflation levels in Pakistan. Hameed, a mason from Sarian, explained to me how costly it was to make even his house. “I’ve put around 12 lacs and [my house] is 90% complete. Maybe three more lacs to complete it. The major problem in making a house is the availability of wood. I
get the wood from Hari Ghel and have to let the guy know by three to five months in advance.” The construction of the new earthquake-resistant houses with tin roofs
required extra amounts of wood. Due to a successful combined reforestation effort in the 80s by the government and its citizens, there was a tight control of logging in the region, meaning that local wood was hard to find. Often it came from outside PaK, further adding to the costs.
Fourthly, many migrants who had savings did not automatically spend those savings on improving their houses before the earthquake, living instead in kaccha houses or building simple pakka houses, with stones rather than brick and cement. Similar to the 1998 Census figures for Bagh District, in the villages I studied only about 37% of the houses were pakka before the earthquake. The earthquake and the potential government compensation gave them an incentive to improve their houses. As Omar the newspaper seller said in my initial story, many people who had previously appeared to be poor because they lived in kaccha (non-cemented) houses, had actually just been “sitting on
their money like snakes”, but after the earthquake they decided to make better pakka
(cemented) houses; the earthquake gave them the motivation to build pakka houses. ERRA’s motto, to ‘Build Back Better’ was largely adopted, if not in reality at least in aspiration, by most of the population post-earthquake. As Raja Yasin, a returned migrant from Serabad, said “the earthquake was a good thing because (…) everybody
now has pakka houses, there is better living”. The earthquake gave them a new aim: to
rebuild their houses in a ‘proper’ way, meaning using modern materials such as cement and paint, preparing for future earthquakes by using tin roofs, and creating more housing units for future family expansion.
Finally, one particular material used in the new houses might have also contributed to a perceived increase in housing numbers – the tin roof. Before the earthquake, most houses were kaccha, meaning they were made of mud walls, a large wooden beam crossing the roof and covered with pine (or grass) thatch. Pakka houses were made in stone masonry, with the mortar being a mix of gravel, mud and sand, and a flat slab roof or, sometimes, a tin roof. These roofs had higher status linked to them and were generally rare in the region. In one of our first conversations Sardar Zulfiqar pointed out that “before the Gulf migration, there were only three tin roofs in Rawalakot: the
mosque, my father’s house and another Sardar. Since the 80s, the numbers started increasing and after the earthquake, you can see for yourself.” Government
compensation for housing reconstruction came with specific guidelines, of which the most visible one was the obligatory erection of tin roofs. Compared with other materials, e.g., wood, thatch or cement, tin sheets are more noticeable as they reflect the sun (see Figure 6). This heightened the sense that many more houses were being built after the earthquake, as tin roofs were rare before and became the norm after.
Figure 6 – Sun-reflecting Tin Roofs in Bagh District (morning and afternoon shot)
Due to this series of factors, namely simultaneous construction, perceived population pressure, a misunderstanding on eligibility for government compensation, a refashioning of houses from kaccha to pakka, and a proliferation of (more visible) tin roofs, people felt the earthquake caused a recent increase in housing, whereas much of this was because of processes already underway that were exacerbated by the earthquake.