Introduction

As explained in chapter 3, the military's agrarian land acquisitions in the postcolonial period were initially concentrated in the border regions. However, it has been in nonborder districts that the more recent and intensive land allotments have taken place. In this chapter we provide details of our research in these new allotment areas. In short, we show that the historic policy of land allotment continues in nonborder zones, whereas there is little land left to allocate in the border zones.

We start, however, by documenting the multifarious activities of the Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary force subject to military command, in the border districts. The fieldwork testimonies below provide a snapshot of the Rangers’ dominant and intrusive role in the border regions. In each case, we highlight the daily experiences of local communities as impacted by the interaction with the Rangers. There is an amazing amount of similarity and consistency in the narratives across the border region.

For the best part of Pakistan's history, the military's purported role as heroic guardian of the state has gone largely unchallenged, within the Punjab at least. One of our objectives in this book is to provide a voice to those segments of Punjabi society that suffer the brunt of the military's voracious resource grabbing. It is this side of the story that needs to be told. We hope that other researchers will follow up on our exploratory findings by returning to the various locations listed in appendix 3.1.

Following the account of the Rangers’ activities is a section on the limited allocations of land in border districts. Since most local informants talked at length about their perceptions of conditions across the border, we have devoted a section to that. We end the chapter with an account of nonborder allocations.

Rangers: Masters of Their Domain

The Rangers are the guardians of a five-mile belt along the border from Sialkot to Rahim Yar Khan. Their jurisdiction extends to policing the border to ensure there are no illegal crossings, infiltration of “enemy” agents or smuggling activities.