Threat to Peace - Water Ambitious India

By Zaheerul Hassan

 Recently Foreign Sectary level talks held at New Delhi have been ended without reaching to any conclusion. Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir met for three hours in New Delhi for talks. The purpose of the meeting was to bring regional stability while resolving conflicts. Pakistan was interested in resumption of Composite Dialogues but Rao rebuffed Pakistan’s request to resolve all outstanding issues between two traditional rivals.

In fact, India has desired to restart the peace process under US pressure which was well received by Pakistani authorities. The efforts of the talks was to move head for settling  issues bilaterally but unfortunately New Delhi as usually displayed negative and non serious attitude towards the talks.  It is quite disheartened to know that Indian foreign sectary came on the table without making any preparation to discuss the burning conflicts of two regional nuke powers.  Pakistani Foreign Sectary also stated that the gap between Pakistan and India has been widened and no substantial progress in this connection has been made. Pakistan raised major issues like, Kashmir, violation of Indus Basin Water Treaty and Indian supported terrorism in Balochistan and FATA.

Indian rulers are continuously kept on planning to destroy agricultural and hydel power projects of Pakistan and other regional countries. Islamabad time and again informed the Indian side about their violations of Indus Basin Water Treaty i.e. unauthorized storage of water, India’s plan to build more dams, the Kishanganga hydel project, pollution in sources of water and glacier melting. India is one of the largest water grabber of the world. She is using water as war instrument. Her hegemonic design can be judged while viewing his present and future plan of consttucting water channel, dams grabbing natural resources. She is illegally constructing dams on the rivers flowing towards Pakistan. She is also a declared water thief.

In Pakistan, Nepal, China, India and Bangladesh burning territorial and water disputes are interconnected and hanging with each other since their inceptions. The water dispute is the major problem which influences the remaining regional issues too. World community remained concern over water conflicts since it could be one of the causes of breaking out of future war. Thus, obviously chances of conversion of traditional to nuclear war increase manifold, when rivals are nuclear powers and equipped with all sort of nuclear arsenals. Pakistan and China always tried to avoid war over water issue despite knowing that India never paid any heed to the demands of neighbouring countries. New Delhi always remained irrational and adopted ridiculous approach in resolving the core regional issues. It is interesting to know that water grabber India is breaching almost water of 95 rivers in entire South Asia and proved herself a “World Largest Water Grabber”. The major sufferers of her grabbing are Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. 

Now let’s discuss the core issue of two traditional rivals of South Asia. It is a proved fact that after the partition, India went to war against Pakistan to maintain illegitimate occupation of Kashmir which continued in one form or the other from October 1947 until January 1949. Meanwhile, acting upon her shrewd diplomacy, India deliberately stopped the flow of Pakistan’s rivers which originate from the controlled territories of Kashmir. Even at that time, Indian rulers had used water as a tool of political coercion against Pakistan. On the other side, Pakistan sought the help of international arbitration. Consequently, Indus Basin Water Treaty between both the states was signed in 1960 and the World Bank, itself, is the mediator and signatory. The treaty which is still in force, allocates waters of three western rivers of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan while India has rights over eastern rivers of Ravi, Sutlej and Beas. Since the settlement of the dispute, India has always violated the treaty intermittently to create economic crisis in Pakistan.  A controversy arose between the two neighbouring states in 1984 when India started construction of the Wullar Barrage on river Jhelum in its part of Kashmir. New Delhi stopped construction work in 1987 after Pakistan lodged a strong protest over the project, objecting that it violated the Indus Water Treaty. The issue of Wullar Barrage has also been discussed in various rounds of the composite dialogue process between the two adversaries. In the mid 1990s India started another violation by constructing the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River. In 2005 Pakistan had again sought the World Bank’s intervention to stop construction of the Baglihar dam. Although WB allowed India to go ahead with the project after a few minor modifications, yet it did not permit the interruption of the agreed quota of water flow to Pakistan. Quite contrarily, Indian present tact to reduce the flow of water is a blatant violation of the Indus Basin Treaty.

Regarding negative effects on Pakistan, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah while talking to a daily pointed out that India has deliberately interfered with the flow of river Chenab. He further said that reduced water inflows would bring about huge loss to cropped areas of Punjab, besides causing early depletion of Mangla Dam. He elaborated that India had violated the treaty provisions by putting the water inflow below 55000 cusec in Chenab River at Maralla Headworks. There are also some other fundamental reasons behind Indian shrewd diplomacy by using water dispute against Pakistan. India wants to keep her control on Kashmir which is located in the Indus River basin area, thus contributing to the flow of all the major rivers which enter Pakistan. A report in “New Scientist”, published in 2005 indicated a number of issues in relation to Pakistan. It wrote that Indian violation of the Indus Basin Treaty could lead to widespread famine, and further inflame the ongoing conflict over Kashmir?Pakistan relies on the Indus River and its tributaries for almost half of its irrigation supplies, and to generate up to half of its electricity. Pakistan also fears that India would use various dams as a coercive tool by causing floods in Pakistan through sudden release of waters.
These effects of the report have already been experienced by our country in the past. Unlike India, Pakistan is highly dependent on agriculture, which in turn is dependent on water. Without any doubt, almost 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture is dependent on irrigation. Many of Pakistan’s industries are agro-based such as the textiles industry. Moreover, 70% of Pakistan’s food needs are fulfilled domestically. But India has always dishonoured the accord from time to time to create economic crisis in Pakistan. It is worth mentioning here that Indus Basin treaty over distribution of water resources was concluded after 23 years of Pakistani struggle but once again after 23 years or so controversy rose up in 1984 when India violated the laws of the agreement and started construction of Wuler India will be having a strategic edge, during a military confrontation, enabling it to control the mobility and recoil of Pakistani troops and enhancing the maneuverability of Indian troops. It is mentionable here that India is already weakening Pakistan by sending miscreants from Afghanistan, who are creating unrest through bomb blasts and suicide attacks in wake of already strained relations between Islamabad and New Delhi. In these adverse circumstances, by employing water as a political instrument of shrewd diplomacy, India continues to intensify various political, economic and social crises in Pakistan.

The Indian unflinching quest of grabbing natural particularly water resources are seem to be putting devastating effects on her neighbours, Pakistan The looming water crisis, if unattended, will prove fatal for Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Nepal and India too. Now choice is with delinquent child (India) to implement the international laws and respect the already concluded pacts.

US and world community should also realize that threat to South Asian or even to global peace has become quite eminent because of water grabbing by India. US should also realize that Indian ingress in Afghanistan is putting on adverse effects global war on terror. The threat of war can only be removed if Indian is ready to adhere international contracts on water; world community should come out to pressurize Indian to carry out negotiations with the neighbouring countries to resolve the conflicts.