Indus Waters Treaty was designed for a very different world, when India and Pakistan were working to establish themselves amid globe divided by the Cold War
In 1995, the World Bank vice president Ismail Seralgeldin, warned us all that whereas conflicts of the previous 100 years had been over oil, ‘the wars of the next century will be fought over water’. He couldn’t have been more right!
In ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, Samuel Coleridge’s iconic line: ‘Water water everywhere nor any drop to drink’ highlights the predicament of a thirsty sailor, who is surrounded by seawater but can’t drink it. In today’s context, given the condition of the depletion of natural resources, with issues related to water scarcity and pollution, he couldn’t have been more right either.
Man, with his need for boundaries and greed for land wasn’t satisfied with what was offered. He soon started interfering with nature and somehow managed to control the flow of rivers. And water, the elixir of life, which is both a means of survival for every living creature on earth, soon began to be used by the belligerents as a means of warfare. History is teeming with examples of the numerous disputes and tensions over sharing river waters.
These conflicts have always been a significant issue in India too, both within states and with the neighbouring countries. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have always had clashes over the Kaveri river. India’s shared rivers with Pakistan (Indus, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) and China (Bhramaputra, Sutlej) have also time and again led to debates, discussions, tensions and treaties.
The current explosive situation in Pahalgam, which escalated quickly, has always had a long history, which most laymen were unaware of.
Sadly, the loudmouthed leaders and the irresponsible mainstream media have taken up this issue as an excuse to divert the attention away from the glaring security and intelligence failures. Thus, not only threatening peace between two countries but also further dividing the already widening chasm between two communities.
The Indus has supported life for thousands of years since the Harappan civilisation. After the invisible wall was set up between India and Pakistan, there were multiple complicated and complex confrontations for the right to decide how the ‘rivers’ should also be partitioned. Thankfully, no one interfered with the flight of the birds or the velocity of the winds.
Finally after years of negotiations, it culminated in the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty. But despite the mutual hostility between the two countries; despite the mounting tensions; despite the endless skirmishes between two nuclear rivals and despite the two wars, the treaty somehow managed to survive. Maybe that’s why the treaty was hailed as one of the most successful trans-boundary water arrangements.
But surprisingly, despite being the primary source of water for the basin, neither Kashmir (the heart of India-Pakistan tensions), nor the Kashmiris (the human collateral damage) were given a role to play in the negotiations or decision-making of the treaty.
The accord was designed for a very different world, when India and Pakistan were newly independent countries working to establish themselves amid a world divided by the Cold War. Back then there were no serious concerns of global warming. And even as the continued fighting over the disputed region of Kashmir was going on, there was a lack of comprehensive studies on the glacier mass balance.
Perhaps everyone assumed that the Himalayan glaciers feeding the Indus river system was going to be a forever affair. No one imagined that due to climate change they would soon start to melt.
The leaders never considered other factors such as groundwater depletion, water pollution from pesticides, fertiliser use and industrial waste.
Since no engineers participated in the meetings, the dangers of building dams, reservoirs and canals were also overlooked. All the political wizards probably assumed that the historical flows would perpetually continue without any flaws. And the hydrological patterns would eternally remain unaffected. But guess what? When man proposes, Mother Earth disposes.
She knew that in any further disputes, if the upstream country had the advantage of holding back water and releasing it suddenly without warning, it would cause massive damage downstream. So she made it clear to her children that they could not weaponise the ‘elixir of life’ by creating such ‘water bombs’. But errant children who are also vengeful and greedy, will never understand how Water wars can have significant negative impacts on nature. They will never grasp how it will ultimately lead to pollution, resource depletion, and habitat destruction.
They will never grasp the seriousness of how it can strain the ecosystem and increase the frequency of extreme weather events. Which is why every year, we are all party to summers getting hotter, monsoons getting wetter and winters getting colder. What they also failed to recognise is that unlike man, rivers do not follow the line of control. They do not understand restriction. They keep flowing because water is always moving, driven by gravity’s force pulling it towards the ground. Water runs freely. And even if dams can alter the natural flow of the river, they can never stop the flow of water to the ocean. They can only delay it. And if the water is permanently stopped from flowing through a dam, the reservoir behind it fills up and overflows. The floods will hardly affect the ocean. But it can cause chaos to humans and create havoc in the animal and the sea world.
Moreover dams are expensive to build, requiring sufficient construction time. And creating them can trigger earthquakes or landslides in areas that are geologically fragile. In the aftermath of the 2016 Uri Attack, India threatened to revoke the Indus Waters Treaty when the Prime Minister declared that ‘Blood and water cannot flow together’.
In 2019, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said that all water flowing from India will be diverted to Indian states to punish Pakistan for an alleged connection to the attack. After the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty as part of its five punitive actions. Pakistan retaliated with a warning that if the flow of water is stopped, ‘Indian blood will flow’. So far, such threats have not materialised.
So far, it is all a game of optics and distractions. So far so good! But with two nuclear countries, literally at each other’s throats, trying to desperately turn a ‘heaven on Earth’ into a ‘hell, ’I wonder how long we, the ordinary citizens can consider ourselves safe.
The Citizen (Nargis Natarajan is an author based in Bhubaneshwar.)
