Syeda Mazhar
1947- A pivotal year in the history of subcontinent when the British claim to have successfully divided the subcontinent and its assets between Muslims and Hindus. Yes, they victoriously created the borders in the region where there was an obvious divide. They have successfully distributed the assets and the power between the two but they have not been able to fairly disseminate the resources. Since 1947 Pakistan and India have engaged in three major wars and countless skirmishes and diplomatic rows. However, the most important issue that divides these longtime enemies is not necessarily nuclear arms or territorial disputes over Kashmir or a hundred other contentious subjects — rather, the dominant overriding conflict between India and Pakistan lies with the simplest, but most crucial, necessity of life: water.
The lack of access to clean, safe drinking water not only poses a threat to a population of hundreds of millions of people’s lives in the subcontinent, but could conceivable lead to another war. Or rather it already has. A type of bloodless war besides economic wars and supporting subversive acts including cross-bordering shelling, India has evidently also stared water aggression against Pakistan.
The numbers are looking grim for Pakistan, for five years ago; in March 2011, while speaking in diplomatic language, Indus Water Commissioner of India G. Ranganathan had refused by stating, “Indian decision to build dams on rivers has led to water shortage in Pakistan.” While rejecting Islamabad’s concerns regarding water-theft by New Delhi including violation of the Indus Water Treaty, he assured his counterpart, Indus Water Commissioner of Pakistan, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah that all issues, relating to water between Pakistan and India would be resolved through dialogue.
However, India’s actions are resonating much louder than its words in an International forum. Hence, the ground realities are very different as to what G. Ranganathan indicated in his statement. Fast forward five years India is still using waters of rivers, besides the especially tricky dispute of Kashmir, to malign and pressurize Pakistan.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) released a report in 2013 which declared Pakistan as one of the most “water-stressed” countries in the world, not far from being classified, “water-scarce,” with less than 1,000 cubic meters of water per person per year (the same level as parched Ethiopia). As Pakistan swirls into the hell of scarce energy resources and with water increasingly becoming a matter of life and death of every Pakistani, New Delhi has been using it as a tool of terrorism to blackmail Pakistan. Indian decision to construct two hydro-electric projects on River Neelam which is called Krishanganga in Indian dialect is another violation of the Indus Basin Water Treaty of 1960.
Since the Partition, owing to war-like situation, New Delhi deliberately stopped the flow of Pakistan’s rivers using the projects built on Pakistan’s rivers which originate from the Indian-held Kashmir. Apart from that, the entire Kashmir Issue can be seen through the prism of water resources. As Stanley Wolpert wrote: “In 1947, India and Pakistan were born to conflict” India has never missed an opportunity to harm Pakistan’s economy. In the past half-decade, India has decidedly flooded Pakistan numerous times especially during the monsoon season. India has repeatedly stored all the water in the dams and let only trickles of water flow into the river when there was less rainfall, leading to drought in Pakistan.
A severe water shortage and the drying up of irrigation sources would, of course, doom Pakistan’s agricultural sector and condemn millions of people to starvation. Pakistan’s agriculture-dominated economy depends heavily on water flowing from the Indus River and its tributaries. Agricultural enterprises, both big and small, employ about one-half of all Pakistanis and, represent a sizable chunk (about 25 percent) of the country’ annual GDP. According to media reports in Pakistan, the nation receives 70 to 75 percent of its water flow for only three months a year to irrigate crops.
If all that wasn’t enough to worry about, much of Pakistan’s water is not clean — thousands die every year from water-borne diseases like dengue and diarrhea, which millions more are exposed to. UPI reported that Pakistan has too few dams of its own to capture rainwater, leading millions of people to have no access to clean drinking water. Absence of adequate storage reservoirs leads to enormous wastage of rainwater. In the past, the government released a report admitting that an astounding 80 percent of water samples taken from across the nation were deemed unsafe to drink. General Farooq Hameed Sheikh, director of the Punjab Environment Protection Department, said groundwater pollution presents immediate danger to existing water supplies.
Pakistanis already contend with marathon electric power outages some of them lasting up to 18 to 20 hours per day, especially in the summers, adversely affecting the economy as well as the lifestyle of people. The increasing competition of diminishing amounts of water may actually in another war between the two neighbors. Water is a precious resource and human right that is needed and needs to be shared by the two nations. If one country goes back on its agreement that is backed internationally, and makes dams and reservoirs on the “property” of their neighbor, it is perceived as terrorism and blackmail. If the supplies run low for irrigation, in an agricultural country, or for drinking water, local populations are likely to rebel and grab what water is available. This could lead to serious uprisings and things can go very wrong internally as well as externally in the region.
