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With tensions running high with India over the past few months, the Indian prime minister has ratchet up his belligerent tone threatening to choke the economic lifeline of Pakistan by stopping the waters flowing from his country.
The maverick politician made his intensions clear while addressing a public rally in Bathinda, Indian Punjab, though he avoided to outrightly threaten the Indus Water Basin Treaty which is hailed worldwide as the most successful accord on the water distribution between the two hostile neighbors.
The treaty has survived two wars and several conflicts since it was signed in the 1960s.
Addressing the rally last week, Modi said the waters of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi rivers that “rightfully” belong to India would be stopped from going waste in Pakistan and he would ensure that the eastern Punjab farmers utilize it.
“The waters in these rivers belong to India and our farmers. It is not being used in the fields of Pakistan but flowing into the sea through Pakistan,” Modi said. "Now every drop of this water will be stopped and I will give that to farmers of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and Indian farmers. I am committed to this.”
Indian prime minister said a task force has been constituted to ensure that "each drop of water" that flows out of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi reaches eastern Punjab and held Jammu and Kashmir.
" There is no reason that we cannot use our rights (over our waters) and let our farmers suffer," he said, adding, "I need your support in order to fulfill your requirements for watering your fields.”
Though many Indian observers described Modi’s comments as a political gimmick to woo Punjab’s farmers ahead of the state elections due early next year and they say it could be an attempt by the shrewd politician to divert attention from the growing unease over his demonetization policy, but many analysts in Pakistan say Islamabad should not take these outbursts lightly.
“I don’t think it is just a political stunt. These comments are not coming from an ordinary minister but from the prime minister of India who has a track record of harboring anti-Pakistan sentiments,” Jamaat Ali Shah, the former water commissioner said,
Arshad H. Abbasi, a water and energy expert, says Modi’s was a “very serious statement” which is not just off-the-cuff remarks but it represents a well thought-out policy which India has persistently followed for more than a decade.
He recalled that the Indian establishment had taken a policy decision soon after the militant attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001 that the Indus Water Basin Treaty would be used as a weapon in case of a conflict with Pakistan.
“They have done their homework very meticulously and I myself have gone through an Indian feasibility report in this regard.”
According to Abbasi, India has been facing severe drought and acute water shortages for the past so many years and its decision-makers believe that they could overcome their water problems to some extent by manipulating Pakistani share of water envisisoned in the Indus Water Treaty.
He said India plans to link up Chenab with Beas through a canal in an effort to irrigate eastern Punjab where water table has gone down to a dangerously low level that poses a serious threat to the agriculture hub of India.
Abbasi says any hostile move by India to lessen or stop flow of water would be detrimental to the agriculture in Punjab which is considered bread basket of the country.
“Ninety five percent of Chenab is fed from India and only five percent from Pakistan itself at Marala,” he said adding that almost half of the water in Jhelum too comes from India. “The Indus situation is also not very different.”
Under the Indus Treaty, the waters of the western rivers – Indus, Chenab and Jhelum – are allowed to be used by pakistan while those from the eastern rivers – Sutlej, Ravi, Bease – are available to India for unrestricted use.
How much India is serious in translating this threat into reality and how much it will take it to do so? The Indian media and experts believe it is easy said than done but it can’t be ruled out altogether in future.
“Until now India could not steal even a single drop of Pakistani share of water. It lacks the instruments and expertise to do it right away but it has been their policy and it can be done in the times to come,” Abbasi said.
The water and agriculture experts say the government needs to devise a robust plan to tackle this problem on urgent basis as Pakistan itself faces severe water shortages and the situation would aggravate in the coming times.
Pakistan’s need for a strong defence of its water rights is all the more important given the acute water shortages it is feared to face in future. The water availability for the country by 2020 is expected to drop to 800 cubic meters.
The country has a meager capacity of storing water for 30 days as compared to India which could store water for 120 to 200 days.
The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources has reportedly warned that the country may run dry by 2025 if the rulers did not take immediate action. According to the Council, Pakistan touched the “water stress line” in 1990 and crossed the “water scarcity line in 2005”.
Pakistan is deeply dependent on those three western rivers and particularly the Indus. In some areas of the country, including all of Sindh province, the Indus is the sole source of water for irrigation and human consumption. If Pakistan’s access to water from the Indus Basin were cut off or merely reduced, the implications for the country’s water security could be catastrophic.
According to recent figures from the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, with a per capita annual water availability of roughly 35,300 cubic feet — the scarcity threshold. This is all the more alarming given that Pakistan’s water intensity rate — a measure of cubic meters used per unit of GDP — is the world’s highest. Pakistan’s largest economic sector, agriculture, consumes a whopping 90 percent of the country’s rapidly dwindling water resources.
NASA satellite data released in 2015 revealed that the underwater aquifer in the Indus Basin is the second-most stressed in the world. Groundwater is what nations turn to when surface supplies are exhausted; it is the water source of last resort. And yet in Pakistan, it is increasingly imperiled.
In other words, Pakistan’s economy is the most water-intensive in the world, and yet it has dangerously low levels of water to work with.
If authorities failed to address the problem and the current situation persisted, the country is feared to face acute water shortages or drought-like conditions in the near future.
“It may not be feasible for India to implement its plan for now but it can become feasible in near or distant future,” Shah said.
He said it is strange that Modi moans over the water going waste into the sea from Pakistan while he does nothing to stop waster of water from Ganga river flowing within his own country.
“If India has reservations over the implementation of the Indus Treaty then we also have objections and these differences can only be resolved through negotiations and not through belligerence and threats,” he added.
Observers say the government need to sensitize international forums like the U.N. Security Council, the World Bank etc and plead its case forcibly.
They say the Pakistan has rightfully taken the plea that any attempt by India to scrap the Indus Treaty would be taken as an act of war which would be responded with full might but it needs to intensify its efforts to lobby international community for its position.
“The way minister of water and power defends prime minister at national forums should plead the Pakistani case on this issue with the same zeal and vigor.”
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad
