Islamabad believes in peaceful resolution

Indo-Pak water disputes

Despite the pressure from local administrations inside Pakistan’s Punjab and Indian Punjab, in the past, to assert claims to national territory right up to the boundary and to take forcible control of canal head-works on the border, higher authorities instead opted for flexible working arrangements and mutual accommodation. 

This has been stated by the author of the Indus Divided: India, Pakistan and the River Basin Dispute, historian Daniel Haines in one of his latest write-ups.

Haines goes further to appreciate the restraint exercised by both the Pakistani and Indian armies as he says, “Both armies were wise enough not to risk escalation over patches of land that had little strategic value.”

“Already, small-scale armed conflicts between civilians and border police, especially over seasonal river islands, had dragged both sides into shooting matches.”

Moving forward from Haines’ appreciation of both armies on Indo-Pak water disputes, it can be further asserted on the basis of Pakistan’s overall conduct and good diplomacy that Pakistani authorities in particular have always shown extraordinary care about resolving disputes of any nature, especially the issues arising out of construction of dams on western rivers whose water, according to the Indus Waters Treaty, is to be used exclusively by Pakistan. And, in this area, Pakistan’s armed establishment and political governments have remained on the same page, aiming at getting our due water rights through negotiations and mediation instead of escalation although India’s plans for hydropower projects in Kashmir at Baglihar and Kishenganga and elsewhere have remained a constant source of tension. Pakistan has been protesting against these plans that simply meant breaking the Indus Waters Treaty. 

The present negotiations between the two sides, however, augur well and now it is being inferred from the other day’s Indo-Pak experts’ parleys that India would not ignore Pakistan’s concerns anymore.

Haines also appreciates good environmental diplomacy on water issues. According to him, “Since 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty has governed relations over the rivers. The treaty is widely known in the world of environmental diplomacy as a good example of peaceful water-sharing. It was negotiated without bloodshed, and has survived three wars between India and Pakistan.

Yet readers in South Asia hardly need to be reminded of the scale of recent conflict over rivers. Following a militant attack on an Indian Army camp at Uri in September last year, which many Indians blamed on Pakistan, Indian hawks called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cut off Pakistan’s water supply.

It may be recalled that Narendra Modi did follow the hawks’ advice and acted as the biggest anti-Pakistan hawk by publicly issuing a warning in an unbearably aggressive tone that Pakistan’s water supply would be cut off.

Haines also gives benefit of doubt, rather a clean chit to Pakistan by saying, “Journalists and scholars have long assumed that the water dispute was really about Kashmir, or that the Kashmir dispute was actually about water. But there is little hard evidence for such theories.

For example, some historians have speculated that Pakistan’s formal entry into the Kashmir conflict in 1948 was partly intended to capture the headwaters of the River Chenab. While researching, I found that the historical evidence had not been systematically examined. What I found was not a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the two disputes, but a complex, overlapping and shifting set of insecurities. Kashmir and river water represented two of the key problems.”