Indus Water Treaty row: More perception battle than reality

It is the one thing that has worked between fractious neighbours. And now, is even that going to be collateral damage?

India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in 1960. For the most part, among all the unkept promises and broken dreams in the relations between the two nations, IWT has held fast. Water-sharing should be and is the most contentious issue in India-Pakistan relations. Everyone in Pakistan feels India is stealing water. But although the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) has served its purpose well, demands keep cropping up that it should be revised.

Problems of water have more to do with perception than reality. IWT allows consumptive domestic usage as well as other kinds of usage. Kashmir is unable to utilise the water they have. And yet, the feeling in Pakistan is that India is shortchanging Pakistan.

According to Dr Uttam Sinha of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, India, as the upper riparian, could have chosen not to sign the treaty and use the waters of the Indus river system flowing through its territory, but India had its own compulsions. IWT was a partitioning treaty. It had a Dispute Resolution Mechanism as reflected through the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC). So far there have been 113 to 114 site visits under the PIC. For two states which don't see eye to eye on several issues, this is not bad going.

Sinha's reading is that the Treaty is coming under stress because of the hydel projects India has undertaken. But India needs to develop hydel power plants for its own power needs. In 2005 Pakistan took Baglihar for arbitration. Problems started after that. The issue is not so much water-sharing as much as it is about ‘perception’.

Sinha says this is not an issue unique to India and Pakistan. Lower riparian countries all over the world have anxieties. In 2008 water was a big issue in Pakistan. In 2009-10 Hafiz Saeed's speeches were about water flows or blood. In 2009, in an article Asif Ali Zardari wrote in the Washington Post he said: “The water crisis in Pakistan is directly linked to relations with India. Resolution could prevent an environmental catastrophe in South Asia, but failure to do so could fuel the fires of discontent that lead to extremism and terrorism. We applaud the president's desire to engage our nation and India to defuse the tensions between us.” 

While congratulating the new US President Barack Obama, Zardari was actually pleaded with the US to re-hyphenate Pakistan with India. The fact is, lower riparian needs to handle the problem so that the upper riparian does not turn off water altogether.

In that sense, IWT is a visionary treaty with Article 12 that talks of modification and Article 7 that talks about future cooperation.

The controversial issue is of hydel projects.

Hydel projects is a dilemma for India as Kashmiri aspirations have to be factored in. Kashmir feels India was too generous with water and wants reparations for losses. So it is not easy for India to say: ‘we won't build dams on Jhelum and Chenab, given the shortage of power in Kashmir’.

According to Dr Sinha, there are a number of factors at work. It is a difficult hydrology, that is constantly tested against the impatience of politics. In the future this could be a big challenge. Both countries will need new knowledge regimes, they will have to study the mountains more carefully. Climate change needs more careful study.

Water-sharing is a non-issue but can become one if it is not guarded against misperception. Now, with Prime Minister Modi having been briefed about the issues on hand, Pakistan could come under pressure.