Troubled Waters: Can a Bridge Be Built over the Indus?

Whereas once the Indus Waters Treaty could correctly be described as a beacon of light in an otherwise gloomy relationship between India and Pakistan, this is no longer so.

The odds now are that the crumbling IWT will be a cause for further tension and conflict between India and Pakistan. It is also true that with far-sighted political leadership, especially in India but also in Pakistan, a bridge could be built over these troubled waters and the Indus could, again, become a catalyst for cooperation.

Preamble

t has been one of the great privileges of my life to work for almost 40 years on the challenges of water management in the south Asian subcontinent. Starting with a Harvard University/Government of India collaborative programme on planning of the Ganga and Narmada rivers in the early 1970s. I lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (from 2002 to 2005 when I was senior water advisor at the World Bank). In 2006 I published, with Indian colleagues a book titled India’s Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and with Pakistani col- leagues, one titled Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry.

Writing on a subject as fraught with mis- trust as the Indus requires a level of “personal declaration” that is not necessary in most other contexts. So whose views do I represent? America? No, I am not American but South African. The World Bank? No, but this requires a bit more explanation. I worked for 20 years for the World Bank, the last 10 as Senior Water Advisor and then as the country director for Brazil until the end of 2008 when I accepted a faculty position at Harvard University.

Institutions like the World Bank necessarily have to craft institutional positions on complex issues. Healthy institutions ensure that there is space for the expression of a wide variety of views in coming to decisions. As is described in detail in Chapter 13 of Sebastian Mallaby’s (2005) landmark history of the World Bank, my views were frequently different from the views of management of the Bank. Furthermore, I have not been involved in any internal discussion in the World Bank on Indian and Pakistan water issues since 2005. The interpretations in this article do not depend on any confidential information but are based entirely on my own reading of documents and reports that are in the public domain. So this paper represents the personal views of a mere university professor, who speaks in the name of no one else or no other institution. Over these 40 years I have acquired a deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming trainwreck on the Indus, with potentially disastrous consequences for both countries. Whereas once the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) could correctly be described as a beacon of light in an other- wise gloomy relationship, the situation has changed: because of the growing invest- ment in hydropower in Indian-held Kashmir; because of the declining water availability in Pakistan; because the Baglihar verdict of the Neutral Expert has gutted the IWT of its essential balance, because the World Bank has withdrawn from its once-heroic en- gagement with the Indus and because of the appropriation of the water dialogue by extremists on both sides. The purpose of this article is to delve into some of these questions, and to suggest how to find a way out before it is too late.

The Indus Waters Treaty

In the 19th century, the British constructed most of what is today the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system in the Indus Basin. However, the boundaries between the two states drawn in 1947 paid no attention to hydrology. Eighty per cent of the irrigated area was in Pakistan, but after Partition a large portion of the headwaters for the rivers which serviced most of this immense area were in Indian-held Kashmir.

Seeing that India and Pakistan were un- able to resolve this issue, the World Bank offered its help. After 10 years of intense negotiation, in 1960 the IWT was signed by then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Pakistani President Ayub Khan and the World Bank.

There are four essential elements to the treaty. The first relates to the division of the waters. The waters of the three western rivers (the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab) were allocated to Pakistan, and the waters of the three eastern rivers (the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej) were allocated to India. More

 

Thirsty South Asia's river rifts threaten "water wars"

KANZALWAN, India-Pakistan Line of Control (AlertNet) - As the silver waters of the Kishanganga rush through this north Kashmir valley, Indian labourers are hard at work on a hydropower project that will dam the river just before it flows across one of the world's most militarised borders into Pakistan.

The loud hum of excavators echoes through the pine-covered valley, clearing masses of soil and boulders.

The 330-MW dam shows India's growing focus on hydropower but also highlights how water is a growing source of tension with downstream Pakistan, which depends on the snow-fed Himalayan rivers for everything from drinking water to agriculture.

Islamabad has complained to an international court that the dam in the Gurez valley, one of dozens planned by India, will affect river flows and is illegal. The court has halted any permanent work on the river for the moment, although India can still continue tunneling and other associated projects.

In the years since their partition from British India in 1947, land disputes have led the two nuclear-armed neighbours to two of their three wars. The next flashpoint could well be water.

"There is definitely potential for conflict based on water, particularly if we are looking to the year 2050, when there could be considerable water scarcity in India and Pakistan," says Michael Kugelman, South Asia Associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

"Populations will continue to grow. There will be more pressure on supply. Factor in climate change and faster glacial melt ... That means much more will be at stake. So you could have a perfect storm which conceivably could be some sort of trigger." More

 

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres statement at of International Conference of Mountain Countries on Climate Change

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres delivers recorded video statement on occasion of the International Conference of Mountain Countries on Climate Change in Kathmandu on 5-6 April 2012

 

Policy draft to mitigate climate effects

 PAKISTAN’S climate change policy whose draft took more than a year to be readied is now under print and may be presented to the federal cabinet for approval in a few weeks.

The draft will unveil an action plan to mitigate adverse effects of extreme weather events as witnessed in 2010 and again in 2011 and likely to face more such happenings in the years to come.

The subject is partially covered by Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 and the National Environment Policy, 2005, but they have proved to be ineffective for lack of implementation of the suggested measures. A high-level committee appointed by the prime minister to coordinate actions on climate change has failed to meet even once in the past three years.

How far the climate change policy will succeed in motivating the bureaucracy to meet the challenge is difficult to foresee. But the magnitude of the challenge — rise in temperatures, frequency of heavy rains and floods, large-scale damages to property and infrastructure, rehabilitation of climate refugees and losses in agricultural output — is too enormous that it hardly provides any room for lethargy, inefficiency and corrupt practices on the part of relevant authorities.

The draft will address the issues of adaptation to the changes in climate and their impact on sectors such as irrigation, energy, crop patterns, clean water, transport, disaster management and capacity building of several departments. Besides, people in Pakistan will have to be prepared to learn to live and cope with most of the changes in climate in the future. More

 

RE-IMAGINING THE INDUS: MAPPING MEDIA REPORTAGE IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Water shortage has become a subject of intense public debate in the present political narrative on resource management and riparian rights.

 

In an attempt to discern the divergence on core issues and mainstream media reporting, Re-imagining the Indus is a methodological study based on Media Content Analysis of the reporting on water issues related to the Indus, in the leading dailies of both India and Pakistan. This monograph seeks to capture the existing discourse and stimulate policy dialogue on the subject.
What is the general discourse on water scarcity and related crises in the Indian and Pakistani media? The study conducted by Samir Saran (ORF) and Hans Rasmussen Theting, scrutinised the media coverage on water on three specific themes – the political discourse, water governance and people, practice and environment.
Titled ‘Reimagining the INDUS: Mapping media reportage in India and Pakistan’, the study found that the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) does not dominate the reportage in Pakistan, indicating a low level of discontentment or critique. It also found that it is only in the months of winter, when the water flow is low, that inter-country dispute between India and Pakistan, and significant negative sentiment against India, gets attention in Pakistan. But in the Indian media, Pakistan only appears during spring months. More

The study, now published in the form of a book, found that agricultural concerns and inter-provincial disputes dominate media reportage in Pakistan while in India media lays greater emphasis on urban water concerns and interventions, including ground water and domestic consumption.

The study also showed that media reports in both the countries, Pakistan more than India, recognise the need for the two countries to cooperate on water issues. From the study, it was also clear that in both India and Pakistan, there is equal emphasis on the aspects of water governance and infrastructure. More

ICIMOD Reports Warn of Vulnerabilities of the HKH Region to Climate Change

6 December 2011: Three new reports released by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) warn that snow and glacier melt in Asia’s mountainous Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region threaten millions of mountain people and 1.3 billion people living downstream in Asia’s major river basins.

The report titled "The Status of Glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region" presents findings of a three-year research project funded by Sweden and led by ICIMOD, which through the use of remote sensing studies was able to tally the number of glaciers in the region—more than 54,000—and measure the area covered, 60,000 km. According to the report, glaciers appear to be shrinking in both the central and eastern Himalayas, with clean glaciers of the Tibetan plateau retreating at a faster rate than the glaciers of the rugged central Himalayas.

The second report, titled "Snow-Cover Mapping and Monitoring in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas," provides a comprehensive status report of snow cover in the region. According to the report, there was an indication of an overall decrease in snow cover over the decade in the central HKH region and overall, and a slight increase in the western and eastern parts of the region.

The third report, titled "Climate Change in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas: The State of Current Knowledge," reviews the research and data on climate and hydrology, biodiversity and ecosystems, and atmospheric changes and overall provides a snapshot on the changes that have occurred in the HKH region. [ICIMOD News] [Publication: The Status of Glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region] [Publication: Snow-Cover Mapping and Monitoring in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas] [Publication: "Climate Change in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas: The State of Current Knowledge] More