A serious tug of war has started between Pakistan’s Sindh and Punjab provinces over the latter’s plans to construct six new canals. About two decades ago, Sindh province had opposed most of these canals as an attempt to deprive it of its fair share of water from the Indus River which acts as its lifeline. On March 21, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) announced that it would hold protest rallies on March 25 (Tuesday) against what President Asif Zardari had called an “illegal” six canals project.
Interestingly, the PPP led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is a key ally of the PML-N Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government. Without its support, it will not be possible for the Sharif government to survive the vagaries of running a minority government with outside support from the PPP. However, it seems at present that the PPP is indulging in shadow boxing and behind the scenes it is in cahoots with the Punjab government.
(A younger member of the Bhutto clan, named Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Junior, is these days making waves in Sindh opposing these canals and getting traction. Junior Bhutto is son of Murtaza Bhutto who was assassinated decades ago and is now ready to make his political debut. He is the first cousin of Bilawal and is obviously named after his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former Prime Minister and President of Pakistan. Bhutto Junior is presently a resident of Karachi, the biggest city of Sindh province and its capital.)
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, PPP Sindh chapter President Nisar Khuhro has said that the party would hold protest rallies across all district headquarters in Sindh against the controversial project. “The project is illegal and should not be built… we will hold rallies and protest in every street against it,” he said, echoing the line President Zardari has adopted publicly for some time, according to a report of The News International.
The Federal government plans to construct six canals on the Indus River to irrigate the Cholistan desert area in Punjab ostensibly to create food security through corporate farming. Initially, instead of corporate, the Punjab government as also the Federal government, had build a narrative that it was a cooperative project. However, all nationalist parties of Sindh have rejected this project stoutly right since its inception. The matter had gained urgency recently as Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir inaugurated the project along with Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.
Six New Canals
The new canals will lead to new command areas in Punjab being developed. The project, named evocatively as Green Pakistan Initiative, hides the fact that it is located entirely in the Punjab province. But it also tells the harsh reality of the domination of Punjab over all other provinces and ignoring their concerns blatantly. The most ambitious part of this project is irrigation for millions of acres of hitherto barren land, especially in the Cholistan desert area.
These six new canals include 1. Chubara Canal as the second phase of the Greater Thal Canal 2. Kachhi Canal 3. Rainee Canal 4. Thar Canal 5. Chashma Right Bank Canal and 6. Cholistan Flood Feeder Canal. According to official figures in public domain, the total command area of these canals is a whopping 3.58 million acres. The questions being raised are that when there is insufficient water even to irrigate the existing command area, from where will additional water be arranged for new command areas?
The questions regarding the viability of the new canals are being raised in lower riparian Sindh province. The belief there is widespread that the biggest losers will be the small farmers, thousands of them, in Sindh. Social activists and ecologists in Sindh claim that these new canals will reduce the water flows at the tail end below Kotri barrage creating an ecological disaster.
Reduction in Indus Flows
According to figures compiled by the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), the average annual flow below Kotri Barrage between 1976 and 1998 was 40.69 MAF. This flow decreased drastically to 14 MAF, a drop of over 26 MAF, from 1999 to 2022. Obviously, in the past three years also, this discharge may have gone down but exact figures are not available.
Due to this reduced flow, the Indus delta is worsening by the day and faces an ecological disaster. Ingress of sea rapidly has rendered thousands of acres of fertile land fallow because of brackish sea water. Besides, the climate change is aggravating the water stress scenario in many downstream areas of Sindh. It is thus clear that in these conditions, constructing new canals will sure stoke new conflict between Sindh and Punjab provinces.
Over a period of time, almost all political and religious parties, nationalist groups and civil society organisations have staged widespread protest rallies across Sindh against these controversial plans hatched by Punjab. However, though the Bilawal-led PPP has repeatedly expressed reservations over the project, its protests so far have not deterred either the Punjab or the Federal government.
President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent cautioning of the Sharif government accusing it to pursuing “unilateral policies causing strain on the federation’’ are interpreted more as pressure tactics, than reflective of his party PPP’s real intent. He had denounced what he had termed the government’s “unilateral decision to carve out more canals from the Indus River System’’, despite strong opposition from federating units. But it is widely believed that he and his son are not ready to take on General Asim Munir, fearing reprisals like those faced at present by former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“A proposal that I as your President cannot support,” Zardari has said in a joint session of Pakistan Parliament recently. He had also called upon the Sharif government to abandon the current proposals. So far, his words seem to have had little effect on Sharif who hosted a hurriedly convened Iftaar party for Bilawal and other senior PPP leaders.
Sindh’s Existential Dilemma
Addressing the press conference, Sindh PPP leader Khuhro said that the Federal government has revived memories of dictatorship by initiating the construction of the Cholistan Canal without approval from any constitutional forum. In the past, he said, former president Pervez Musharraf had built the Greater Thal Canal through an executive order, and now the PML-N government is adopting a similar approach. It bears mention here that Musharraf had over-ruled the decision to contruct the Thal canal project which he personally inaugurated in 2001.
“The Punjab government also committed an unconstitutional act by allocating funds in the budget for controversial canals,” he added. He termed the project as an “attack on Sindh’s water rights”, and stressed that the PPP will fight against these rights being attacked through “constitutional and democratic means’’.
Incidentally, General Musharraf was all powerful ruler of Pakistan at that time, having deposed Nawaz Sharif in a military coup in October 1999 led by him as the Pakistan Army Chief then. Present Army Chief General Asim Munir is picking up the threads from where General Musharraf had left them as far as the canals are concerned. In fact, some of the canals being constructed these days can be called as Phase II of the Phase I of the project partially completed in 2009.
Cholistan & Kalabagh Analogy
Khuhro warned that the Cholistan canal project is even more dangerous for Sindh than the controversial Kalabagh Dam, as it could render the province barren. This lower riparian fears of Sindh have been there for over 100 years but it has failed to stop Punjab from steadily taking away Indus waters, turning large parts of the province barren.
He stated that just as the PML-N government had to withdraw from trying to construct the Kalabagh Dam in the past, it would also have to abandon these new canal projects. He was at pains to point out that President Asif Zardari was not involved in these projects and distanced himself from them publicly.
The PPP leader urged the people of Sindh and all segments of society to unite in the struggle against these projects to ensure the protection of the Indus River’s water.
