On almost every single issue, Bharat and Pakistan adopt policies which are diametrically opposite to one another and their approaches on contentious issues are also a reflection of this variance. Bharat has always laid emphasis on bilateralism as the bedrock of its style and substance in contrast to the latter’s approach of trying to internationalise everything. At another level, Bharat sticks to facts and figures to further its arguments, its stance on an issue but Pakistan resorts to filibustering and falsehoods.
At a United Nations meeting on May 23, India’s Permanent Representative to UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish said, “We are constrained to respond to the disinformation being carried out by the delegation of Pakistan with regard to the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). India has always acted in a responsible manner as an upper riparian state.” This announcement came exactly a month after the IWT was kept in abeyance on April 23. The decision was taken at a Cabinet Committee of Security (CCS) meeting after due deliberations at the highest level as Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over this meeting.
Sixty five years ago, India had entered into the IWT in good faith, the spirit of cooperation embodied in its Preamble which stated that “The governments of India and Pakistan are equally desirous of attaining the most complete and satisfactory utilisation of the waters of the Indus system of rivers’’. The Preamble further says that the IWT “recognises the need to fix and delimit their rights and obligations concerning these waters in a spirit of goodwill and friendship, and to make provisions for settling future disputes through cooperation’’.
This spirit of “goodwill and friendship”’ has long evaporated as Pakistan used terror as an unstated state policy to try to get at India. “Pakistan has violated the spirit of the treaty by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India,” the Indian Ambassador pointed out. Besides, he said, over 20,000 Indian citizens have lost their lives in terror attacks, the most recent of which was the dastardly targeted terror attack on Hindu tourists at Baisaran meadow in Pahalgam on April 22.
Reality of the 80:20 Treaty
It needs to be pointed out here that a cursory reading of the treaty makes it clear that India was extremely generous towards Pakistan when this was signed on September 19, 1960, between Pakistani dictator General Ayub Khan and then Indian PM Nehru. It was truly a 80: 20 treaty in favour of Pakistan which got over 80 per cent of waters under the Indus system with India getting less than 20 per cent of waters by volume. A bit of elaboration here will help understanding things better.
To boost inland waterways in the Kashmir Valley, the Indian Government has taken up a project to create what it called as Tulbul Navigation project in 1984
Of the 168.3 MAF (Million Acre Feet) of river flows available annually in the Indus system (comprising six rivers), Pakistan gets 135.6 MAF and India only 32.7 MAF, less than one-fourth. In popular narratives, and those pushed by Pakistan and its laggards, the Treaty is portrayed as an equal or equitable one with each nation getting three rivers. Nothing can be more starkly misleading, out of depth and devious meant to draw the attention away from the stark reality.
The reality is that the flows of the three Western Rivers namely Indus, Jhelum and Chenab are 89.5 MAF, 22.6 and 23.5 MAF respectively. On the other hand, the annual flows of the Eastern Rivers namely Ravi, Beas and Sutlej are only 6.4 MAF 12.7 MAF and 13.6 MAF respectively. If the argument of three rivers and three rivers is to be debunked, we need to consider the fact that the largest Western River Indus (with annual flows of 89.5 MAF) is nearly 14 times larger than Ravi, an Eastern River, which has an annual flow of barely 6.4 MAF. Of this also, around one-third or approximately 2.2 MAF has been flowing into Pakistan all these years. The Shahpur Kandi dam has barely stopped about one-tenth of the total flows of Ravi (and its tributaries) that continue to nourish Lahore and other major cities and towns of Pakistan.
Tulbul Navigation Project
To boost inland waterways in the Kashmir Valley, the Indian Government has taken up a project to create what it called as Tulbul Navigation project in 1984. However, Pakistan cried foul soon thereafter claiming it to be a serious violation of its rights as given under the IWT.
Many rounds of bilateral talks at the level of Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) followed but Pakistan did not budge from its obstructionist approach. So much so that the Indian Government of that time stopped all project-related works in 1987 as it was trying to douse the fires of terrorism Pakistan had lighted in Punjab in early 1980s.
The project could be revived only after two long decades during which massive encroachments on Wullar, smaller water bodies and such other things continued in the garb of terrorism. For more than a decade, from 1990 to 2000, terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir put all this work in cold storage, out of the public eyes as slogans of “Kashmir banega Pakistan’’ rent the air on instigation from the likes of late SAS Geelani, Dukhtaran-e-Millat rabble rouser Asiya Andrabi and Massarat Alam. In the post-370 ecosystem that prevails now, this project is likely to see the light of the day in the coming months and years.
Onslaught On Tulbul
During discussions at the UN, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish mentioned in passing that in 2012, terrorists had attacked the Tulbul Navigation Project in Jammu and Kashmir. The attack he was referring to was carried out by six Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) terrorists at Adipora in Bandipora district on August 27, 2012. This attack had disrupted Wullar dredging work that was then going on in full swing using heavy machinery. Consequently, this had contributed significantly to the severity of floods in September 2014, almost two years later.
From January 2009 to late 2014, Omar Abdullah was the Chief Minister of J&K, heading a coalition Government of National Conference and Congress. Taj Mohiudin of Congress was then the Cabinet Minister in charge of the Ministry dealing with flood control and irrigation. He was advised by the engineers of his Department that a heavy flood sweeping the entire Kashmir Valley was highly probable and to save Kashmir from drowning, Wullar lake, which acts as a natural sponge, should be dredged immediately. Removing encroachments from flood channels of the Jhelum was also undertaken and Omar visited these sites more than once.
In August 2012, as described hereinabove, HM terrorists attacked the dredging works, disrupting them severely. This dredging then remained disrupted in the following years, 2013 and 2014, also and waterways that could have handled extraordinary precipitation were not created as originally envisaged. With dire predictions of floods looming large those days, the dredging works were top most priority of the Omar Government at that time with works being entrusted to late Executive Engineer BR Saproo, a Kashmiri Pandit.
Wullar Dredging in 2025
At its zenith, when the lake is at its prime with river flows and heavy precipitation of months of late June, July and August, Wullar encompasses over 100 square kilometres in its embrace. However, in recent years, when it shrinks, it can reduce to as little as 29 square kilometres only. There is an urgent need to undertake the dredging of this lake, which is a saviour of Kashmir during monsoon season, at the present juncture. As part of its disinformation campaign, Pakistan has always claimed that Wullar dredging is a violation of its rights as enshrined in the IWT 1960.
Disruptive Attitude Exposed
Its repeated objections, and sustained pressure on the Indian side, mounted during Track II parleys conducted under the style of “Composite Dialogue’’, Pakistanis steadfastly opposed Tulbul Navigation project. A project of waterways being an established mode of cheap, efficient and eco-friendly transport utilising the Jhelum, Dal and Wullar, besides other water bodies of Kashmir. However, the catch is that the Tulbul Navigation project can be a reality only if the Jhelum river, for most parts, has a minimum depth of 4.5 feet around the year. And this is possible only if a couple of weirs are maintained and a navigation lock is installed at Wullar mouth.
With the treaty in abeyance, at least for the time being in the foreseeable future, the Central Government has already opened an office of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) in Srinagar on May 13 at Transport Bhavan. The IWAI has been tasked with identifying gaps in river navigation infrastructure, making Jhelum river an established waterway (National Waterway 49). The office has been mandated to oversee the development of floating jetties, dredging of waterways, installation of navigational aids (wherever needed) and regular hydrographic surveys for safe operations of vessels plying on these waterways. It all is a part of plans to boost inland water transport and improve the Kashmir Valley’s tourism and economic potential.
Pakistan has reaped the wages of its deployment of terror as a policy against Bharat in the ongoing Operation Sindoor where barely three or four days of kinetic actions by the Indian Armed Forces, from May 7 to May 10, sent it scurrying for cover. Its efforts to lobby support at the international level among powerful Arab nations, as also among Muslim nations working together under the umbrella of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) have all come to a nought. Several teams of leaders from all political parties, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress and others, are presently touring the world to nullify the disinformation campaign of Pakistan.
The full utilisation of its legitimate rights by Bharat as given in the IWT are not possible due to Pakistan’s dog in the manger policy. The world also needs to take note of the fact that fundamental and far reaching changes have taken place in escalating security concerns (due to cross-border terror attacks), growing requirements for clean energy, climate change and demographic changes.
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