A year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a visit to Saudi Arabia when terrorists struck at Baisaran (Pahalgam) on April 22. Modi returned home midway through his tour and held the first meeting of top security apparatus, ministers and officials at the airport itself after landing. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) announced a slew of measures, all punitive, to go after Pakistan, the root cause of terrorism in India.
The announcement of decisions was conveyed to the nation, and the world, by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. On top of the list was the decision to put Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance immediately and this has shaken Pakistan to the core. Operation Sindoor followed, but that started only in the first week of May and many things had preceded that kinetic action.
The word abeyance is a living nightmare for the adversary as it does not know how long this dark night of abeyance will last. A year later, we can’t say how long this pause, this hold on the operationalisation of the Treaty can last. The 1960 document is about the rivers flowing through Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Right now, the best we can describe the status of IWT 1960 is a temporary pause, for India has not terminated it. Another thing that comes to mind is Article 370 of the Indian Constitution pertaining to J&K. It had entered as a temporary provision in October 1949 but stayed on till August 2019, almost 70 years. How long the abeyance word will remain operative is anybody’s guess!
Division of Rivers Under IWT 1960
Under the IWT1960, both India and Pakistan got three rivers each, with the Eastern Rivers reserved for exclusive use of the former and the three Western Rivers going to our neighbour. There was nothing equal in this Treaty as Pakistan’s rivers had annual flows of 135.6 Million Acre Feet (MAF) and the Indian rivers only 32.7 MAF.
The division was clearly not equal but was there some way to consider it equitable? Well, the thinking that led to this document, midwifed by the World Bank, was that there was abundant water in the Indus river system and possible shortages in future were on nobody’s mind!
Besides, as explained earlier, India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was buying peace with Pakistan, or so he thought, by giving it more than its fair share. Not only four times more water than what India got but also a very large sum of money. One thing that made the division more equitable was India’s rights on the Western Rivers to produce hydroelectricity.
Unlimited rights, on paper. To set up as many hydropower stations as it liked and of whatever capacity. But Pakistan put some conditions regarding designs of the dams, what seemed then like minor and innocuous ifs and buts. These rights were the clincher as to why India agreed to taking less, or lesser water.
The team of Indian engineers believed that on balance India having these rights to produce electricity from the waters of the Western Rivers would be a great boon and blessing. ND Gulati, India’s chief negotiator during the parleys leading to IWT, rightly said that this hydropower will light houses, run mills, produce jobs and boost the Indian economy in a major way.
Getting Eastern Rivers Was A Priority
Gulati was an astute negotiator who worked day and night for India’s rights on the rivers. But uppermost in his mind was to get clear control over the Eastern Rivers. Not having absolute control over the Sutlej could have jeopardised the Bhakra dam, than under construction. Beas and Ravi were needed for there were millions who needed food to satiate their hunger.
Punjab could have been turned into the bread basket, or granary, that it is today, only if all three Eastern Rivers stayed under India’s control. So? At that time, the IWT definitely looked like an ok sort of bargain, even when giving more water to Pakistan. In hindsight, it looks like a very poor, in fact terrible bargain today, once the emphasis is on the 80: 20 water division.
Just consider this fact too as a backgrounder to the negotiations. As its opening negotiating position, Pakistan said that it wanted all three Western Rivers. As also 70 per cent of water in the Eastern Rivers. If this had come to fruition, India would have just got around 10 MAF!
At that time, between 1952 and 1960 discussions on the IWT, the Indian delegation members thought they had done a good job. A good job they did, by ending the tortuous negotiations which nearly broke down on many occasions. Another conflict, a war with Pakistan over rivers was the last thing the Indian leaders wanted.
A reasonable bargain of that era turned sour over the years, and decades after the 1960 Treaty because of Pakistan’s conduct. Its repeated attempts to stall every hydropower project that India started on the Western Rivers. Pakistan’s behaviour under the garb of IWT provisions, of dispute redressal mechanism, its rights regarding vetting the designs of India’s Run of River (RoR) projects, its pronounced dog in the manger policies was cause for India’s annoyance.
December 2001 Parliament Attack
Pakistan’s use of terror proxies, first in Punjab, and then Jammu and Kashmir, also shifted the balance further. After the Parliament attack of December 13, 2001, the Indian government under Atal Behari Vajpayee turned to IWT for the first time. As a possible option and instrument for punishing Pakistan’s use of terror proxies.
The Preamble of the Treaty reads: The Government of India and the Government of Pakistan, being equally desirous of attaining the most complete and satisfactory utilisation of the waters of the Indus system of rivers … in a spirit of goodwill and friendship … in furtherance of these objectives. Phrases like most complete and satisfactory utilisation of Indus system waters, spirit of goodwill and cooperation etc became dead letters long ago as they were punched heavily, and repeatedly, by Pakistan.
If Pakistan had its way, India could not have built a single hydropower station on any of the Western Rivers, be it Chenab, Jhelum or Indus in Ladakh. If only Pakistan had the wherewithal, it would have grabbed “the control of upper stems of the Western Rivers’’ as enunciated by President Ayub Khan, much before the 1965 war.
Inefficiencies In Water Mangement In Pakistan
Out of its allocation of 32.7 MAF, India has built storage for more than 40 per cent, and that approximately amounts to 13.5 MAF. Out of its share of 135.6 MAF, and total availability of 145 MAF annually, Pakistan has harnessed for storage less than 10 per cent, around 14.1 MAF only!
Beyond utilising funds received during the IWT days to build Mangla on Jhelum and Tarbela on Indus, Pakistan did not mobilise any resources to build additional storage. It should have targeted 40 per cent, same as India, which is the global average and its total storage then would have been around 58 MAF.
In April 2010, then Pakistan Foreign minister SM Qureshi had admitted that the “total average canal supplies of Pakistan were 104 MAF but the water available at the farm gate was only about 70 MAF’’. He then asked a rhetorical question: Where does the 34 MAF go? He then answered it himself: It’s not being stolen in India. It’s being wasted in Pakistan.
Incidentally, this 34 MAF loss to inefficiencies is more than India’s entire share of 32.7 MAF!
With the IWT in abeyance for a year now, propagandists in Pakistan are likely to blame India for all water related issue! So be it.
India Harmed Under Treaty Provisions
Pakistan’s behaviour, its weaponisation of the Treaty provisions proved immensely harmful to Indian projects on the Western Rivers. Be it Salal, or Baglihar, or Ratle, Pakistan kept on hitting India’s interests in the garb of dispute resolution mechanism or talking of imaginary ghosts. The construction of 850 MW Ratle hydropower project on the Chenab at Drabshala in Kishtwar district is one of most recent cases. Manmohan Singh, then Prime Minister, inaugurated it on May 29, 2013, indicating the work will be complete in five years or more.
Even in June 2024, India had allowed a team of Pakistani engineers, accompanying Neutral Expert Michel Lino to visit both Kishenganga in Kashmir and Ratle in Kishtwar. It had submitted itself before the mechanism defined in the IWT and did all it could to uphold the Treaty.
How were India’s goodwill and decency spurned by Pakistan which inflicted unlimited losses on it? What has actually happened on ground? The project was abandoned midway after some initial works mainly due to Pakistan’s repeated objections, leading to cost escalations due to delays. And the private company that was executing it developing cold feet and gave up, despite a loss of crores of rupees.
The project was revived with great difficulty in 2022. After putting the IWT in abeyance, the work has picked up pace. What was the loss inflicted on India by Pakistan for this project alone? Clearly, we would have been getting 850 MW of power from this project for last many years. Incidentally, hydropower doesn’t come cheap and gulps crores of rupees before a project starts commerical production.
The cheapest cost of hydropower, by a conservative estimate, is upwards of Rs 10 crore for 1 MW. At that rate, the power we lost from Ratle would be in the range of Rs 8,500 crore per annum! It could have been completed five to six years ago had Pakistan not harmed the project.
