J&K, a victim of IWT

First things first, the health of rivers of  Jammu and Kashmir or elsewhere in the world is not the same as it was in 1960 when India and Pakistan signed Indus Water Treaty , which is now in the middle of several controversies. The Treaty is being blamed for unfair treatment to J&K and a hindrance in tapping its power generating potential, and the country is of the view that it needs to be renegotiated. There are reasons to do so.  By any stretch of imagination, the IWT cannot be given credit for defining and sustaining Indo-Pak relations as the Treaty cannot be deemed as one-way ticket.

The time has travelled in years and decades. This is a calendar reality. There is another cold reality that global warming and the man-made greed have  turned everything upside down. The snowcapped glaciers have receded  and so have the water level in rivers.

These natural resources are integral part of our identity. No river and its waters can be separated from our  environmental and cultural identity. The waters in the current world have assumed other identity, source of economic power. It’s a known fact that water-distribution conflicts are dotting several nations in the world.

When this treaty was signed in 1960, Delhi was ruled by Congress and J&K had a  government that had no spine to standup to the Centre. It is still a mystery, how could a state government that had control over all affairs except communications, defense and foreign affairs, failed to assert its right over the water resources. Or, it was  a matter under foreign affairs enabling Delhi to take a call unilaterally.

Given the special status  that the erstwhile state, how could Delhi take a crucial decision without taking the local government into confidence? The fair conclusion is  that it happens whenever Srinagar had a puppet government that followed dictates of the Centre. Even in normal course, the state government should have been consulted on such a vital issue defining life and death feature.

In that particular period of time  of the signing of the IWT, Kashmir was witnessing two  sets of situations: on the one side there was a puppet government in Srinagar, and on the other Plebiscite Front ( read National Conference) was active in pursuing its agenda of having plebiscite in J&K to determine the choice of its residents about the country they wanted to be with. This is inescapable part of the history, which also shows that how Delhi was caught in its myopic ideas.

Delhi was more interested in managing the flames of the internal unrest rather than looking at a broader picture in which it could further the idea of India and give a profound  sense of participation to the people of J&K. Somewhere down the line there was a compromise with the idea of India – neither this idea gained traction nor the justice  was done to the people of J&K. This treaty is a clear manifestation of such a confusion ridden approach.

In short, the waters of  Jammu and Kashmir, including Ladakh, were given  to Pakistan on a platter. The approach was generic rather than scientific. The water arithmetic is flawed. The Treaty gave  control over the waters of the three eastern rivers- the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej flowing through Punjab with a mean annual flow of 41billion m’-to India, while control over the waters of three western rivers – the Indus , Chenab and Jhelum  with a mean annual flow of 99 billion m’- to  Pakistan . India got about 30 per cent of the total water carried by the Indus Water System located in India while Pakistan got the remaining 70 per cent.

In simple words, the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus – rivers Pakistan is entitled to use – have much more water than the Ravi, Sutlej and Beas, which India controls. The terms  of the Treaty and the water-distribution it worked out  were grossly unfair to India , and in particular to Jammu and Kashmir whether it was  a state or now as UT.

It is unfair to blame Pakistan, or the  World Bank that brokered this Treaty for all the unfairness in it – the Indian leadership of the day – Jawaharlal Nehru – could not read the science behind it. At that point in time, the water might have been available in plenty  but to take that for granted for all the decades to come  was a complete neglect of the hydrology.

Indeed Pakistan was entitled, and is, to its share of the waters under the international law on water distribution between nations, but it refuses to accept some of the basics that have changed since the day the Treaty was signed. India, too cannot be seen harming its interests forever. The populations have surged on both sides of the border, and needs have  grown manifold.

Both the Government of India and that of J&K  were  responsible for all the sufferings of the people of  this Himalayan territory. The political parties are no less guilty of the situation with which J&K is faced. Delhi was too obsessed with conflict resolution all the time through means that it deemed fit without undertaking a popular view into account. Delhi built its own narratives and interpretations of the situation in J&K, trusting  few self-proclaimed experts while ignoring the wishes  and aspirations of the people.

The conflict and its psychology in J&K kept the development at bay. Even if today the IWT is renegotiated and revised, where are the dams and canals that will store the water. Something practical needs to be done to honour the treaty with due respect and share for the people of J&K. The scientific approach to the treaty and political science behind is the only way out of the crisis which are threatening to get complicated in days, months and years to come. It is not unsettling the settled issues but resettling the unsettled issues.