Distrustful neighbours and divided rivers

Rivers existed long before countries came into being. Rivers do not require passports or visas to cross borders. Rivers are said to have minds of their own. When it comes to countries sharing the water of ‘international rivers’, however, they become a potent source of conflict.

One such ticking time-bomb is the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 between India and Pakistan, negotiated over nine long years and mediated by the World Bank. In recent years, these two distrustful neighbours have developed such serious differences over the use of the water in the Indus River basin, the World Bank is hard put to sort them out.

The trigger for the deadlock was the Ratle hydroelectric project announced in 2013 by India on the river Chenab near Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan objected, accusing India of trying to divert water and deprive Pakistan of its share. In 2015, India offered to refer the dispute to a neutral international expert.

Initially, Pakistan agreed, but within months called for the dispute to be referred to a Court of Arbitration (CoA). This was not acceptable to India and the stalemate continued till 2022. In 2022, the World Bank, having failed to persuade India and Pakistan to settle their differences bilaterally, decided that both dispute-resolution mechanisms — the neutral expert and the CoA — should kick in simultaneously.

India, however, would have none of it and refused to even nominate its experts to the CoA or take part in its deliberations. India clearly did not want to risk an injunction on the hydroelectric project, construction on which commenced from 2021 when funds were made available for the 850-MW project.

Michel Lino, the neutral expert appointed by the World Bank in 2022, was recently quoted as saying that though he would be examining all seven technical points of difference one by one, India appeared to have a good case.

This prompted exultation in jingoistic Indian media and prompted the suggestion that India should now abrogate the Indus Waters Treaty and cut off Pakistan’s access. The 3,000-km long river holds twice as much water as the world’s longest river, the Nile. Originating from a glacier in Tibet, the Indus basin is spread over a vast area of 11.2 lakh km, 47 per cent of which falls in Pakistan, 39 per cent in India, eight per cent in China and six per cent in Afghanistan. It is estimated that around 30 crore people live in and around the Indus basin.

The initial dispute started with the partition of India. The British had built an elaborate system of irrigation canals across the Indus basin. Post-Partition, Pakistan found itself with the bulk of canal infrastructure while most of the dams fell within India. Pakistan accused India of stopping the flow of the rivers in the Indus basin to starve the country during the wars of 1948 and 1949.

The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, however, stood the test of time. Despite subsequent wars between the two countries (in 1965 and 1971) and intermittent military misadventures, neither country breached the terms of the treaty.

India has the advantage of being an upper riparian state, with most rivers in the Indus basin flowing into India first before flowing out into Pakistan. The Ravi and Chenab, in fact, originate in Himachal Pradesh, while the Jhelum originates near Srinagar. The Sutlej, Beas and Indus also flow through parts of India before entering Pakistan, meeting the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

While Pakistan has always voiced its sense of insecurity and looked at India with suspicion, the distrust reached a flashpoint following the 330-MW Kishanganga hydroelectric project on the Jhelum in J&K.

Technically, India was within its rights to set up a hydel plant, provided it allowed the entire run of the river to flow into Pakistan. Pakistan’s grouse was that it was doing so through another tributary. Consequently, the Neelam valley — when the Jhelum enters Pakistan, it becomes the Neelam — received less water and made it impossible for Pakistan to construct a hydel power plant on its side of the border.

Both India and Pakistan have serious water issues. The per capita availability of water per annum in Pakistan is estimated to be 1,000 cubic metres and 1,700 cubic metres in India. India has many more options than Pakistan, being by far the larger country, with many more rivers and the Himalayan range stretching into the east.

While populations in both countries are growing, the volume of water remains the same (or in some cases, less). Pakistan’s estimated population of 236 million is projected to increase to 350 million in the next 25 years, while India’s population is projected to reach 1.67 billion by 2050. For both countries, water is a worry.

India has a point when it says the treaty needs to be reviewed after six decades. Technology has changed and river experts have more data now at their disposal. Large dams are no longer necessary and disputes merely serve to delay projects and escalate costs. It seeks a faster dispute resolution mechanism. Frosty political and diplomatic relations between the two countries have come in the way of any kind of civil and meaningful discourse.

The treaty classified the six rivers of the Indus basin into eastern and western rivers. Sutlej, Beas and Ravi were the eastern rivers while Jhelum, Chenab and Indus were the western rivers. India was given full rights over the water of the eastern rivers while Pakistan was given the rights over the western rivers. India was also allowed to use the water of the western rivers to generate electricity and for irrigation.

An Indus River Commission with World Bank nominees and commissioners from both the countries ensures that the agreement is implemented properly. India finds Pakistan’s objections irksome and its fears — that India can starve or flood its neighbour at will — misplaced.

India’s Shahpur Kandi dam project on the Ravi river was stopped following Pakistan’s objections. In 2007, India started building the Kishanganga dam on the Jhelum. In 2010, Pakistan called for the project to be referred for arbitration. Ignoring Pakistan’s objections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kishanganga dam in Kashmir in 2018.

At the same time, India started building the Ratle hydroelectric project on the Chenab, while work was already proceeding apace on the Sutlej-Beas Link Project and the Ujha Dam in Kashmir.

India argues that it cannot possibly press a button to stop the flow of rivers whenever it wills. Where will the excess water go if there aren’t large enough reservoirs or long enough canals?

The experiment of linking rivers has also not really worked. The Ken-Betwa rivers in Madhya Pradesh are yet to be linked even after two decades of effort. Linking the Indus rivers with the Yamuna, therefore, appears unrealistic and any such attempt may well flood large areas in Jammu, Kashmir and Punjab, affecting, at the same time, the fertility of the land.

Both countries have been hesitant about building dams on the border due to security concerns. How long will the two allow the gaping trust deficit to get in the way of collaborating on projects that can benefit people on both sides of the border? As each stubbornly persists in perceiving the other as ‘the enemy’, time is running out.