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INDIA/PAKISTAN: Indus Water Treaty Agitates Kashmiris

Athar Parvaiz

SRINAGAR, Oct 14 2008 (IPS) - As Pakistan and India wrangle over the waters of the Chenab, Kashmiris – through whose homeland the river and four other tributaries of the mighty Indus flow – have reason to be agitated.

Soon after Indian Prime Minister inaugurated the 450 Mw Baglihar hydro-electric dam project across the Chenab, during a visit to Jammu & Kashmir state last week, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari warned that disrupting the flow of the river could reverse recent improvements in ties between the two neighbours.

"Pakistan would be paying a very high price for India's move to block Pakistan's water supply from the Chenab River," the official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Zardari as saying on Sunday.

Zardari made reference to the World Bank-mediated 1960 Indus Water Treaty which allows the two countries share the Indus river and its five tributaries – the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – and provides mechanisms for dispute settlement.

Under the treaty, Pakistan received exclusive use of waters from the Indus and its westward flowing tributaries, the Jhelum and Chenab, while the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers were allocated for India's use.

India, which has a right to ‘’run-of-the-river’’ projects has rejected Pakistan's contention that the Baglihar dam reduces the flow of water and says the project is crucial for power-starved Kashmir.

In 2005 Pakistan had sought the World Bank's intervention to stop construction of the Baglihar dam and the hydroelectricity power project, but Bank-appointed experts cleared the project while asking India to restrict the overall height of the dam.

Earlier India had to stop construction of Tulbul Navigation Project on the River Jhelum on account of objections raised by Pakistan. While India maintained that the project was designed to improve navigation, especially during the winter when the water level recedes, Pakistan said that the Wullar Barrage [as Islamabad calls the project] is a storage project which will affect the flow of water. Work on the project has remained stalled for 20 years.

Under the treaty, Pakistan is to receive 55,000 cusecs of water, but authorities there complain that this year Pakistan's share was drastically reduced, causing damage to crops. "Pakistan received between 13,000 cusecs during the winter and a maximum of 29,000 cusecs during summer. This averages around 22,000 to 25,000 cusecs – less than half of Pakistan's share,’’ newspapers in Pakistan, citing authorities, say.

India and Pakistan may be talking to each other to settle their disputes over the Indus water, but the people in Indian Kashmir say that the two countries are actually reaping the benefits of what are their resources. Thanks to the Indus Water Treaty, only 40 percent of the cultivatable land in the state can be irrigated and 10 percent of the hydroelectric potential harnessed.

"Who represented Kashmir then [1960] at the table? What was the ‘locus standi’ of the two countries to abuse waters of a region that had independent identity till 1947, and on which they disputed each other's claim afterwards?" asks human rights activist, Shayik Nazir.

"The issue that remains at the center of Indus water treaty is that the treaty was signed at a time when Jammu & Kashmir was passing through a phase of both economic and political innocence. There was a political leadership in the state which was working in what one can say as national interest [of India] at that point of time", says political analyst Gul Mohammad Wani.

"The popular political leadership; the legitimate political leadership [in Jammu & Kashmir] was out of the political scene. We had a government which had absolutely no legitimacy and no credibility in the estimation of the people of the state and it was during those times the treaty was signed."

Srinagar-based economic expert Arjimand Hussain Talib says that the treaty drastically limits the economic benefits to Kashmir. "And then the power houses which are being built on these are generally owned by the Indian government without taking into consideration the fact that they basically flow through Jammu and Kashmir", Arjimand told IPS.

"They don't share the profits and the resources which are generated through these (rivers) with the Jammu & Kashmir state except for the 12 percent royalty on power that it gets,’’ he added.

Shakeel Qalandhar, president of the Kashmir Industries and Commerce Federation, says that Kashmir's economy would have greatly progressed, but for the 1960 treaty. "Through these three main rivers, we could have generated hydroelectric power not less than 30,000 Mw, but we are generating just over 300 Mw in the state sector and 1,600 Mw in the central sector. In all it is less than 2,000 Mw whereas we require 2,500 Mw of electricity for our own consumption – domestic and industrial.’’

According to Qalandar, every year Jammu & Kashmir purchases power [from the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation] worth billions of dollars. "It is a tragedy that despite having the potential of generating 30,000 Mw of power, 25 percent of our population is without electricity and 55 percent is without safe drinking, despite huge water resources in the state."

Over the last few years, the state government of Jammu & Kashmir and industrial groups in the state have been demanding compensation from the central government for the losses incurred by the state because of the Indus Water Treaty.

Motions were moved in the state assembly on three different occasions by the legislators asking the federal government to review the treaty and pay compensation to the state. "Our state is suffering due to the wrong decision of the then leaders and we are losing billions of dollars annually", contended legislator, Depinder Kour, while moving a resolution in the assembly a few years ago.

"Ours is a land-locked state. We don't have industries and other economic resources except the water. But because of the treaty, India and Pakistan benefit while Jammu & Kashmir suffers huge economic losses. That is why we are seeking compensation,'' says Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, state secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI).