Sir: The IBWT is an epitome of cooperation between India and Pakistan. Roughly 61 percent of the basin’s irrigated area lies in Pakistan, constituting 90 per cent Pakistan’s agricultural land. The treaty remained intact even when the two countries fought several wars, including quasi-wars on Kashmir question.
Even now the two neighbours at daggers drawn. But casus belli is sovereignty over Kashmir, not over river waters. While dealing with riverine trans-border boundaries, the treaty avoided delving into question of sovereignty over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Permanent Indus Commission is a conduit for communication between two national governments.
Its purpose is to forestall unilateral actions by either party. An example of such action is shutting off of water supply from Ferozepur Headworks by East Punjab engineers on April 1, 1948 to the Dipalpur Canal and Pakistani portion of Upper Bari Doab Canal.
The ostensible reason for the shut-off was that Pakistan had not renewed agreement of June 1947 (that expired on March 31, 1948) between East Punjab and West Punjab. Later, Pakistan signed an agreement on May 4, 1948 and paid coercive seignior age charges equivalent to 10 per cent of earning capacity of all the water that passed into then West Pakistan. Within a year, Pakistan repudiated the agreement.
The treaty resolved several issues bedevilling the water sharing issue. If the issues had not been resolved the two neighbours would have again resorted to fisticuffs after 1947 Kashmir War.
A contrary opinion is that relative calm on Indus front is illusory (Sundeep Waslekar, Douglas Hill quoted at page 8 of Daniel Haines’ Indus Divided).The elusive peace lasted only as long as India was secretly building Baglihar dam And Kishenganga diversion projects. It appears that India is gradually sliding back to its stance of `absolute sovereignty’ as against Pakistan’s stand of `lower riparian’ rights as based on 1895opinion of US attorney general Judson Harmon.
Here are a few lessons from the treaty. Towering figures like Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan were able to hush up firebrand critics of cooperation. Pakistan foreign minister Sir Zafarullh Khan even implied that `Pakistan was willing to go to war over water’ (ibid. page52). During 1950s, Nehru invited American water management expert David Lilienthal to advise India.
Pakistan also agreed to his help. Lilienthal was a metaphor for American vision as a world leader. Being a technocrat he ably set aside political issues and carved a technical plan, IWBT. He visualized joint management of the basin waters but had to amend his plan.
To forestall future tensions, India should stick to the text of the treaty. At the same time the two countries should explore possibility of including China as a supervisor in the treaty.
SAMAN MALIK
Rawalpindi
Published in Daily Times, April 9th 2018.