Daily Times

‘Deconstruction’ is not merely a word recently introduced in the vocabulary of hydrologists, a class of scientists dealing with the movement, distribution and quality of water resources – watershed sustainability as well – but duly a measurable concept which the social scientists can use in exploring many dimensions humans can grow and prosper by ‘correcting’ their ties with Nature.

Humans cut themselves off nature by clearing jungles for the sake of agriculture. Dams were built wherefrom canals drew water and transported to the far flung dried regions. Banks engaged in stocks trade making the sustainable agriculture a commercial activity. The electricity produced from dams not only lightened cities but also run the wheels of the industry.

All above-mentioned economic cycle was based on the way water resources were used. The central idea was to store the rainwater to produce energy and feed crops, miles away in deserts. Whom the British Raj allotted these lands is not something non-understandable given the royal ambitions associated with foreign rule but that such a ‘development policy’ was passed on to the successor states, particular Pakistan and India, when they were made free.

Those negotiating Redcliff Award, which was meant to divide the culturally and geographically compact region of Punjab, utterly ignored the potential of the economic development paradigm of the British Raj to disrupt ties between the new neighbors. As it happened and is duly a matter of record, India stopped canals from Ferozepur headwork on the very pretext why it should share the benefits of a facility that it now owned. Pakistan had to purchase the water till the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).

The world knows, the above-motioned treaty between Pakistan and India was unjust in the sense that it ultimately stopped the flow of waters to a vast swath of territory of mostly a dry region. The link canals drawn from the foreign funded dams could hardly store 13 MAF water could hardly cater to the needs of the human and aquatic life downstream. Around 33 MAF lost to India due to IWT was not only necessary for rearing pulses, livestock and fisheries – which meant food security for the eastern regions of Punjab but also for the survival of the Indus Delta, as well.

The British Raj had not built dams and remained confined to the barrages only. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) actually involved engineering companies to build a series of dams in America solely to produce electricity to make it available to the people at home. Its experience in resolving conflicts among various American states over the utilization of water resources and distribution of benefits actually brought Indus Basin into the limelight where a conflict over rivers between neighbors was brewing. An ex- director of TVA, David E. Lilienthal, got around Nehru and Ayub Kahn to sit on the table and conclude the fateful treaty, which World Bank was ready to fund.

The World Bank and India funded the two dams and the link canals to compensate the stoppage of three eastern rivers. The regions where the rivers flew to have witnessed sinking down of the water table, the supplies of fisheries, dairy products and pulses have come rare, meaning thereby costly, poverty is touching extremes. Indus Delta remains dried for most part of the year, precious aquatic life has been destroyed and sea is menacingly devouring up fertile lands.

“Who has actually benefited from the water politics, is one question. The other is poverty and disease the canal system has brought in,” is what hydrologists are asking at a time authorities find helpless in rising risks of food security as the fisheries, dairy products and pulses are getting out of the reach of the people.

Flood irrigation with canal system is responsible for polluting the ground water resources as the diseases brought with the foreign seeds demand mindless use of pesticides other than the sewage and industrial waste being released into the water bodies.

Deconstruction is the word with these hydrologists that provides the answer to the problem, which denies food security to the billions of South Asians right now. Without letting rivers flow, it is nearly impossible to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, which include eradication of hunger and disease as fundamental targets.

Letting rivers flow their natural course will store 400 MAF water in the aquatic corridor running along them, and give a boost to forestry, fisheries, livestock and pulses production other than creating the possibility of introducing a far cheaper inland transportation system – something which British Raj had benefited from.

Deconstruction of dams – which has become a norm in the world – is not merely a shift in development paradigm but also a huge task for governments to undertake it as a step towards sustainable growth. Why these projects were funded from abroad the major reason was their potential to produce electricity. Investing more dams, now, has become a biggest blunder for governments in the presence of solar and wind energy.

Most of the dams constructed by Pakistan and India are situated in fault zone. Any unusual seismic activity can just bring disaster, at least in immediate neighborhood of the water reservoirs. Commercial agriculture, whereby we produce tons of wheat at the cost of fisheries and pulses, too, is not sustainable other than being the major source of diseases for the poor folks. How dams can be responsible for flash floods can be gauged from the destruction that Bhakra dam has recently brought to the Indian Punjab through a sudden release of waters after a heavy rain in the catchment of the Sutlej River.

“To get around governments to keep rivers flowing, preferably on their old courses, no matter how alternative uses of these waters are sustainable growth and prosperity for the common populace is a gigantic task,” cautions the Chairman of ZiZAk nowadays, putting the idea to get more crop by saving at least one fifth of their water consumption into operation. And he points out the non-existence of nationalism in the decision-makers and also the fact that it is the major beneficiary of dams, constructed with foreign funds.

Does ‘deconstruction’ means reverting to the past practices associated with utilization of rivers and getting closer to the nature? Of course, it is so. We need forests, destroyed by the British Raj to promote agriculture, and getting back, once again, to inland navigation, the cheapest means of transporting goods to and from Kabul to the Arabian Sea.

Flowing rivers can provide a trade corridor and, consequently, inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity for the Indus basin. It requires Pakistan to engage in climate diplomacy and ‘constructively’ engage the neighbor on IWT. “If you want to really benefit from the country’s geographical location, the secret rests in the free flowing rivers,” Dr. Hassan Abbas says wondering why Pakistan should not go alone even if the other party keeps on walking the suicidal course.

A paradigm shift on socio-economic development requires stopping to fund damned water storage projects but also pulling down the financial, legal, administrative and political structures the colonialists built to take care of their royal concerns, only unparallel nationalistic fervor can put on the straight, which is quite rational and logical, path. Reforms mean nothing with the deconstruction but a 360 degree revolution does.

The writer is an Islamabad-based veteran journalist and an independent researcher