Daily Times

The historic Indus Water Treaty is often celebrated as a diplomatic miracle for surviving the harshest of weathers in the last six decades despite the estranged cousins repeatedly lockin their horns. However, the latest to add to their agenda of grievances is water, which has even made waves in Washington. A report before the White House lamented the increasing frequency of water disputes in South Asia and further sounded the alarm over the pressures on the validity of the agreement in the light of “disagreement over hydropower use.” Going by the heated buzz over plans to conserve water in our neighbourhood, Pakistan appears to have not made any headway as far as restoring the sanctity of the clauses is concerned. While India should be commended for paying heed to the precarious climatic situation and getting down to business before it runs out of time, fighting the onslaught of climate change should not mean tearing apart an internationally-recognised covenant. Pakistan is among the three most water-stressed countries around the world and is well on its way to bidding adieu to its natural resources by 2025. The emergency underway in Sindh has not just hit farmers downstream but disrupted the entire water table. Amid news of canal irrigation being rationed to serve the needs of both Punjab and farming communities in the south, cracking the disastrous implications for crop yield is not an arduous task. An overwhelming decrease of 26 per cent in the snowfall as well as the wrath of the usually kind Tibetan glaciers are just a foreword of the horror story that is about to unravel.

There has never been a far urgent need for Pakistan and India to sit together and deliberate upon the best possible way to step out of this seemingly never-ending tunnel. Let’s build dams together and plan out a mutually-beneficial line of action. Of course, acknowledging the existence of Muslims as equal partners would be excruciatingly painful for the bigoted premiership perched atop New Delhi. But if the common man walking on Indian streets wishes for the sprinkles of life to reach his children, he would be wise enough to force his government to rise above petty sloganeering. The same holds true for Islamabad because failure to set egos aside would only paint a landscape where everyone–young or old–walks around spitting feathers, canvas buckets in hand, looking for a drop of water everywhere. *