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| STARK REALITY | | India exports water, Pakistan exports terrorism | |
BY RUSTAM
JAMMU, JAN 5: Islamabad has crossed all limits. It has virtually threatened a war on India. It is not an exaggeration. It is a fact. Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on educational matters, Sardar Aseff Ali, has administered the threat. He did so on January 3 while talking to presspersons at Lahore on the sidelines of a seminar.
What did Aseff Ali tell media persons? He told them that “the impending issues over sharing river water between India and Pakistan could trigger a war between the two countries…Pakistan could pull out of the (1960) Indus Water Treaty (IWT) with India, if the latter does not stop violating the treaty by constructing new dams on the Indus river…”
Even a naïve would agree that Sardar Aseff Ali was provocative and jingoist and that his tone and tenor was against all the cardinal principles of diplomatic nuances. However, it can be said that Sardar Assef Ali is not the only Pakistani leader who used provocative language against India or threatened a war. Almost all the Pakistani leaders, without any exception, have used provocative language against India in the past. They have all along been aggressive and they remain aggressive because it is an integral part of their foreign policy towards India.
It is no more a secret that the Pakistani foreign policy and its aggressive attitude are aimed at browbeating, blackmailing and weakening India and obtaining from her more and more concessions; aimed at grabbing not just Jammu and Kashmir, but also aimed at establishing complete control over the State’s three rivers -- Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. It is also not a secret that while India has been implementing the IWT in letter and spirit at the cost of the people of the nation in general and the people of the State in particular and exporting water to Pakistan to cater to its needs, Islamabad has been exporting terrorism to the State and other parts of India and blooding and convulsing its political scene at regular intervals.
Pakistan has waged four full-scale wars on India in 1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999 and it has been carrying on the highly deadly proxy-war and exporting terrorism, particularly since 1989, thus consuming thousands of innocent lives of Indians and disturbing the state’s socio-religious and political equilibrium. It has been doing so saying Jammu and Kashmir is an “unfinished agenda” of the country’s communal partition. It is thus clear that Pakistani political and military establishments have deliberately ignored the fact that it was the British India, and not the princely states, which was to be divided into two independent and sovereign States – India and Pakistan – as per the Indian Independence Act of 1947. As per the same Act, under Pakistan came into being, the princely States had the right to accede to any of the two Dominions – India and Pakistan.
It is a matter of deep anguish that the Indian Foreign Office has not done anything substantial to neutralize the baneful influence of the Pakistan’s no-holds-barred misinformation campaign and set the record straight. It has been simply making few vague statements here and there and the result has been that the aggressive and canny Pakistan continues to poke its dirty nose in the affairs of the Indian Jammu and Kashmir.
Sardar Aseff Ali says that Pakistan will pull out of the IWT with India in case New Delhi continues to violate it and construct dams on the Indus River. In fact, New Delhi should have said so and actually pulled out of the pro-Pakistan treaty by now. Because, according to the treaty, Pakistan was given no less 82 per cent of the total flow of the Indus basin “through the unrestricted use of the Western rivers – Indus, Jhelum and Chenab”. Not just this, the World Bank gave a financial assistance of Rs 383.3 crores and India provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs 83.3 crore. The purpose was to bear the cost of replacement and re-alignment of canals dependent on water supplies from the Eastern Rivers – Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – all beneficial to Pakistan.
The IWT has harmed the interests of Jammu and Kashmir. It causes an estimated loss of Rs 65,000 crores to the State every year owing to the non-utilization of hydro-electrical potential of the Indus basin. Neither New Delhi nor the State Government can construct a dam on any of the three rivers – Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – without the consent of Islamabad. Nor can the State Government make an optimum use of the available water in Jammu and Kashmir for irrigation purposes because whenever the State Government decides to augment the canal system Islamabad raises objections and even approaches the World Bank to get the peasantry-centric schemes scuttled. This has happened umpteen times. Who is not aware of the fact that Pakistan has raised objection after objection against the Baglihar power project?
It needs to be noted that India signed the IWT with Pakistan in 1960 so that the Pakistani economy and agriculture did not suffer, but also to ensure peace in the region and harmonize India-Pakistan relations. In fact, it was the desire for peace that made New Delhi to sign the IWT with Pakistan – hope which stands dashed to the ground. All the Indian efforts towards peace in the region have gone down the drain, with Islamabad not missing a single opportunity to bleed India with a thousand cuts.
New Delhi must review its stand on the IWT. Such a review has become absolutely imperative in view of the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Malegaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Varanasi and so on. It must tell Pakistan, which has not respected the 1972 Shimla Agreement and ruthlessly violated the 2000 Lahore agreement, in clear terms that New Delhi would scrap the IWT in the event of Islamabad continuing to bleed India and foment troubles in its Jammu and Kashmir. The topographical advantage is with India and it can defeat the Pakistani evil designs in no time by pulling out of this lop-sided Treaty. It should not allow the likes of Sardar Aseff Ali to go scot-free. Pakistan needs to paid in its own coin.
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