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| India Exports Water, Pakistan Exports Terror | | Evaluating IWT | | NEHA
JAMMU, Mar 20: The other day the legislative assembly witnessed a debate on the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan. Secretary CPI (M) and MLA Kulgam, M Y Tarigami urged the assembly for "comprehensive evaluation" of the IWT so that it could become "more purposeful and beneficial to both neighbouring countries". Participating in the debate on demand for grants for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Departments in Legislative Assembly, he said, "among many hostilities in different spheres between India and Pakistan, IWT, is perhaps the only treaty, which is functional" and added that "some world renowned expert agency needs to be engaged to evaluate how this treaty is made more purposeful and fruitful for the general people beyond the territorial prism and to see how to overcome the losses on account of this, if any". At the same time, he also opined, and very rightly, that "irrigation is primarily important for harnessing the vast agriculture and horticulture potential of State" and ephasised the need for "long-term and short-term planning to give boost to the state's economy which is primarily agriculture based".
It needs to recalled recalled that it was in 1960 that the IWT was signed between India and Pakistan. According to the treaty, the western rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were given to Pakistan while the eastern rivers Sutlej, Ravi and Beas were given to India. In addition to making use of waters from the eastern rivers, India also got the right to use 3.6 million cusecs of water from the western flowing rivers for development of catchment areas through which these rivers flows. Thus Pakistan got right over 80 percent of waters of IRS while India got 20 percent. In other words, the IWT deprived India and its J&K of their right to make full use of the Indus waters in order to produce electricity to the extent they need, improve agricultural production through suitable irrigation system, develop industries and give a fillip to commercial activities.
Notwithstanding some glaring contradictions in what Tarigami said and suggested, his suggestions that "irrigation is primarily important for harnessing the vast agriculture and horticulture potential of State" and that there is the need for "long-term and short-term planning to give boost to the state's economy which is primarily agriculture based" were worthy of consideration. There is no doubt that the IWT has only harmed the interests of Jammu and Kashmir in general and the agrarian community in the state in particular and that it has only helped Pakistan to enrich its economy and promote agriculture, especially in its Punjab province at the cost of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It needs to be noted that it is India, and not Pakistan, which has been implementing the IWT in its letter and spirit with Islamabad, instead of appreciating New Delhi, not only consistently opposing the use of the Indus waters the people of the state are entitled to under this the World Bank-brokered treaty between the two countries, riparian states, but also exporting terrorism to the state.
It is not only the Pakistani establishment which has been seeking to establish its physical control over the Indus waters. The Pakistani extremists like Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) and Pakistan Parliamentary Kashmir Committee chairman Moulana Fazl-ur-Rehman and Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Saeed Hafiz are also working in the same direction. Only the other day, Rehman asked the Pakistani government to "take a firm stand on construction of dams by India on the rivers (Indus, Chenab and Jhelum) as otherwise it (Pakistan) would be rendered paralysed in the fields of agriculture and industry". "India will take advantage of our weakness in the field of agriculture and industry and it will dictate terms and conditions to us on any trade which will never be in our interest," he also said while addressing a press conference after attending a general council meeting of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). Earlier, Hafiz Saeed had declared that the people of Pakistan would wage war on India in the event of the Pakistani establishment not establishing its full control over the Indus waters. It fact, he has been threatening India day in and day out.
There is a view that the next war between India and Pakistan would be fought on the issue of Indus waters. That Pakistan is interested more in the state waters, and not in the Muslims of Kashmir, could be seen from the report which was filed by none other than former Editor UNI Samuel Baid way back on April 3, 2005. The report read like this: "Soon after the promulgation of Martial law in Pakistan in October 1958, General Ayub Khan turned his attention to the rivers of Jammu and Kashmir which, he said, were indispensable for the economic survival of his country. He made a failed attempt in 1965 to capture this state. General Pervez Musharraf is thus second Pakistani military ruler for whom Kashmir is a core issue not because of ideology but because of Pakistan's water requirements. While for Ayub Kashmir was indispensable for Pakistan's economic survival, for General Musharraf it is indispensable for both the country's economic survival and for its national integrity. He has discarded Pakistan's five-decade-old stand on the United Nations resolution on (Jammu and) Kashmir and does not talk of accession as his country's ideology. Both Ayub and General Musharraf made water from (Jammu and) Kashmir a precondition for peace with India. Like Ayub, General Musharraf made an unsuccessful attempt to grab Kashmir in May 1999 by invading Kargil".
It needs to be noted that as early as in 1990 General Musharraf had asserted that the "rivers of (Jammu and) Kashmir hold the key to the future conflict between India and Pakistan". In fact, as a brigadier at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London in 1990, he had presented a paper with an unusually long title: "The Arms Race in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent. Conflicts with the Pressing Requirements of Socio-economic Development. What are its Causes? Is there a Remedy?" The paper clearly that the Indus waters held the key to the future conflict between India and Pakistan.
All this should serve to expose the Pakistani evil designs. The Kashmiri Muslims, including MLA Tarigami, would do well to refashion their approach towards Islamabad, which is not a friend. They would do well to take note of the adverse impact of Pakistani policies on their co-religionists in the PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan region. They must remember that the singe-point agenda of Pakistan is to enslave and exploit them and establish physical control over the state waters. It would be better if they and others persuade the Government of India to review its stand on the IWT taking into consideration the interests of the people of the state and country as a whole. Why should India export water to a country which exports terror to Jammu and Kashmir and dots its political scene with death and destruction almost every day? |
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