Scrapping the Indus waters treaty with Pakistan will not help

Four days after India hinted at abrogating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, a meeting of top officials chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided on greater internal use of three rivers — Indus, Chenab and Jhelum — that were allocated to Pakistan by the accord.

The government also decided to review its position on the Tulbul/Wular project on Chenab. After prolonged arbitration in international courts, India got a favourable ruling to build the reservoir but held back implementation to generate goodwill.

However, experts are not sure that the barrage would be a good idea. “The decision on the Tulbul/Wular project on Chenab should be seen in light of the 2014 floods in Kashmir. The main reason why so much flooding happened in the city was the siltation in the Wular Lake. Now if a barrage comes up, it will increase the threat of floods in Srinagar. The government’s Monday decision should be technically evaluated,” Prof Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, professor and head, department of earth sciences, University of Kashmir, told HT.

“The government should pursue energy generation from the western rivers (Indus, the Jhelum and Chenab). This is because water utilisation for agriculture in Kashmir is not very high since the topography is undulating (irrigation is difficult) and farmers have moved to water-intensive paddy to rain-fed horticulture,” he said.

Dr Medha Bisht, assistant professor, department of international relations, South Asia University, agrees with Prof Romshoo: “It is true that India has not used the capacity of the western rivers and the government’ s Monday decision to maximise usage should be seen as a long-term strategy”.

On India’s threat to scrap the treaty, Dr Bisht said the scrapping of the pact cannot be a “credible deterrent” due to several reasons.

First, India has no infrastructure to hold/divert the excess water. Probably what India can do is control the timing of the release of water. Either way — building infrastructure to hold excess water and controlling the timing — are long-term strategies. Second, if India walks out of an institutional mechanism such as the Indus Treaty, the country will lose credibility in international community and have long-term consequences.

Second, we must not forget that even though there is no treaty between China and India on Brahmaputra, China does have a long-term strategic plan to divert the river Brahmaputra. Tampering with the Indus Waters Treaty will send a bad regional signal for upper riparians such as China and will aggravate fears of lower riparians such as Bangladesh. But, she adds, the treaty must be revisited to tackle two issues.

The people of Jammu and Kashmir believe that their rights on the river were not recognised in the Indus Treaty and it is heavily biased towards Pakistan, and that climate change is a reality now; and a new treaty needs to factor in that challenge.

“India has to utilise the provisions of the treaty more aggressively and in coordination with the states. It has also to measure and assess the actual flow in the Indus system before it can recalculate the utilisation of the waters. A lot of unused waters of the eastern water flow to Pakistan unaccounted and un-utilised. This has to be harnessed more effectively by India,” said Uttam Kumar Sinha, Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis.