The Indus umbilical

Despite shared expectations to the contrary, transboundary water sharing comes relatively easy to India and Pakistan — providing a sign of hope that a good treaty can bridged troubled waters.

With India-Pakistan relations at a crisis point once again, many commentators and political activists see confrontation as the rule of the day in all areas of bilateral relations. But is this accurate? Only in late May – at the height of the most recent standoff – an overlooked but important meeting took place despite the dismal political situation. On its agenda was a matter of truly vital concern to both countries: the co­ordinated utilisation of the Indus River system."

Amid much speculation, this year's session of the joint Permanent Indus Commission took place in New Delhi with the Indian and Pakistani commissioners and their staff meeting to review the status of river management by the two riparian nations. During their three-day meeting, the two sides discussed, among other issues, Indian hydroelectric projects on the Jhelum and Chenab tributaries, even as media reports quoted politicians from both countries speculating about the termination of the commission. The dams and storage reservoirs near Baglihar and Wular, which India expects will augment its hydropower capacity and improve navigation, are seen by Pakistan, the lower riparian of almost all tributaries in the Indus basin, as a likely source of future water shortage.

In Pakistan, Punjab and Sindh provinces depend on steady and timely water supplies from the north. Much of Pakistan's economy is based on a network of rivers, irrigation canals, barrages, and storage reservoirs for food production, drinking water supply and power generation. In particular, agriculture is highly sensitive to disruptions of established watering schedules because each type of crop has its own specific moisture requirements and growing sequence. Differences among geographical regions within Pakistan also add to this complexity. Natural conditions for irrigation in these two provinces, which account for over 80 percent of the country's agricultural output, are more difficult in the plains of Sindh than in the Punjab. Mainly, the reduced flow velocity leading to a higher vulnerability to salinity in the southern part of the Indus basin accounts for a lower efficiency in irrigation which renders Sindh agriculture less productive. It has become a regular phenomenon of Pakistan politics that by the end of the winter season, farmer organisations of both provinces engage in a war of words over alleged wastage of water from the perspective of the upper riparian, and theft of water, from the perspective of the lower riparian. This argument dominates inter-provincial relations and, in fact, fuels a vociferous sub-national movement, particularly in Sindh.

Newly-independent India and Pakistan realised the need for the coordinated management of the Indus River system soon after the partition of the Punjab in 1947, which left the once-unified irrigation network split between the two nations. A series of bilateral agreements between 1948 and 1958 provided an ad hoc institutional basis for the sharing of water against the background of ongoing conflict over Kashmir. Yet, the fear of being cut off from this lifeline has persisted in Pakistan ever since India, after the so-called Standstill Agreement of 1948 expired, closed the canals the very next day. The Indian government, suddenly in a position of strength, pointed at the absence of any binding arrangement with Pakistan and indicated it would follow the principle of territorial sovereignty. Whatever the motivation of Indian water managers at the time, that incident — without having any significant actual impact on Pakistani agriculture – nevertheless sent a strong message to Pakistani policymakers and farmers alike. Though the partition had left many issues open for political-legal arrangement, it had been implicitly understood that both nations would adopt the modern principles that had been the basis of the water sharing agreement between Sindh and undivided Punjab. The shares for each province had been decided on the principle of equitable apportionment and it was conceivable that they could be retained even after partition had split the Punjab and the rivers between the two countries. The expectation of a fair agreement was not baseless. As early as the first few years of the 20th century, at a time when in several other cases of transnational water sharing theories of territorial sovereignty and riparian rights were still being debated (eg between the United States and Mexico over the Rio Grande), the Indian Irrigation Commission of 1901-1903 adhered to a formal, institutionalised and modern mechanism, preparing the ground for future arrangements. The Standstill Agreement led to the Inter-Dominion Agreement (concluded in May 1948) which, by integrating both sides' claims and adopting a means of balancing benefits and costs, bridged a period of 12 years until a definitive agreement – the Indus Treaty – was reached. While the legal aspect – the dispute over which doctrine of international river law to adopt – remained open, this pragmatic, political solution amounted to a trade-off allowing India to build reservoirs and new canals and Pakistan to receive much-needed water supplies.

World Bank engineers helped to set up the more stable water-sharing institution, which covered not just one or two crop seasons but was designed as a permanent mechanism. Having secured financial support for the extensive irrigation development of both parts of the Indus basin, the heads of state of India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. At the heart of this lengthy document is a strikingly simple formula awarding control over the three eastern-most rivers of the Indus system (the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) to India, with Pakistan receiving full control over the three western-most rivers (the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus). The question of upstream withdrawals from the Chenab and Jhelum, both of which pass through Indiancontrolled Jammu and Kashmir, was dealt with on the basis of equitable apportionment. Applying modern international law on transboundary watercourses, the Indus is defined as the common property of all riparians, serving the needs of all without requiring lower riparians to renounce vital interests.

In fact, the detailed treaty provisions – accompanied by a second document on development schemes and their budget (the Indus Basin Development Fund Treaty) – place India, as the upper riparian, in a position of responsibility over its neighbour. Under the terms of the treaty, Indian withdrawals for both non-consumptive uses like power generation and consumptive uses like irrigation are limited so as to leave enough water to sustain Pakistan's vital needs. The treaty focuses on a particular sector – irrigation – and a particular region, the Punjab. Other sectors (such as power generation) and regions (such as Kashmir) are only marginally addressed or left out altogether. In the light of this, the current criticism by Jammu and Kashmir – in the form of a legislative assembly resolution calling for a review of the treaty – addresses the inequitable allocation of funds. Unlike Punjab, Kassshmir has neither significant federal nor international financial support to develop the great potential of the rivers for power generation and irrigation.

This has spurred an internal row between Kashmir and the Indian state of Punjab on the one hand and Kashmir and Delhi on the other. Yet the call for "scrapping the treaty" by some federal and Kashmiri state politicians has met with little support from the centre for obvious reasons. Firstly, abandoning the treaty, as Indian Minister of State for Water Resources Bijoya Chakraborty has suggested, is not a viable option – neither in the context of the current conflict with Pakistan nor in order to rearrange water sharing. Breaking international law and setting a precedent thereby would almost certainly isolate India and maybe even trigger a dangerous escalation of the current conflict. Secondly, even if Indian tactical designs vis-a-vis Pakistan were illintentioned, technical considerations would prevent Indian water engineers from withholding large quantities of water for a period long enough to effectively hurt Pakistan's agriculture, simply because storage facilities on the upper Jhelum and Chenab are insufficient and enlargements would take years – and billions of dollars – to build. Thirdly, Delhi seems to realise that it would be ill-advised to let a federal unit dictate national policy, particularly when it comes to foreign relations. This would certainly weaken Prime Minister Vajpayee's position in the struggle for greater control over that troubled region and have a negative impact on the BJP's ambitions for a bigger international role.

Four decades after its establishment, this famous treaty, which has become a prominent model for the resolution of similar cases (like the Mekong mechanism), leaves little to complain about. As a matter of fact, the Indian agricultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s owes a great deal to this arrangement because, through major financial contributions from supportive countries, new link canals, dams and reservoirs could be built that helped raise the agricultural performance of Punjab and extended the Indus canal network to Rajasthan. Similarly, the construction of large reservoir and canal networks (like the Mangla and Tarbela dams and the various link canals) has increased Pakistan's food production immensely. With attempts like coordinating the Mahakali and Ganges Rivers' utilisation by India and Nepal, and Bangladesh and India respectively, along similar lines, basin-based river management has experienced good progress.

With institutions like the Permanent Indus Commission, which tend to depoliticise disagreements, the resolution of disputes – mainly over shares – has become smoother, more efficient and far less likely to be incorporated in a wider political or ideological confrontation. Limiting any quarrel to purely technical dimensions was one of the major objectives of the treaty architects. As per Articles VIII, IX, the commission is the first and only adjudicating body for the parties; the parties are required to seek neutral arbitration only if this establishment fails. The basic precondition for this institution to work successfully is transparency, with each side required to exchange river data through regular communication and adhere to agreed-upon mechanisms of coordination. Plans for constructions like barrages that might alter a river's flow significantly, thereby leading to changes in water release schedules as fixed in the treaty, are to be put forward in advance so they may be discussed by the commissioners. The commission, after 87 successful meetings to date, has achieved its stated goals. Its particular achievements have been the promotion of projects for the improvement of river utilisation through the exchange of river data, and the efficient solution of disputes through on-site inspections as soon as one side puts a problem before the commission. Though some questions remain to be discussed, no serious breach of the treaty provisions has been recorded so far.

Amending this comprehensive treaty, as union government adviser, Jairam Ramesh, has suggested, could include the integration of environmental concerns, like salinity, and enhanced economic measures to support the needs of other riparian states like Kashmir and Sindh. Such regional coordination and cooperation may not after all be wishful thinking, as indicated by the recent decision of meteorological experts from Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan to establish the Hydrological Cycle Observation System (HYCOS) to improve flood management through regional data exchange. With resource issues that transcend purely national considerations, it can be useful to build bridges between countries.