World | Pakistan
Bilateral ties caught in the current
Long-running feud has worsened in recent months with a dry spell compounding problems
- AP
- Published: 00:00 May 1, 2010
- Image Credit: AP
- Children play in an almost dried-up Chenab River, Pakistan's main river.
Gujrat, Punjab: A bitter dispute over limited water resources is fuelling India-Pakistan tensions at a time when the South Asian neighbours are trying to rebuild trust and resume peace talks.
It's a long-running feud that has worsened in recent months as a dry spell focuses attention on Pakistan's growing water shortage. Three days of talks in March ended with both sides trading barbs and failing to reach a resolution.
The issue was raised on Thursday when the leaders of the two countries met at a regional summit in Bhutan and agreed on the need to normalise relations, the Pakistani side said.
Further complicating the situation, Islamist extremists are trying to capitalise on allegations that India is stealing water from glacier-fed rivers that start in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Independent experts say there is no evidence to support those charges, but they warn that Pakistani concerns about India's plans to build at least 15 new dams need to be addressed to avoid conflict.
"If you want to give Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Pakistani militants an issue that really rallies people, give them water," said John Briscoe, who has worked on water issues in the two countries for 35 years and was the World Bank's senior water adviser.
Farmers in Pakistan's central breadbasket are certainly angry.
"India has blocked our water because they are our enemy," said Mohammad, a 65-year-old farmer in the town of Gujarat.
His farm sits a few kilometres from the Chenab River, which residents say has been shrinking since India completed a hydroelectric dam in its part of Kashmir in 2008. In some sections, water flows in only a tenth of the river bed, and nearby irrigation canals have dried up.
Indian officials blame any reduction on natural variation and climate change, which have hurt India as well. They add that Pakistan's antiquated irrigation system wastes large quantities of water.
"Preposterous and completely unwarranted allegations of stealing water and waging a water war are being made against India," the Indian ambassador to Pakistan, Sharat Sabharwal, said in a speech in April.
"The issues of Kashmir and terrorism are going to be much more difficult if we don't have an agreement on water," said water expert Briscoe, now a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The origin of the water dispute can be traced to the creation of Pakistan and India in 1947, when the British Indian empire was partitioned.
The split gave India control of the part of Kashmir that is the source of six rivers that irrigate crops in Pakistan's agricultural heartland of Punjab province and elsewhere.
Under a 1960 agreement, Pakistan has the use of the three western rivers — the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — and India, the three eastern ones — the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi.
Indus water commissioner, Jamat Ali Shah, doesn't accuse India of stealing water, but he says India isn't providing information required under the 1960 pact to prove that it's not.
"There should be nothing in the track record that shows India has violated the treaty," said Shah. "But it is a fact that the track record is not clear."
India denies any intention to cut off water to Pakistan but, as with other issues between the two countries, mistrust runs high.
Jamaat-e-Dawa, an alleged front group for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, issued a statement recently accusing India of using "Kashmir to carry out a deep conspiracy of turning Pakistan's agricultural lands into barren lands and economically annihilating her through building dams and water theft".
"If India continues with her water terrorism," it added, "Pakistan must keep open the option of using force."
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