Indus Water Treaty

Lok Sabha TV conducted a panel discussion on the study on Water Management of the Indus River System and its Implications for India’s Foreign Policy. The invited panelists were Prof. Manohar Khushalani, Sushant Sari and Akshay Singh.

Manohar Khushalani started the discussion by describing the Indus Water Treaty.

The Indus Waters Treaty is a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank, to use the water available in the Indus System of rivers. It was signed on 19 September 1960 by Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, and Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan.

Eastern Rivers
- Sutlej
- Beas
- Ravi

Western Rivers
- Jhelum
- Chenab
- Indus

The Treaty gives control over the waters of the three eastern rivers — the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej with a mean annual flow of 33 million acre-feet (MAF) — to India, while control over the waters of the three western rivers — the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum with a mean annual flow of 80 MAF — to Pakistan. According to treaty, all the water of eastern rivers shall be available for unrestricted use in India. India should let unrestricted flow of water from western rivers to Pakistan. This does not mean that India cannot use the western river’s water. They are allowed to use it for limited irrigation and non-consumptive needs such as for generating electricity. This means that the treaty has allocated Pakistan 80 percent of the water from the six-river Indus water system. China has been kept out of the treaty even though Indus originates from Tibet because the topography of the Indus Water System does not allow China to change or stop the flow of the water. Neither of the countries can unilaterally walk out of the pact.

Indus Water Treaty is considered to be one of the most successful water-sharing endeavours in the world today. For 56 years, both India and Pakistan have been peacefully sharing the water of Indus and its tributaries, thanks to The Indus Water Treaty (IWT). But since the ratification, there have been a number of issues raised by both countries over the ethical use of the treaty and the water itself.

India has always treated the security issues and water issues as 2 different subjects.

The discussion also gave insights into the disputes and objections raised over this treaty.

The most frequently raised issue by Pakistan is that India can stop the water flow to Pakistan. Can India stop the water flow to Pakistan? No. Not as per the treaty. India can only utilize the provisions of the treaty to reduce the water flow by a small number but cannot completely stop the flow. India has in fact built many hydro power projects to which Pakistan has objected repeatedly. Even if India decides to reduce the water flow by a large amount, they do not have enough infrastructure to use the additional water and it may even create floods in Kashmir. The decision of not giving water to Pakistan may further enrage the terror elements in the country, making them intensify their attacks on India. This decision can also affect India’s relations with other countries like Nepal and Bangladesh with whom they have water treaties as well.

Most of the issues have been resolved with legal procedures and mutual understanding from both sides. Though after the 2016 Uri attacks, India threatened to revoke the Indus Water Treaty but so far the threats have not been materialised.

BTP Student: Sejal Kumar, Aysha Fazilath, Vyshakh Dharan, Rahul Patwardhan

UN Resolutions on Kashmir are Null & Void / Krishan Tyagi

Jammu & Kashmir – Ladakh Union Territories

Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions. Some aspects of Article 370 got diluted over the decades in the fields of judicial system and public administration.

As mentioned, Article 35A did not have any parliamentary sanction and was supposed to be temporary too.

However, there has been no response from the world leaders to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s SOS calls. Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Britain, France, Canada and other countries either ignored Pakistan’s requests for intervention or told Pak leaders that they were “watching the situation”! The European Union in response actually slammed Pakistan for exporting terror to India and Europe. Thinking that Pakistan might be useful to Americans in Afghanistan, US President Donald Trump flip-flopped between ‘being happy to mediate between India and Pakistan’ and ‘leaving it up to PM Modi to handle the situation’, that excited Pak leadership one minute and depressed the next.

Apart from that small achievement, whereafter Pak foreign minister bragged that “Kashmir issue has been internationalised”, Pakistan drew blank in the international diplomacy. Even the members of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) and other Muslim countries did not support Pakistan on the issue. Actually as a slap in the face for Imran Khan, the UAE made its stand loud and clear that the removal of Article 370 from its Constitution was India’s internal matter.

Let us look at the UNSC Resolutions in detail and their brief background –

At the UN Security Council, in relation to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, Resolutions 38, 39, 47, and 51 were passed in 1948, Resolution 80 was passed in 1950, Resolution 91 was passed in 1951 and Resolution 122 in 1957.

Among them, the main resolution was the UNSC Resolution 47, adopted on 21 April 1948, wherein the proposal to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir was made, that we will be looking in more details in the coming paragraphs.

Before that the Resolution 38 of 17 January 1948 called upon both India and Pakistan to take immediate measures (including public appeals) to improve the situation on the ground, and to refrain from doing anything which might aggravate the situation. Under the Resolution 39 of 20 January 1948, the UNSC constituted a Commission, called UN Commission for India and Pakistan, to resolve the dispute between them over the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Resolution 51 of 03 June 1948 was just a follow up of Resolution 47 directing the UN Commission to visit the areas of dispute. However, as detailed below, for years no progress took place on Resolution 47 and the story of further Resolutions is that of disagreements over the withdrawal of troops.

its nationals from Kashmir, ie the parts of the state that it occupied through, as seen by the UNSC, an unlawful invasion. To quote the original text, the Resolution said: “The Government of Pakistan should undertake to use its best endeavours to secure the withdrawal from the state of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the state for the purpose of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State.”

In the second step, India was asked to progressively reduce its forces to the minimum level required for law and order. The Resolution said, “when it is established to the satisfaction of the Commission (UN Commission for India and Pakistan) set up in accordance with the Council’s resolution 39 (1948) that the tribesmen are withdrawing and that arrangements for the cessation of the fighting have become effective, the Government of India should put into operation in consultation with the Commission a plan for withdrawing their own forces from Jammu and Kashmir and reducing them progressively to the minimum strength required for the support of the civil power in the maintenance of law and order.”

In the third step, India was asked to appoint a Plebiscite Administrator nominated by the United Nations who would conduct a free and impartial plebiscite. “When the Indian forces have been reduced to the minimum strength”, outlining the conditions such as equitable representation of both India and Pakistan in the administrative bodies for a fair plebiscite the Resolution laid out the third step, “The Government of India should undertake that there will be established in Jammu and Kashmir a Plebiscite Administration to hold plebiscite as soon as possible on the question of the accession of the State to India or Pakistan.”

As can be seen from the original text of the Resolution, the proposed three steps to resolve the Kashmir dispute were to be taken in sequence, meaning the second step was to be taken up on the completion of the first one, and the third step was to be taken up on the completion of the second one.

Pakistan never withdrew its nationals from Kashmir, the territory internationally called ‘Pak Occupied Kashmir’. And, because Pakistan did not take the first step that it was asked to, and thus even the first condition for conducting the plebiscite did not get fulfilled, things did not move further.

So, the reality of the UNSC Resolutions on Kashmir is that it was Pakistan that defied the UNSC directions and did not leave the parts of Kashmir that it occupied through an unlawful invasion, rendering the UNSC Resolution ineffective.

In fact, the founder and first Governor General of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not believe in a plebiscite. On 1 November 1947 Jinnah rejected Indian Governor General Lord Mountbatten’s proposal to decide the accession of Junagarh, Hyderabad and Kashmir by an ‘impartial reference to the will of the people’. His reply to Lord Mountbatten was that a plebiscite was unnecessary and states should accede according to their majority population. Jinnah was willing to urge Junagarh to accede to India in return for Kashmir. When Mountbatten suggested that the plebiscite could be conducted by the United Nations, Jinnah again rejected the proposal, hoping that the invasion would succeed and Pakistan might lose a plebiscite. According to constitutional expert AG Noorani, Jinnah ended up squandering his leverage.

Later for the plebiscite, Jinnah demanded simultaneous troop withdrawal, but it was not accepted as the UNSC accepted the legitimacy of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir because of the Instrument of Accession, while Pakistani forces invading the state was seen as an hostile and unlawful act. And thus Pakistan did not withdraw its nationals as directed by the UNSC. In fact, in a complete violation of the UNSC Resolution, in May 1948 the Pakistani army officially entered the conflict.

that State of Pakistan transformed itself into another State called Bangladesh in 1971, a fully-fledged Member State of the United Nations in its own right since. So, a smaller part of the erstwhile State of Pakistan cannot claim itself to be the inheritor of that State of Pakistan which was the party to the dispute with India, even if it calls itself Pakistan, as the present day India cannot make claims on behalf of the India of Ashoka’s or even British times. In the concerned UNSC Resolution, present day Bangladesh, the then East Pakistan, was a joint claimant as a part of Pakistan. The present day Pakistan can only pursue that claim if Bangladesh joins it in pursuing that claim.

No respect for beggars – Pak Paper reminds it’s Countrymen

Courtesy: Pakistan Today

Dawn newspaper publishes an article as a rare example of responsible and realistic journalism

“There is no respect for beggars in the international community, especially when our image is portrayed as a state marred by terrorism and economic failure” admits the columnist

“In these circumstances, none of the countries will dare stand with us in these testing times” he adds, “Therefore, the only way to come out of this Kashmir imbroglio is to improve our economic conditions.”

“The current government came to power a year ago with a lot of promises of economic prosperity and investment but it seems none of the targets is being achieved.”

“We tried options like resorting to direct military interventions and using proxies to liberate Kashmir, but all in vain. We did not manage to liberate Kashmir. Similarly, we outsourced jihad to various ‘jaishs’ and ‘lashkars’ but these outfits further defamed us.”

Mirror To Mirror with Former BBC Correspondent Krishan Tyagi

Pakistan never recognised that Jammu & Kashmir enjoyed a special status in the Union of India through Article 370 and Article 35A in the Constitution of India. Pak government, establishment and media call the Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir “Maqbooza Kashmir” (Occupied Kashmir) using the formal phrase “Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK)”. But the moment the Modi government decided to abandon those provisions, Pakistan decided it is a violation of some agreement with Pakistan! Pakistani establishment claimed the Article 370 could not be removed unilaterally by India.

As the Indian parliament passed the resolutions to abrogate Article 370 (and Article 35A as a consequence) and reorganised the region into two Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladhakh, Pakistan reacted sharply. Pakistan’s national assembly in a joint session condemned India for unilaterally changing the status of Jammu & Kashmir. Pakistan downgraded the diplomatic relations with India by sending the Indian envoy back home; the trade with India has been completely stopped; the train and bus services between the two countries have been stopped; Pakistani air space has again been restricted for Indian planes; and most importantly, Pakistan is taking the matter to the United Nations Security Council and International Court of Justice, if possible. Prime Minister Imran Khan has phoned world leaders and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has visited Beijing seeking China’s support at the UNSC in order to make India withdraw its measure in relation to Jammu and Kashmir.

There has not been much of a reaction from the Indian government to the unilateral measures taken by the Pak government. The only response from the Indian government that we saw during the week was that the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Ravish Kumar asked Pakistan to review its decision to downgrade the ties with India.

However, the Indian media as well as Pak media have been taking great interest in the developments in Pakistan in the field. The Indian media in general dismissed the Imran Khan government’s attempts to garner international support against India as desperate and fruitless efforts. For instance, Palki Sharma Upadhyay at WION News, India’s global news channel, wished Pakistan “Good Luck” in its efforts. On the other hand, as expected Pak media has been very supportive of their government.

Different television channels have joined their government in severely criticising the present Indian government’s measure to absorb “disputed Jammu and Kashmir” into India; condemned “Indian atrocities on Kashmiri people”; and used abusive words for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

On the Pakistani television news channel 24 News,one of the senior most Pak journalists, Najam Sethi who also believed that India has acted inappropriately, presented a very realistic assessment of the options available to the Pakistan establishment in its opposition to the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution in relation to Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Sethi reported that there was no positive response from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the US or China to PM Khan’s phone calls and FM Qureshi’s visit to Beijing. These countries at present have very strong trade and investment relations with India, and it is not in their national interest to annoy India. China particularly at this moment is not very happy with Pakistan. Turkey is the only country that has supported Pakistan on the issue. Basically, Pakistan doesn’t have much of international support.

Najam Sethi also talked of the UN Resolutions on Kashmir proposing a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. Generally the people in Pakistan think the plebiscite was supposed to take place in the Indian region of Jammu & Kashmir only. Because the plebiscite did not take place, Pakistan calls Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir, as mentioned, “Indian Occupied Kashmir” and the area under its own control “Azad Kashmir (Free Kashmir)”. Mr Sethi informed the 24 News viewers that according to the concerned UN Resolutions, the plebiscite was to be held in the whole of Jammu & Kashmir, INCLUDING THE KASHMIR UNDER PAKISTANI CONTROL.

However, as mentioned in the review, even Mr Sethi, a very mature journalist, omitted the extremely important detail of the UNSC Resolution 47, adopted on 21 April 1948, wherein the proposal to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir was made. The Resolution had recommended a three-step processfor the resolution of the dispute between India and Pakistan. In the first step, Pakistan was asked to withdraw all its nationals from Kashmir. In the second step, India was asked to progressively reduce its forces to the minimum level required for law and order. In the third step, India was asked to appoint a plebiscite administrator nominated by the United Nations who would conduct a free and impartial plebiscite. These steps were sequential, meaning the second step was to be taken up on the completion of the first one, and the third step was to be taken up on the completion of the second one. Mr Sethi kept quiet on the fact that the plebiscite did not take place because Pakistan did not fulfil the first condition. It never withdrew its nationals from Kashmir. So, the reality of the UN Resolutions on Kashmir is that they could not be acted upon because Pakistan did not keep its part. The responsibility for the non-implementation of the UN Resolutions lies with Pakistan.

Even more importantly, the fact is that the present state of Pakistan is not the state of Pakistan that was a party against the state of India in the UN Resolutions relating to Kashmir in 1948-1949. THAT STATE OF PAKISTAN NO LONGER EXISTS. More than half of the population of that State of Pakistan transformed itself into another State called Bangladesh in 1971. So, a smaller part of that State cannot claim itself to be the inheritor of the erstwhile State of Pakistan, the party to the dispute with India, even if it calls itself Pakistan. In that Resolution, present day Bangladesh, the then East Pakistan, was a joint claimant as a part of Pakistan. The present day Pakistan can only pursue that claim if Bangladesh joins it in pursuing that claim.

So, all the UN Resolutions relating to Jammu and Kashmir, where the State of India and the then State of Pakistan were the parties to the dispute, are null & void after the transformation of East Pakistan into Bangladesh.

But, no one including Indian political leaders and Indian media has ever told Pakistan.

Courtesy mirrortomirror.com

Water Issues Between Riparian States : India and Pakistan

Water is a bone of contention between neighboring states competing for control of those resources. Since 1948, nearly 40 incidents of hostilities have taken place over water. Of the world’s 263 international basins, Asia alone has 57 basins. The Himalayan rim of South Asia are a key sub-region for examining the impact of water as a negotiating vehicle for promoting cooperation and prosperity.

India

Over the past 150 years India has made large investments in large scale water infrastructure, much of which brings water to previously water-scarce areas. This has resulted in a dramatic economic shift, with once-arid areas becoming the centers of economic growth, while the historically well-watered areas have seen much slower progress. For the most part the results of this “hydraulic infrastructure platform” have been spectacular both nationally (through the production of food grains and electricity, for example) and regionally (where such projects have generated large direct and equally large indirect economic benefits). The poor have benefited hugely from such investments. The incidence of poverty in irrigated districts is one third of that in unirrigated districts[1].

Two-thirds of India’s water resources potential come from only two river basins namely, the Indus and Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM). India occupies a unique position in this respect. There is abundance of Water and Hydro Power potential within the country and in its neighbouring states. The potential can be used both constructively as well as destructively. The first decade of the millennium has been marked by what has often been described as oil wars – confrontation over dwindling hydrocarbon fuel resources. Will the next decade be marked by confrontation over water and hydro energy, or will it be known for cooperation over sharing the natural resources?

One source of optimism is the fact that India has successfully drawn up water resources related bilateral treaties with three of its Asian neighbours – Pakistan, Nepal andBangladesh.

Indo-Pak

With Pakistan, it was the Indus Water Treaty which has completed a mind boggling 48 years of successful implementation. Since its coming into force in 1960 only once in 1999, after construction began, Pakistan claimed some design parameters of Baglihar project violated the Indus Water Treaty. Indus Water Treaty had provided India with exclusive control to three eastern rivers while Pakistan with exclusive control to three western rivers, including Chenab River. However it contained provisions for India to establish river-run power projects with limited reservoir capacity and flow control needed for feasible power generation. Availing the provision, India established several run-of-the-river projects most of which were not objected to by Pakistan. However, in case of Baglihar and Kishan-Ganga projects, Pakistan claimed that some design parameters were more lax than needed for power generation and provided India with excessive ability to accelerate, decelerate or block flow of river. This, it was felt, may give India a strategic leverage in times of tension or war.

During 1999-2004 India and Pakistan held several rounds of talks on the design of projects, but could not reach an agreement. After failure of talks on January 18, 2005Pakistan raised six objections and took up the matter with the World Bank, which was a broker and signatory of Indus Water Treaty. In April 2005 the World Bank determined Pakistani claim as a ‘Difference’, a classification between less serious ‘Question’ and more serious ‘Dispute’ and in May 2005 appointed Professor Raymond Lafitte, a Swiss civil engineer, to adjudicate the difference.

Lafitte declared his final verdict on February 12, 2007, in which he partially upheld some objections of Pakistan declaring that pondage capacity be reduced by 13.5%, height of dam structure be reduced by 1.5 meter and power intake tunnels be raised by 3 meters, thereby limiting some flow control capabilities of earlier design. However he rejected Pakistani objections on height and gated control of spillway declaring these were conforming to engineering norms of the day.

Both parties (India and Pakistan) have already agreed that they will abide by the final verdict. This peaceful settlement of the only major discord in nearly half a century is an even greater achievement, considering the fact that the two neighbors have gone to war thrice on other issues.

[1] World Bank Report, India’s Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future, John Briscoe