India, Pakistan tensions put key water treaty in focus

By Aamir Latif and Zahid Rafiq

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - The Indus Water Treaty between Pakistan and India has come into the spotlight again following a deadly militant attack on an Indian army camp in the disputed Kashmir valley last month.

Some media reports have emerged that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi maybe pondering whether to scrap the decades-old key water-sharing agreement, leading Pakistan to warn that any such step would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Under the treaty, which was brokered by the World Bank in 1960, the waters of the eastern rivers – the Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi – have been allocated to India, while the three western rivers – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.

The much-needed treaty was the result of an international intervention following heightened tension between the two arch rivals over water sharing that had begun soon after the partition of the then "united India" in 1947.

Initially, the two countries had signed a three-month water sharing “standstill agreement” in 1947; however, the issue remained a flash point between the two neighbors till the signing of the Indus Water Treaty in 1960 following successful negotiations between the two governments brokered by the World Bank.

The agreement allows India limited use of water from the three eastern rives, including storage of 2.85 million acre feet water, in addition to full control over the three western rivers.

According to the treaty, Pakistan gets 131 million acre feet water annually, which provides almost 70 percent of Pakistan’s needs for irrigation. India, on the other hand, gets 26 million acre feet water from the three western rivers, which cope for less than 10 percent of India’s irrigation needs.

India has also been locked in a water tussle with China, which plans to construct its own dams and proposed diversion of the Brahmaputra River that originates in Tibet and provides a third of India’s needs for irrigation.

- Can India block Pakistan’s water?

Despite New Delhi’s threat to suspend the water treaty, experts believe India was incapable of doing it, legally or technically.

“This [threat] can serve as a political slogan for an irate India, but it is not capable of doing that because of several legal and technical handicaps,” Jamat Ali Shah, Pakistan’s former water commissioner, told Anadolu Agency.

Apart from international pressure in case India scraps the deal unilaterally, he said, India did not have the capacity to store such a huge quantity of water.

“It will take India years if it starts construction of dams and mega hydropower projects today to stop Pakistan’s water,” Shah, who served as water commissioner from 1993 to 2010, said.

Rabia Sultan, a Lahore-based water expert, also echoed the same views.

“India’s threat is just for [domestic] public consumption. International riparian laws are not easy to violate as they survive even wars,” Sultan said, referring to the 1965 and 1971 wars between Pakistan and India, which did not affect the treaty.

“India will not go that far as a unilateral scrapping would be a major thing to do, and the international community, especially big powers would not endorse that,” she said, adding that under international laws, a country that was denied water deemed to be central to its existence could go to war.

- ‘Disaster for Kashmir’

Shakil Romshoo, head of the earth sciences department at the University of Indian-held Kashmir, said New Delhi could only make noise about such a move.

“There are two things we are talking about: a legal way to abrogate the treaty and an illegal one. Legally, the agreement cannot be abrogated by one party, no matter what. To abrogate the Indus Water Treaty, India would have to go to the World Bank that will appoint a bench of judges and look into the matter,” Romshoo told Anadolu Agency.

Since the reason for abrogation of the treaty was not about water sharing but about war hysteria, the World Bank would never agree to it, he added.

“Stopping water to Pakistan without approaching the World Bank: that is illegal. And it is impossible to do because India does not have the infrastructure to do it and when India decides to do such a thing, it would simultaneously mean the drowning of huge parts of the [Indian-held] Kashmir.

“It will be a disaster for us in Kashmir," he added.