Latest news with #HusaynibnAli
Sky News AU
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Thousands gather for religious festival in Iran
Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in Iran for Ashura to commemorate the death of Husayn ibn Ali. This year's festival has taken on added significance due to the conflict Iran has faced with both the US and Israel. Iranians came together in Tehran to celebrate resistance against oppression, which resonates powerfully today with recent attacks on Iran.
Time Out Dubai
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Time Out Dubai
UAE Islamic New Year 2025 holiday announced
The United Arab Emirates has announced the official Islamic New Year public holiday for 2025. Private and public sector workers will enjoy a bumper three-day long weekend between Friday June 27 and Sunday June 29. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) revealed that Friday June 27 will be the official Islamic New Year holiday for private sector workers. And the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources also revealed that Friday June 27 will be the official holiday for government workers. Last year, the Islamic New Year fell on a weekend –which, for most people in the UAE, is already a weekend – and this year it looks like we're set for a day off. The Islamic New Year marks the start of the Hijri calendar and the first day of the month of Muharram. While the public holiday marking the start of the new Islamic year has been announced, we won't know when the Hijri month begins until the evening of Wednesday June 25. Current predictions indicate that the celebration will fall on Thursday June 26, but there is a chance it could fall on Friday June 27, if Dhu Al Hijjah is a 30-day month. According to the UAE Public Holiday law introduced at the start of 2025, official holidays can be moved to the beginning or end of the week by cabinet decision. It's the first time since the law was introduced that the cabinet has used this power to move the holiday to ensure a long weekend. What is Islamic New Year? The Islamic New Year marks the beginning of every year in the Hijri calendar and falls on the first day of Muharram. Also referred to as Hijra or Al Hijri, the occasion is celebrated like any other public holiday in Dubai with big fireworks displays, dining deals and more. During Muharram, particularly on the 10th day known as Ashura, Muslims commemorate various historical events, including the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, in the Battle of Karbala. This day holds profound significance, especially for Shia Muslims, who participate in mourning rituals and processions. Why the Islamic New Year holiday date changes every year The upcoming holiday is one of four public holidays in the UAE that rely on the Islamic calendar to determine when it begins. Also known as the Hijri calendar, the Islamic calendar is based on the cycles of the moon, unlike the more widely used Gregorian calendar, which is based on the sun. In the Islamic calendar, a new month begins with the sighting of the new crescent moon. This can sometimes lead to slight variations in the start of months between different regions due to differences in moon sighting. (This also explains why Ramadan and Eid start on different days in different countries). You might also like: UAE public holidays: Every long weekend to look forward to in 2025 The dates to know 22 pictures that show how much Dubai has changed from the 1950s to today Take a look at these unrecognisable photos of the city 112 best things to do in Dubai in 2025 Everything to tick off your Dubai bucket list
Hindustan Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Forgotten water war that led to the Indus Waters Treaty
Through the annals of history, we find the weaponisation of water as a crucial strategy among belligerent nations. In 680 CE, the Umayyad forces led by Yazid I effectively blocked the enemy's access to the Euphrates River, defeating the Prophet's grandson Husayn ibn Ali and his followers. While Yazid blocked the water, there were many examples of flooding as a war strategy in history. A study on the southwestern Netherlands by Adriaan de Kraker points to the cause of one-third of all floods between 1500 and 2000 to the deliberate human interventions during warfare. Thus, water as a weapon is a time-tested defence strategy that often forgets humanitarian or environmental concerns. Nearly 40% of the world population is sustained by 276 transboundary river basins, which produce 60% of global fresh water, resulting in acrimonious disputes across boundaries. And the recent decision of the Government of India to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty yet again aroused multifarious debates on the use of water as a weapon. To get a holistic and deeper understanding of the issue, one must look back into the history of the Indus Basin Irrigation System, the world's largest contiguous irrigation system. The transboundary Indus basin, with a total area of 1.12 million square kilometres, is shared between India, Pakistan, Tibet (China), and Afghanistan. The Indus system comprises the main river Indus and major tributaries: the Kabul, the Swat and the Kurram from the west and the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej in the east. Since the start of civilisation, the basin's waters have been used to irrigate agricultural land. But the British colonial project of bringing more land under the command of centralised irrigation metamorphosed the region like never before. The colonisers saw the technocratic taming of one of the world's largest river systems as a legitimising tool to portray the colonial regime as a benevolent one. The massive transformation of the region began in 1859 with the completion of the Upper Bari Doab Canal, intended to irrigate one million acres of land between the Ravi and the Beas. The disputes over water resources were not uncommon and were resolved by local authorities in pre-colonial times. But with the massive colonial infrastructure, disputes were between provinces, viz. Punjab, Sind, Bahawalpur and Bikaner. The interstate disputes over the water of the Indus system were neutrally mediated by the central government, and it appointed commissions to arbitrate them. Colonial records show various instances of appointment of such commissions, viz., Anderson Commission (1935) and Rau Commission (1942). To get an understanding of a colonial dispute, one must look into the circumstances behind the appointment of the Rau Commission. There was a tripartite agreement between Punjab, Bikaner and Bahawalpur in 1919 that led to the Sutlej Valley Project, and it was silent on the rights of lower riparian states such as Khairpur and Sind. The feeling of insecurity among Sind also arose after the sanctioning of the Triple Canal project of Punjab, and the Sind administration pushed with a proposal for the Sukkur Barrage Scheme (and a perennial canal system taking off from it). A formal complaint was filed with the Governor-General of India by the Sind administration about the Bhakra project being initiated by Punjab in October 1939. As irrigation was a provincial subject, the Indus Commission was appointed under Justice BN Rau with quasi-judicial powers in 1941. The arguments put forward by Sind were interesting, as they not only complained about Punjab-side encroachment upon their rights, but also forecasted future actions from Punjab. The Rau Commission, however, acknowledged the possible damages to the inundation canals of Sind by the Bhakra project and directed Punjab to contribute to the construction of two barrages--in Gudu and Kotri-Hyderabad--across the Indus River. The Rau Commission reiterated that the solution to water disputes must come from technical solutions aimed at the community's good rather than focusing on parochial political boundaries. Neither party accepted the decision of the commission and went ahead with an appeal to the central government. Having failed to come to a final accord after multiple meetings with the officials in 1947, the case was transferred to the office of the secretary of state for India. But the brewing political storms soon transformed this interstate dispute into an international conflict. The partition of British India (1947) into two independent nations – India and Pakistan – was a watershed moment in the history of the modern world. The event was preceded and followed by massive migrations and horrific violence, which displaced 15 million people and killed between one and two million people. This political process divided the Indus basin into two: 47% of the total land area went to Pakistan, and 39% to India. While India had a larger population dependent on the Indus water system – 31 million people, compared to 25 million in Pakistan (based on the 1941 census). Technically, the British kept their hands off from partitioning the Indus water system among the two newly independent nations. British technocrats found it difficult to digest the partitioning of a system they integrated as an engineering marvel. The chief engineer of Punjab, AMR Montagu, found that any attempt to allocate the partition boundary in the Indus system was a profitless exercise. As a technician, he preferred water that 'follows immutable laws of nature' over man who makes and breaks the law as he moves along. The man who drew the partition line, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, found it impossible to divide the system into separate and rationalised segments between the two countries. He reportedly suggested to Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah that they should agree in advance on a joint management of the irrigation system post-partition. A member of the Punjab Boundary Commission, Justice Muhammad Munir later remembered Sir Radcliffe was 'obsessed' with the effects of partition on the canal system – a monument to the benevolence of British colonial rule! Viewing it the other way, Historian Lucy P Chester argued that the British wanted to put the responsibility on Indians for the decisions, even when the former controlled the boundary demarcation process. The technocrats who managed the Indus irrigation system were status-quoists when it came to the allocation of authorised shares to both nation-States. It was evident by the arrangement made by the chief engineers of East Punjab (India) and West Punjab (Pakistan) in signing a Standstill Agreement on December 20, 1947, which maintained the existing water allocation till the end of the ongoing rabi crop, marked on March 31, 1948. The nature of the partition was that the diversion structures of some of the systems and the existing headwork of Upper Bari Doab Canal and the Sutlej Valley Project remained in India, while the lands irrigated by those waters were in Pakistan. This disputed position ensured that the larger storm was in the making, and it happened on April 1, 1948, when the authorities in East Punjab halted the supply of water from Ferozepur headworks to Dipalpur canal and the main branches of Upper Bari Doab Canal that flow into West Pakistan territory upon the expiration of the Standstill Agreement. The real reason behind such a move is still not known, but is often attributed to the inaction or indifference of the West Punjab side to negotiate for any further arrangement till the expiration. The assessment of South Asian commentators, like former civil servant Rushbrook Williams, was blunter as he found serious fault in the Pakistani side in not paying water dues, and justified that the East Punjab side applied the pre-partition rule of not allocating water. The April 1948 water stoppage affected the Pakistani morale in multifarious ways. Historian David Gilmartin opined that the stopping of the canal water as a singular event in the first year of Pakistan's existence brought 'natural' and 'national' meaning to the artificial boundary made by Radcliffe. The provincial capital of West Pakistan, Lahore, experienced the wrath of the water blockade as the Lahore branch of the Upper Bari Doab Canal bifurcated the city into civil lines and cantonment. The urban area's identity as a garden city soon gave way to narratives of green fields turning barren under 'the merciless sun' in national newspapers. The creation of 'apprehension and anxiety' in the Pakistani psyche was the major result of the blockade. A general sentiment of a 'national ordeal' was attributed to Pakistan's disadvantageous position as a lower riparian state. Pakistani author Saadat Hasan Manto's Yazid, aptly named after the Umayyad Caliph mentioned in the beginning of this essay, outlines the general feeling in West Pakistan about the decision, where a character, Jeena, on hearing about the Indian decision to 'close' the river, laughed in disbelief and responded that they are not speaking of a drain and closing the river is impossible. Apart from denying water to the 5.5 per cent of the sown area in the crucial kharif sowing phase and the municipal areas of Lahore, the power from the Mandi Hydroelectric Scheme was also cut off. Some of India's arguments were to assert its proprietary right over the Indus waters. At the same time, some scholars pointed to socio-political factors as the reason for the Indian blockade. That includes: Pressuring Pakistan to remove their 'volunteers' from Kashmir; to wreck the Pakistani economy and to demonstrate the inability and impracticality of Pakistan as a nation; and retaliation for the imposition of export duty on raw jute. Though the 1948 water blockade came as an East Punjab action, possibly to retaliate against the wounds of partition and to assert their authority over natural resources, the defence of that action by the central government before the international community points to the possibility of socio-political factors. Ruling out war as an option to reclaim their lost water, Pakistan chose the path of negotiation for restoring canal waters and sent a delegation to New Delhi. The Inter-Dominion conference was held in Delhi from 3-4 May 1948, and the Delhi Agreement was signed. The Indian side remained firm about its proprietary rights over the eastern rivers (Sutlej, Beas and Ravi), and insisted Pakistan pay for the water till they find a replacement. The Indian side claimed that the Pakistani agreement to pay acknowledged India's proprietary rights, while Pakistan maintained that it was the cost of operating and maintaining irrigation works. Pakistan got some breathing space, as in the spirit of goodwill and friendship, India assured that it would not suddenly withhold water and provided the former to develop alternative sources. Due to differences in interpreting provisions and a series of decisions and actions from both sides, Pakistan denounced the Delhi Agreement in 1950. Pakistan wanted to take this to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or to the UN Security Council, while India denied any third-party involvement and sought to make the Delhi Agreement permanent. Despite being a short-lived agreement contrary to expectations, the Delhi Agreement provided a modus vivendi until a formal treaty came into being after international mediation in 1960. An exit from the ongoing stalemate occurred with the visit of David Lilienthal, former Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the US Atomic Energy Commission, to India and Pakistan in February 1951. He did not view the Indus problem as a political or religious one, but rather found the feasibility of engineering solutions to deal with it. While commenting on Pakistan's proposal to bring the case to the ICJ, even though Pakistan may turn victorious, he cautioned not to antagonise India, which could derail active partnership in future between the two nations. Lilienthal, in his famed article after his visit, pressed for treating and developing the Indus system as a single unit with the financial backup of India, Pakistan and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (hereafter mentioned, World Bank). He asked for the management of the basin by an Indo-Pakistan joint body or a multinational body. Soon after the recommendations from Lilienthal, a quick positive response came from Eugene Black, the then President of the World Bank, to use his good office to negotiate for a settlement purely based on technical and engineering grounds. In this context, it is necessary to note that India had approached the World Bank for loans for the construction of the Bhakra-Nangal Project, which was objected to by Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan's financial requests for constructing the Kotri Barrage were objected to by India. Thus, the World Bank was the most suited international body to help negotiate an agreement on the Indus basin. Both parties agreed to the World Bank intervention on March 10 1952, and also agreed not to reduce the share of water for actual use till the mediations are over. The comprehensive plan of the World Bank, without accounting for sensitive issues, was rejected by both parties, ending the Bank's hopes for a quick resolution. While Pakistan pressed for their historical rights over the Indus waters, India argued that any future allocation shall not be based on the previous distribution. The most accepted solution was the allocation of the waters of western tributaries (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan and eastern tributaries (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India. Even then, there was a plethora of debates on this quantitative allocation of water. But this remained the best possible solution regarding the basin, which allowed the two nations to carry out development activities independently of one another, which was a clear departure from the single-unit management proposed by Lilienthal. The Indus Waters Treaty was hailed as a very successful international water arrangement globally. Despite multiple interventions by India to review the treaty in the past few years, after the barbaric terrorist attack on the tourists in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir, the Government of India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty. As expected, Pakistan threatened the decision with war cries as in 1947, and both countries had military skirmishes across the border. While Pakistan supports terror camps from their soil, it has been negligent in building its capacity. With the World Bank refusing to intervene, a crisis-stricken Pakistan had lost an important national resource. The suspension of a long-lived international treaty by the Indian government has become a diplomatic tool to isolate Pakistan and its State policy of supporting terrorism. This article is authored by Mahendranath Sudhindranath, senior research fellow, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Hindustan Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Forgotten water war that led to the Indus Water Treaty
Through the annals of history, we find the weaponisation of water as a crucial strategy among belligerent nations. In 680 CE, the Umayyad forces led by Yazid I effectively blocked the enemy's access to the Euphrates River, defeating the Prophet's grandson Husayn ibn Ali and his followers. While Yazid blocked the water, there were many examples of flooding as a war strategy in history. A study on the southwestern Netherlands by Adriaan de Kraker points to the cause of one-third of all floods between 1500 and 2000 to the deliberate human interventions during warfare. Thus, water as a weapon is a time-tested defence strategy that often forgets humanitarian or environmental concerns. Nearly 40% of the world population is sustained by 276 transboundary river basins, which produce 60% of global fresh water, resulting in acrimonious disputes across boundaries. And the recent decision of the Government of India to suspend the Indus Water Treaty yet again aroused multifarious debates on the use of water as a weapon. To get a holistic and deeper understanding of the issue, one must look back into the history of the Indus Basin Irrigation System, the world's largest contiguous irrigation system. The transboundary Indus basin, with a total area of 1.12 million square kilometres, is shared between India, Pakistan, Tibet (China), and Afghanistan. The Indus system comprises the main river Indus and major tributaries: the Kabul, the Swat and the Kurram from the west and the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej in the east. Since the start of civilisation, the basin's waters have been used to irrigate agricultural land. But the British colonial project of bringing more land under the command of centralised irrigation metamorphosed the region like never before. The colonisers saw the technocratic taming of one of the world's largest river systems as a legitimising tool to portray the colonial regime as a benevolent one. The massive transformation of the region began in 1859 with the completion of the Upper Bari Doab Canal, intended to irrigate one million acres of land between the Ravi and the Beas. The disputes over water resources were not uncommon and were resolved by local authorities in pre-colonial times. But with the massive colonial infrastructure, disputes were between provinces, viz. Punjab, Sind, Bahawalpur and Bikaner. The interstate disputes over the water of the Indus system were neutrally mediated by the central government, and it appointed commissions to arbitrate them. Colonial records show various instances of appointment of such commissions, viz., Anderson Commission (1935) and Rau Commission (1942). To get an understanding of a colonial dispute, one must look into the circumstances behind the appointment of the Rau Commission. There was a tripartite agreement between Punjab, Bikaner and Bahawalpur in 1919 that led to the Sutlej Valley Project, and it was silent on the rights of lower riparian states such as Khairpur and Sind. The feeling of insecurity among Sind also arose after the sanctioning of the Triple Canal project of Punjab, and the Sind administration pushed with a proposal for the Sukkur Barrage Scheme (and a perennial canal system taking off from it). A formal complaint was filed with the Governor-General of India by the Sind administration about the Bhakra project being initiated by Punjab in October 1939. As irrigation was a provincial subject, the Indus Commission was appointed under Justice BN Rau with quasi-judicial powers in 1941. The arguments put forward by Sind were interesting, as they not only complained about Punjab-side encroachment upon their rights, but also forecasted future actions from Punjab. The Rau Commission, however, acknowledged the possible damages to the inundation canals of Sind by the Bhakra project and directed Punjab to contribute to the construction of two barrages--in Gudu and Kotri-Hyderabad--across the Indus River. The Rau Commission reiterated that the solution to water disputes must come from technical solutions aimed at the community's good rather than focusing on parochial political boundaries. Neither party accepted the decision of the commission and went ahead with an appeal to the central government. Having failed to come to a final accord after multiple meetings with the officials in 1947, the case was transferred to the office of the secretary of state for India. But the brewing political storms soon transformed this interstate dispute into an international conflict. The partition of British India (1947) into two independent nations – India and Pakistan – was a watershed moment in the history of the modern world. The event was preceded and followed by massive migrations and horrific violence, which displaced 15 million people and killed between one and two million people. This political process divided the Indus basin into two: 47% of the total land area went to Pakistan, and 39% to India. While India had a larger population dependent on the Indus water system – 31 million people, compared to 25 million in Pakistan (based on the 1941 census). Technically, the British kept their hands off from partitioning the Indus water system among the two newly independent nations. British technocrats found it difficult to digest the partitioning of a system they integrated as an engineering marvel. The chief engineer of Punjab, AMR Montagu, found that any attempt to allocate the partition boundary in the Indus system was a profitless exercise. As a technician, he preferred water that 'follows immutable laws of nature' over man who makes and breaks the law as he moves along. The man who drew the partition line, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, found it impossible to divide the system into separate and rationalised segments between the two countries. He reportedly suggested to Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah that they should agree in advance on a joint management of the irrigation system post-partition. A member of the Punjab Boundary Commission, Justice Muhammad Munir later remembered Sir Radcliffe was 'obsessed' with the effects of partition on the canal system – a monument to the benevolence of British colonial rule! Viewing it the other way, Historian Lucy P Chester argued that the British wanted to put the responsibility on Indians for the decisions, even when the former controlled the boundary demarcation process. The technocrats who managed the Indus irrigation system were status-quoists when it came to the allocation of authorised shares to both nation-States. It was evident by the arrangement made by the chief engineers of East Punjab (India) and West Punjab (Pakistan) in signing a Standstill Agreement on December 20, 1947, which maintained the existing water allocation till the end of the ongoing rabi crop, marked on March 31, 1948. The nature of the partition was that the diversion structures of some of the systems and the existing headwork of Upper Bari Doab Canal and the Sutlej Valley Project remained in India, while the lands irrigated by those waters were in Pakistan. This disputed position ensured that the larger storm was in the making, and it happened on April 1, 1948, when the authorities in East Punjab halted the supply of water from Ferozepur headworks to Dipalpur canal and the main branches of Upper Bari Doab Canal that flow into West Pakistan territory upon the expiration of the Standstill Agreement. The real reason behind such a move is still not known, but is often attributed to the inaction or indifference of the West Punjab side to negotiate for any further arrangement till the expiration. The assessment of South Asian commentators, like former civil servant Rushbrook Williams, was blunter as he found serious fault in the Pakistani side in not paying water dues, and justified that the East Punjab side applied the pre-partition rule of not allocating water. The April 1948 water stoppage affected the Pakistani morale in multifarious ways. Historian David Gilmartin opined that the stopping of the canal water as a singular event in the first year of Pakistan's existence brought 'natural' and 'national' meaning to the artificial boundary made by Radcliffe. The provincial capital of West Pakistan, Lahore, experienced the wrath of the water blockade as the Lahore branch of the Upper Bari Doab Canal bifurcated the city into civil lines and cantonment. The urban area's identity as a garden city soon gave way to narratives of green fields turning barren under 'the merciless sun' in national newspapers. The creation of 'apprehension and anxiety' in the Pakistani psyche was the major result of the blockade. A general sentiment of a 'national ordeal' was attributed to Pakistan's disadvantageous position as a lower riparian state. Pakistani author Saadat Hasan Manto's Yazid, aptly named after the Umayyad Caliph mentioned in the beginning of this essay, outlines the general feeling in West Pakistan about the decision, where a character, Jeena, on hearing about the Indian decision to 'close' the river, laughed in disbelief and responded that they are not speaking of a drain and closing the river is impossible. Apart from denying water to the 5.5 per cent of the sown area in the crucial kharif sowing phase and the municipal areas of Lahore, the power from the Mandi Hydroelectric Scheme was also cut off. Some of India's arguments were to assert its proprietary right over the Indus waters. At the same time, some scholars pointed to socio-political factors as the reason for the Indian blockade. That includes: Pressuring Pakistan to remove their 'volunteers' from Kashmir; to wreck the Pakistani economy and to demonstrate the inability and impracticality of Pakistan as a nation; and retaliation for the imposition of export duty on raw jute. Though the 1948 water blockade came as an East Punjab action, possibly to retaliate against the wounds of partition and to assert their authority over natural resources, the defence of that action by the central government before the international community points to the possibility of socio-political factors. Ruling out war as an option to reclaim their lost water, Pakistan chose the path of negotiation for restoring canal waters and sent a delegation to New Delhi. The Inter-Dominion conference was held in Delhi from 3-4 May 1948, and the Delhi Agreement was signed. The Indian side remained firm about its proprietary rights over the eastern rivers (Sutlej, Beas and Ravi), and insisted Pakistan pay for the water till they find a replacement. The Indian side claimed that the Pakistani agreement to pay acknowledged India's proprietary rights, while Pakistan maintained that it was the cost of operating and maintaining irrigation works. Pakistan got some breathing space, as in the spirit of goodwill and friendship, India assured that it would not suddenly withhold water and provided the former to develop alternative sources. Due to differences in interpreting provisions and a series of decisions and actions from both sides, Pakistan denounced the Delhi Agreement in 1950. Pakistan wanted to take this to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or to the UN Security Council, while India denied any third-party involvement and sought to make the Delhi Agreement permanent. Despite being a short-lived agreement contrary to expectations, the Delhi Agreement provided a modus vivendi until a formal treaty came into being after international mediation in 1960. An exit from the ongoing stalemate occurred with the visit of David Lilienthal, former Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the US Atomic Energy Commission, to India and Pakistan in February 1951. He did not view the Indus problem as a political or religious one, but rather found the feasibility of engineering solutions to deal with it. While commenting on Pakistan's proposal to bring the case to the ICJ, even though Pakistan may turn victorious, he cautioned not to antagonise India, which could derail active partnership in future between the two nations. Lilienthal, in his famed article after his visit, pressed for treating and developing the Indus system as a single unit with the financial backup of India, Pakistan and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (hereafter mentioned, World Bank). He asked for the management of the basin by an Indo-Pakistan joint body or a multinational body. Soon after the recommendations from Lilienthal, a quick positive response came from Eugene Black, the then President of the World Bank, to use his good office to negotiate for a settlement purely based on technical and engineering grounds. In this context, it is necessary to note that India had approached the World Bank for loans for the construction of the Bhakra-Nangal Project, which was objected to by Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan's financial requests for constructing the Kotri Barrage were objected to by India. Thus, the World Bank was the most suited international body to help negotiate an agreement on the Indus basin. Both parties agreed to the World Bank intervention on March 10 1952, and also agreed not to reduce the share of water for actual use till the mediations are over. The comprehensive plan of the World Bank, without accounting for sensitive issues, was rejected by both parties, ending the Bank's hopes for a quick resolution. While Pakistan pressed for their historical rights over the Indus waters, India argued that any future allocation shall not be based on the previous distribution. The most accepted solution was the allocation of the waters of western tributaries (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan and eastern tributaries (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India. Even then, there was a plethora of debates on this quantitative allocation of water. But this remained the best possible solution regarding the basin, which allowed the two nations to carry out development activities independently of one another, which was a clear departure from the single-unit management proposed by Lilienthal. The Indus Water Treaty was hailed as a very successful international water arrangement globally. Despite multiple interventions by India to review the treaty in the past few years, after the barbaric terrorist attack on the tourists in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir, the Government of India suspended the Indus Water Treaty. As expected, Pakistan threatened the decision with war cries as in 1947, and both countries had military skirmishes across the border. While Pakistan supports terror camps from their soil, it has been negligent in building its capacity. With the World Bank refusing to intervene, a crisis-stricken Pakistan had lost an important national resource. The suspension of a long-lived international treaty by the Indian government has become a diplomatic tool to isolate Pakistan and its State policy of supporting terrorism. This article is authored by Mahendranath Sudhindranath, senior research fellow, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.
