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The Hindu
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Renegotiation of the Indus Waters Treaty looks inevitable; an opportunity to address environmental issues: Daniel Haines
Sharing river waters across political geographies, be it within a sovereign country or between two or more nations, is always contentious. Matters become more complicated when rivers run across countries weighed down by discord. The Indus, which nested a historic civilisation; from which the world's largest democracy; a subcontinent; and, indeed, the third largest ocean; get their names, is among the world's longest rivers and runs across India and Pakistan, both birthed out of British India in 1947. The Indus basin, with a drainage area of about 1,165,000 sq km, according to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, was developed into a vast network of irrigated canals during British India, when the river system was within one political unit. The partition of India also meant that its waters were to be shared. After initial difficulties, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) – a tripartite agreement between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, World Bank), India and Pakistan – insulated the Indus from political bickering and, more specifically, episodes of warfare. However, on April 23, a day after the Pahalgam attack, India put the IWT in abeyance. In an interview to The Hindu, Daniel Haines, Associate Professor in the History of Risk and Disaster, Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London (UCL), discusses the making of the Treaty, the concerns flagged by both countries even before April 23, and the implications of the ongoing impasse. Professor Haines authored Rivers Divided: Water in the Making of India and Pakistan, (2017), which brings out the making of the Indus Waters Treaty in the context of a shared colonial history of the two countries and the Cold War era when the pact was signed, and Building the Empire, Building the Nation: Development, Legitimacy, and Hydro-Politics (2013) in Sind, 1919-1969, (2013). Although 'there are some parts of Pakistan that are really quite vulnerable', Prof. Haines says in this 20-minute interview given at UCL, 'it isn't the case that India has a kind of hand on the tap of the whole water supply to Pakistan.' Excerpts: Professor Haines, For the first time since the Indus Waters Treaty was signed, one of the signatories, India, has put it in abeyance. This was not the case in the past even during military escalations between the India and Pakistan. What are your initial reactions? This is a new development in the history of the Indus Waters Treaty. As you said, the Treaty, which was signed in 1960 to resolve issues to do with water sharing in the Indus basin allocating different streams to Pakistan and to India, has held remarkably steady throughout all of the previous military conflicts between India and Pakistan. In 1965, 1971, and in 1999. However, this year after the terror attack in Pahalgam, the Government of India put the treaty into abeyance, which means that it is not currently observing the strictures of the Treaty. Before we get into the details, could you take The Hindu's readers through 'sovereign rights' and 'territorial integrity' in the context of the Indus waters? Certainly. The basic issue between India and Pakistan is very similar to the basic issue between most countries where there are shared rivers and disputes over the allocation of water. One country is upstream and so has the first access to the water. The other country is downstream and is potentially vulnerable if the upstream country takes more water out of the system. In the case of India and Pakistan, this is really complicated by the history of partition and colonial canal development. Punjab, which is agriculturally the most important province of Pakistan, and the States of Punjab and Haryana, which are also agriculturally very important parts of India, were all developed as one single province under British colonial occupation in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1947, the partition boundary cut across this irrigation system, sliced it in two, and very quickly, the two governments of Punjab in India and Pakistan began disputing the operation of some canal headworks. The dispute started quite small. It was to do with the water flow in a couple of particular canals. It quickly scaled up, escalated to encompass the whole of the Indus Basin, or at least as much of it as in India and Pakistani controlled territory. Broadly speaking, the Indian argument was and remains that India has the right of sovereignty over the water which flows through Indian territory. In other words, any water that's going through Indian held territory is India's by right, and whatever India allows to flow to Pakistan is, if you like, a benefit, not a right, to Pakistan. As you might imagine, Pakistan has the exact opposite argument, which is that as the downstream party, it has complete rights to continue receiving water and India doesn't have the right to take anything out of the system beforehand. There are some layers of complication here because Pakistan's original arguments were based mainly on history in that most of the canal colonies constructed during the colonial period were in the parts of Punjab that again then became Pakistan and also in Sindh, which obviously was part of Pakistan after 1947. There is a principle known in international water law as prior appropriation, under which the person who first starts using the water has the right to continue using it. India's position is known in international law as the doctrine of absolute sovereignty. Does India's position as a successor state change any of these, or is it a [fresh] treaty between two independent countries? You mean a successor state of the British Empire? It has a really interesting angle on the Indus dispute. The short answer to your question is 'no'. When the two countries signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960, it didn't matter from a legal point of view that they had previously been part of one country. However, as the Indian government was formulating its position in the early days of the waters dispute, that turned out to be really important because both states didn't become fully separate from Britain, or rather, from the legacies of the empire. In those early days, they both remained part of the Commonwealth, the British Commonwealth. There was a provision which the Government of India had accepted in 1940 under British colonial control that Member States of the Commonwealth would not refer their international disputes to the International Court for Justice. That was really an attempt by Britain to keep the Commonwealth as a bit more like an empire but a bit less like a collection of completely independent countries. But the Government of India was able to use that provision to refuse Pakistan's requests to take the Indus dispute to international arbitration in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It required a lot of exchanges of letters and legal opinions within the Indian government to actually agree that Pakistan was technically a foreign state. That wasn't entirely clear to Jawaharlal Nehru or his senior advisors in the late 1940s, early 1950s. It's a little-known part of the end of Indus story, which I hope your readers might be interested in. The other point which you flag into your book is how India shut down the waters flowing into Pakistan in 1948. That, perhaps, catalysed the Treaty. Absolutely. In 1947, at the moment of partition, the governments of East and West Punjab signed something called a standstill agreement by which the engineers in East Punjab agreed to allow water to continue flowing into Pakistani Punjab. That standstill agreement, though, expired at the end of March 1948, and at the beginning of April 1948, East Punjab engineers shut down the water supplies into two quite important Pakistani canals. This had the effect of depriving, some estimates say, maybe eight per cent of Pakistan's cultivable land – of all the land in Western Pakistan, what is now Pakistan - would not be able to grow crops in that period. As you might imagine, this gave a real fright to the Pakistani government and to agriculturalists. So, the two governments, the Governments of India and Pakistan, got involved and in May 1948 signed an agreement by which Pakistan agreed to pay large charges to India for the continued flow of the Indus waters. Pakistan never made the payments and quickly repudiated that agreement. The whole arrangement ground to a stalemate until the early 1950s, when the World Bank began facilitating negotiations between the governments of India and Pakistan again. But why the World Bank? The World Bank got involved, I wouldn't say exactly by accident, but it's a funny story of how they got involved. There was an American technocrat [past Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority], David Lilienthal, who visited India and Pakistan in 1951 and then published an article arguing that the US needed to solve the Kashmir problem in order to let India and Pakistan resolve their regional differences, as he saw it, and join the western camp in the Cold War. But he thought that was unlikely to happen while the Kashmir conflict was ongoing. Lilienthal thought the Kashmir conflict would be too difficult for the Americans to solve. He was quite right about that. He thought the Indus waters dispute would be a good starting point as a kind of confidence building measure, so he proposed that the World Bank [International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD] could get involved rather than the US government as a third party. We know the Word Bank very well today. It's one of the most famous international institutions in the world, has a huge amount of power, well established ways of working. That was not the case in the early 1950s. It was a new institution. It had raised capital that it didn't really know what to do with, and it was looking for its role on the world stage. I don't know if the Bank would agree to an exercise like this now because it's outside its remit as it has been developed but in the 1950s it sounded okay to the Bank. So, the Bank, India and Pakistan all came together for three party negotiations, not bilateral. Quite unique, I would say. The other thing about the dispute right now is that although there is a sharing of waters, there were also constraints on the upstream state building reservoirs that seems to have been a bone of contention between the two states. Would you like to elaborate? Absolutely. The Indus Waters Treaty is really weird because what it's done is that it separated out tributaries of the Indus River system on a geographical basis. This is almost unheard of in international water agreements. Nearly all of them that that exist in the world are about sharing the waters of one stream of waters. If you take the Ganges Water Treaty, which India has with Bangladesh, signed in 1996, that's volumetric. It assigns a certain volume of the flow to India and a certain volume of the flow to Bangladesh at certain times of year. The Indus Treaty, by contrast, assigns the whole flows of the three Western tributaries that are normally called the Western rivers of the Indus basin to Pakistan. The Indus Main [defined by the treaty as 'the main stem of the named river excluding its tributaries but including all channels and creeks of the main stem of that river and such connecting lakes as form part of the main stem itself'], the Jhelum and the Chenab. India acquired full rights over the three Eastern rivers, which are the Sutlej, the Ravi, and the Beas. There was this caveat though: India was allowed to construct hydropower works on the Western rivers as long as they didn't materially interrupt the water flow, so Pakistan was supposed to receive about the same amount of water at about the same time of year from the same streams as it would if India hadn't constructed anything. The tension between India and Pakistan that we've seen since the late 1990s has really been over the specific provisions of the plans that India has developed for projects on the Western rivers which Pakistan has claimed breached the terms of the Treaty. So, would it be possible to say that the Treaty coming to this situation [India putting it in abeyance] was in the making and Pahalgam just hastened it? It's very difficult to say definitively without having an inside line on the thinking of senior decision makers in the Indian government, which I don't have, but I think it's fair to say that serious reservations and serious tension has been emerging for the Government of India, at least since the mid-2010s. There were a couple of third-party arbitration and decisions in the mid-2000s and the early 2010s. Broadly speaking, the first decision over Baglihar in 2005, roughly went in India's favour and the Court of Arbitration decision about the Kishan Ganga project in 2013 was more like a draw. So, there were points on both sides. But Pakistan certainly did better out of the 2013 decision than the 2005 one. After that, the mechanisms for addressing problems and tensions began to breakdown. To cut a long story short, India and Pakistan have both invoked separate resolution mechanisms and neither recognises the one that the other has been pursuing, and the World Bank has allowed both to run simultaneously. It's understandable from the Indian point of view why the Government got increasingly frustrated with the Treaty. At the beginning of 2023, the Indian government sent a note to the Government of Pakistan saying that it wanted to renegotiate aspects of the Treaty. And, if I had to guess, I would imagine that this probably had something to do with the dispute resolution mechanisms, which had, as I said, been increasingly frustrating to New Delhi. Coming to the now: what is the impact of the present action? You'll see a wildly different estimates of how much of an impact this could have on Pakistan, and I think a really firm answer would take a degree of hydrological knowledge that's a bit beyond what I can claim to, but I can give a rough idea. Very roughly speaking, as far as I can make out, just over a third of the water that Pakistan gets in the Indus River System comes through the Indian administered territory. This is way more than some estimates. I've seen some Pakistani environmentalists are asserting that Pakistan generates 90 per cent of its own surface water resources within its own territory, and I've seen alternative claims that India controls 80 per cent of Pakistan's water. I think the truth is in the middle. I think it's roughly one-third of the water seems to come from Indian territory that's under Indian control. And I'm not saying anything about the sovereignty of Jammu and Kashmir, I'm talking about who controls what territory. Now that is much less bad than some people in Pakistan might imagine, because the fear in Pakistan is India can effectively shut off water entirely. But where Pakistan really has vulnerabilities is on the river Chenab because that in that case India contributes pretty much the entire flow of the stream in as far as the river crosses into Pakistan, which has no storage works on the Chenab, so it doesn't have any capacity to build up a stock of water in case India interrupts the flow, which it could do on the Jhelum where it has the Mangla Dam, which is a big project or on the Indus Main Stem where it has a series of storage works. So, there are some parts of Pakistan that are really quite vulnerable. It isn't the case that India has a kind of hand on the tap of the whole water supply to Pakistan and at present because India has been restrained by the provisions of the Treaty for the storage works. It's been prevented from developing large amounts of storage on the Western rivers by the treaty so far. It would take years, if not decades, for India to really build up the capacity to have a huge impact on water flow.
Hans India
6 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
World Bank Approves $426M for Bengaluru Water Security and Flood Control Project
The World Bank has approved USD 426 million for Bengaluru. This money will help water for 4 million people. The project will fix 183 lakes. Lakes stop flooding by holding rainwater. It will help warn people about bad weather. The Disaster Centre will be stronger. The project will help the water board earn more. It will get USD 5 million from private money. The money will fix old pipes. It will add smart water meters. The plan will give sewer connections to 100,000 homes. It will build nine new sewage plants. Clean water will be used again for factories and to fill underground water. The loan is from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It will be paid back in 20 years. The first five years have no payments.
Business Times
16-06-2025
- Business
- Business Times
World Bank approves US$2.1 billion investment to support Indonesia's growth and clean energy goals
[JAKARTA] The World Bank has approved two major investment packages worth a combined US$2.1 billion to support job creation, economic growth, and the expansion of clean energy access across Indonesia. In a statement on Monday (Jun 16), the World Bank said these are the first initiatives it has approved in support of President Prabowo Subianto's goal of making Indonesia a high-income country by 2045. The package includes a US$1.5 billion policy-based loan under the Indonesia Productive and Sustainable Investment Development Policy Loan programme, aimed at deepening financial sector reform. The bank said it will promote the expansion of digital financial services, strengthen credit infrastructure, develop capital markets, and integrate climate and disaster risk considerations into financial planning. The reforms also target Indonesia's energy transition by easing procurement for renewable technologies through reduced local content requirements. Complementing these reforms, the second initiative – Sustainable Least-Cost Electrification-2 – focuses on expanding access to renewable energy. The programme aims to deliver electricity to 3.5 million people and support the development of 540 megawatts (MW) of solar and wind power, primarily in Kalimantan and Sumatra. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am Asean Business Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies. Sign Up Sign Up 'With over 3.5 million people gaining access to electricity, the operation is projected to catalyse improved livelihoods and the creation of more and better jobs – including for women-led enterprises,' said Carolyn Turk, World Bank country director for Indonesia and Timor-Leste. The initiative is expected to cut power generation costs by at least 8 per cent and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10 per cent in the target regions. The programme will be financed through a blended package comprising a US$600 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), US$12 million in grants from the IBRD Surplus-Funded Livable Planet Fund, and US$16 million in grants from global partners, including the United Kingdom and the Green Climate Fund under the Sustainable Renewables Risk Mitigation Initiative. Manuela Ferro, World Bank vice-president, East Asia and the Pacific, said 'Through blended finance instruments, the World Bank and partners will also help mobilise an additional US$345 million in private investments to finance solar and wind project, as part of a World Bank Regional Energy programme to create national and regional resilient and interconnected energy grids.' President Prabowo has set a bold target of achieving 8 per cent annual economic growth and creating millions of new jobs. However, the economy expanded by just 4.87 per cent in the first quarter of this year, the slowest pace since Q3 2021. The figure is a drop from 5.11 per cent in the same period last year, as Indonesia grapples with slowing consumer spending, weaker trade performance, and uncertainty over potential US tariffs. The World Bank has lowered its 2025 growth forecast for Indonesia from 5.1 per cent to 4.7 per cent, with a projected growth of 4.8 per cent for 2026.
Business Recorder
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Modi jeopardizing lives of 1.7bn people
Ajay Banga, the President of the World Bank, has said the following about Indus Water Treaty: 'There is no provision in the treaty to allow for suspension the way it was drawn up. It either needs to be gone, or replaced by another one, and that requires the two countries to want to agree.' He further stated that the Bank plays no decision-making role in the Indus Waters Treaty and acts solely as a facilitator: 'We have to pay the fees of those guys through a trust fund that was set up at the Bank at the time of creation of the treaty. That's our role. We have no role to play beyond that.' The writer is fond of looking at the pedigree to determine the discourse by a person. The sensible statement of Mr Banga, a person of Indian origin, reflects the nobleness of the pedigree. The search revealed that Mr Banga's family is originally from Jalandhar, Indian Punjab. His father, Harbhajan Singh Banga, is a retired lieutenant-general of the Indian army. This mind-set is completely different from that of Narendra Modi, who has jeopardized the lives of 1.7 billion (population of India and Pakistan) living in this area since he came to power in 2014; especially, through a misadventure on May 6 and 7, 2025. Though Mr Modi has a Master's Degree; however, he has not worked in any organisation ever to understand realities. He has misunderstood the dynamics of history, culture and mind-set of the people on both sides of the line of control. Now I dwell on some historical facts. The Indus Water Treaty, which governs the sharing of waters of the Indus River system between India and Pakistan, was indeed signed on September 19, 1960, and subsequent protocols were signed on November 27, and December 2 and 23 of the same year. It is not a bilateral document. It is a tripartite treaty. The third party is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank). It may be considered one of the most comprehensive treaties for water distribution where matters relating to waters of six rivers were settled. This is a unique one in the world with no precedent of this type of relocation of resources. The treaty included financial aspects also by way of Article V. Under that Article India paid 62 million pounds sterling for the construction of water works in Pakistan. These funds were managed by the World Bank. This is a settled position and the lifeline for the economy of Pakistan. At this stage the relevance of this treaty for Pakistan's agriculture is not the subject; however, there cannot be any unilateral action of this subject between two nuclear states as clarified by Mr Banga. The four-day war between India and Pakistan has ended after the intervention of US President Donald Trump. It is a continuation of a misery due to which 1.7 billion people living in this region are facing. This economic issue emanates from the RSS mind-set of a person from Gujarat who does not understand the facts and realities. This misery cannot continue for another seventy five years as is being shown by Modi and Indian media. The problem and solution are summarily discussed in the following paragraphs. The amounts of expenditure incurred by Pakistan and India on defence on a yearly basis are available in public domain; these are at US $ 82 billion and US $ 11 billion for India and Pakistan, respectively. This difference is in line with the population and GDPs of the two countries. However, it is commendable that our forces won against India in the four-day war earlier this month. This shows utter incompetence of Indian forces and gallantry of Pakistan armed forces. It is understandable that there are some problems between the two states for over seventy seven years. These issues are: a. The equitable distribution of water of Indus basis region as all the rivers in this basin start in the Indian or Indian occupied territory; b. The right of self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. In this writer's view, the Indus Water Treaty has amicably resolved the matter and no sensible person would like to disturb that settled status of an international agreement. There are very limited choices for both the countries. The real issue, which remains unsettled, is the Kashmir dispute. India, in this respect, is ignoring certain pertinent facts. Some of which are: a. Firstly, the case of Kashmir is exactly similar to Indian Hyderabad. In Kashmir there was a predominant Muslim population with a Hindu ruler; whereas in Hyderabad there was a Muslim ruler for a predominant Hindu population. In both the cases, irrespective of prejudices, substance has to prevail over form. The form was the decision of the ruler. That is practically irrelevant. The substance is that if the predominant population is Muslim or Hindu then the state has to be aligned to the dominion having respective religion when the primary division was made on the basis of religions of majority of people; b. Secondly, Hyderabad was surrounded on four sides by India. It was a geographical reality that this area was a part of India. Exactly the same is the case in Kashmir which is not understood by many Indians and even by some Pakistanis. c. Thirdly, prior to 1947 there was only one all-weather road to Srinagar, which was from Rawalpindi to Srinagar via Murree. This route had been there for centuries and all the Indians who visited Kashmir before 1947 used this route. The visits by India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru through this route regularly constitute a case in point. So did Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah use this route. There was a very dangerous road through the Banihal pass, which used to remain shut for almost half of the year. It was not a natural route. Later, Indians constructed a tunnel, by-passing the Banihal pass. Banihal in Kashmiri language means 'blizzard'. There is a railway line between Sialkot and Jammu and distance between the two cities is only 40 kilometers. The history of this line is: The Sialkot-Jammu rail link was opened in 1890 and closed after the Partition of India in 1947. The line was a 43 km (27 mi) broad gauge branch of the North Western State Railway, connecting Wazirabad Junction in Punjab to Jammu, passing through Sialkot Junction. The line was built under the rule of Maharaja Pratap Singh and was the first railway line in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was a vital transportation route for trade and commerce, particularly in the sugar trade. The line was abandoned after the Partition, and a replacement line was built from Pathankot to Jammu. Whereas, the distance between Pathankot and Jammu is 106 km. The history of this railway line as described by independent Wikipedia is as under: The Jalandhar–Jammu line is a railway line connecting Jalandhar Cantonment and Jalandhar City in the Indian state of Punjab with Jammu Tawi in Jammu and Kashmir. The line is under the administrative jurisdiction of Northern Railway. This line was made after Indian Independence in 1947. Normally before partition of India and creation of Pakistan, trains to Jammu Tawi from Delhi used to run via Panipat, Ambala Cantonment, Ludhiana, Jalandhar City, Amritsar, Lahore, Narowal and Sialkot. But after partition and creation of Pakistan in 1947, the Sialkot–Jammu Tawi line was dismantled and closed permanently. Jammu and Kashmir became cut off from the rest of India. Hence in 1949, it was decided to extend the line from Jalandhar City to Mukerian till Pathankot and after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, this line was extended to Jammu Tawi. This 216 km (134 mi) railway line is an important strategic connectivity for Indian Military and Defence. Indians are trying to create unnatural geographical links, which will always remain unnatural. d. Fourthly, all the people living in Kashmir are related to people living in Pakistan. Or, in other words, they are not at all related to those living in India. There are four distinct regions in Kashmir viz. (i) the Valley being Srinagar as capital. It is a valley of River Jhelum and partly Chenab; (ii) Jammu being an area linked with Sialkot by rail before Partition as described above; (iii) Gilgit and Baltistan and (iv) Ladakh. The adjoining area of India with Kashmir is Himachal Pradesh and Pathankot area of Punjab. Any person knowing basic anthropology will agree that people living in Jammu have nothing in common with those on the Indian side, effectively the Kangra Valley. With respect to the people of other regions, there is no doubt that these people have no cultural, historical, religious, political or social ties with those in India. Even Ladakh, a Buddhist area, is very much close to Tibet (China), not India. e. Fifthly, the unnatural rulers of Kashmir who decided in favour of India were not even rulers of Kashmiris as they represented only a clan in Jammu and unlike all other precedents in the world actually bought an area for 'cash' from the British rulers. There cannot be any dispute on the aforesaid facts and no Indian scholar or historian can challenge the same. However, the writer accepts that an aberration arose in Kashmir affairs with the role of National Conference and Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah's politics. The purpose here is not to discuss that role; however, it is a fact that despite all actions by Pakistan and India the grandson of Sheikh Abdullah is the Chief Minister of the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He advocates that Article 35A and 370 of the Indian Constitution must be restored. The writer would not discount the position of his party. There are only two primary questions for the leaders of both India and Pakistan: a. Would India be able to control the area without its around 600,000 forces placed in the region and maintain deletion of Article 35A and 370 of the Indian Constitution? And b. Would Pakistan ever be able to militarily occupy Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir Kashmir? The truth is that the answer to both these questions is in the negative though the leaders and a lot of people of the region are not ready to listen to the truth. The next truth is that there cannot be a nuclear confrontation. The greater problem lies with India as it considers that it may subdue Pakistan by its might which is not practically possible. Furthermore, India cannot ignore the fact that out of a total population of around 13 million of Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir a lot of Kashmiris have families on both sides of the Line of Control (LOC). Their travel can never be stopped. The length of the LOC is around 470 miles which can never be secured. They call them 'terrorists'. We call them Kashmiris living on both sides of the LOC. Whatever has happened in 2025 is not new and exciting. Almost the same happened in 1948, 1965, 1971, 1991, 2016 and 2019. The solution is not war. The solution is dialogue with three parties being there. Pakistanis, Indians and Kashmiris. Who truly represents Kashmir can be questioned; however, the arbitration by any neutral party is to be limited to that aspect only. All other aspects are to be agreed upon by these three parties. When France and England can sit together after a hundred years' war and Japan can be a big trading partner of the USA after a nuclear attack then why there cannot be an agreement between Pakistan and India. The lives of 1.7 billion people cannot be jeopardized. The Indian society in particular has to fully appreciate the situation. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Economic Times
01-05-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Come to a Pakistandstill: India wields Indus Treaty as strategic weapon to isolate Pakistan over terror
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of .) India's strategic retaliatory measure against Pakistan, pledging to ring-fence it on multiple fronts for its active patronage and sustenance of terrorists, signals the return of an iron-fist approach. In this context, GoI's decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), signed in 1960 in Karachi with mediation by International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), is the original treaty, the term 'eastern rivers' meant Sutlej, Beas and Ravi taken together, while 'western rivers' were to encompass Indus, Jhelum and Chenab taken together, along with their tributaries. All the waters of the eastern rivers were marked as 'shall be available for the unrestricted use of India, except as otherwise expressly provided'.Pakistan was bestowed rights to receive for unrestricted use all those waters of the western rivers that India was under obligation to let flow under the extant provisions. Thus, by design, India was magnanimous in providing water to has always helped nations in the neighbourhood - Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh. This benevolence yielded results for the economic renaissance of these countries. But Pakistan was the odd one out, digging a deep trench for itself even as India tried its best to engage with it for peace and benevolent, tactical 'Sada-e-Sarhad' bus diplomacy of the Vajpayee government, initiating a passage of people's movement through borders, promising to foster abundant trade and commerce, never fructified. Successive military rules, directly or by proxy, orchestrating anti- India moves, ensured only frosty non-economic intervention has ensured that Pakistan GDP has grown at a snail's pace, flip-flopping from $339 bn in FY17 to $373 bn in FY24. Average growth comes to less than 1.5% in the intermittent period, even as average inflation since FY21 stands at 16.8% with red-hot high price prints of 29.2% and 23.4% in FY23 and FY24, respectively. The Pakistani rupee, mirroring internal fractures of a failed state, depreciated by 100% between September 2021 and August 2023 in a vicious cycle. While both food and energy have retraced in recent days, there are apparently fault lines in the calculation methodology, as share of food and beverages comes at just 36% in its CPI Pakistan stands 13th in terms of countries with highest defence spending as percentage of GDP. Market capitalisation of the KSE-100-led Pakistan Stock Exchange is only 15% of total GDP, undermining investors' lack of confidence even as KSE-100 has remained flat International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) report puts the rural population percentage at about 63% for the fifth most-populous country on the planet, its current population estimated to be more than 25 cr. Livelihoods of Pakistan's rural population are mainly agriculture-based, which, in turn, is dependent chiefly on irrigation. This, even as close to 40% of the population lives lies the economic significance of IWT, as Punjab remains the largest economy in Pakistan, contributing close to 60% in national output. Sindh, second-largest province in terms of population and GDP, factors close to 25%. Share of agriculture in GDP stood at 24% in 2024, falling from a high of 30.6% in 2000-01. But it continues to shoulder around two- third of the population, directly or indirectly. Two of Pakistan's largest exports, textiles and basmati rice, depend on irrigation dynamics even as trade deficit threatens to vault in a volatile tariff- induced road to Brussels goes through Rome, is a well-accepted preamble, cementing the belief that long-term peace comes at the cost of innumerable sacrifices. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote in the visitor's book at Lahore's Minar-e-Pakistan in 1999 that a 'stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan is in India's interest. Let no one in Pakistan be in doubt. India sincerely wishes Pakistan well,' Islamabad mistook it as Indian weakness, surreptitiously preparing to capture time the people of Pakistan realise that India can be a friendly neighbour. Or be made to revisit 1971. The choice is completely in their hands. As for agencies like IMF, which have frequently bailed out Pakistan, they would do well to introspect if common, scarce global resources should be put in the hands of a rogue nation on the brink of is member, 16th Finance Commission, and group chief economic adviser, SBI , and Kumar is AGM, SBI
