Water Wars

It may sound a distant fear, but the fact is that water wars are nearing, warns Hamid Iqbal.Ismail Serageldin, Vice President of World Bank in 1995 predicted that “if the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought for water”. It remains the most quoted text when we talk of war and water and though these wars would be fought locally, regionally, nationally but would ultimately transform into global wars.
Jammu and Kashmir is bestowed with the natural resources like lakes, rivers, streams and mountains forming the integral and most important part of its natural beauty, but unfortunately exploited in both parts across the LoC. The dispute began with the complaint of India to UN on 21th August 1957 about Mangla Dam, which the Pakistan was about to build in the disputed territory under his control. India at that time raised objections voicing and explaining it as an exploitation of the territory to the disadvantage of the people of state so as to benefit the people of Pakistan and finally without knowing the will of people of the state entered into agreement with Pakistan which came to be known Indus Water Treaty in April 1960. The Indus river system comprises of three eastern rivers (the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi) and three western rivers (the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab). While India secured the rights over the eastern rivers, Pakistan was given the rights over the western ones and the treaty was brokered by World Bank. But like the earlier agreements right from the infamous Amritsar treaty of 1845, which later came to be known as sale deed agreement, to the signing of the instrument of Accession and giving ink to the number of agreements, this agreement too failed in safeguarding the interest of the people of J&K and it further exposed the confused stand on Kashmir.
The people of Kashmir are not against the welfare of the people of either Pakistan or India. But our argument is just based on the conservation of the habitat and water resources embedded by the almighty in this beautiful land and a corresponding benefit of compensation due to the people of Kashmir.  Ironically thousands of big dams have been constructed by industrialized nation and now they are spending huge amounts of money and energy to investigate how to reduce the negative impacts and thus presumably the present industrializing nations will have to work equally hard in future to reverse the problems brought on by the current phase of Dam construction. We have the examples and proofs where large dams have without exception destroyed the ecology i.e. flora and fauna and the human communities depending on them. Future of large dams by Thayer Scudder provide the beautiful examples of ill conceived hydro electric and water management projects that have created more damage than the benefits.
Arundati Roy in an article had quoted PM Jawahar Lal Nehru while speaking to the villagers who were displaced by the Hirakud Dam in 1948, “if you have to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country”. She wrote, “because I suddenly remembered the tender concern with which the supreme court judges in Delhi (before vacating the legal stay on the further construction of Sardar Sarover Dam) had enquired whether the tribal children in the resettlement colonies would have the children’s park to play in. The lawyers representing the government had hastened to assure them that indeed they would, what’s more, there were seesaws and slides and swings in every park.”
Both India and Pakistan need energy to keep the growth and economy moving. India has identified nearly 15000 MW of energy to be harnessed from river Chenab only and a number of others have been identified on other rivers too. The Baghlihar power project located in the erstwhile Doda district nearly 120 km upstream from Pakistan territory has two stages of 450MW each with a reservoir capacity of 15 MCM and constructed at the whooping cost of 4600 crores more than it was estimated before making it one of the biggest dam in the state and now this time the objections were raised by Pakistan government, and they formally sought the world bank mediation over the violation of Indus Water Treaty, while the Government of J&K lost no time in issuing the statement that it has rights to use the water of its river while the people of state are still unaware of the actual share from the project. The World Bank appointed three experts one each from Switzerland, Australia and Brazil headed by Prof Raymond Lafitte. It is important to mention here that Prof Lafitte is not against construction of big Dams. As per the WB the Neutral Experts finding would be final and binding for both the parties. Shri Ramaswamy Iyer, former secretary Govt of India, in a statement said Pakistan is afraid that the Baglihar could be used as a weapon by India for controlling waters at the time of war. The study which had been carried out by India under which Jhelum and Chenab were recognized as the silt laden rivers because of the erosion of the thick mantle of sand or hills in the entire catchment area and possibly was reason why India had not agreed to construct with ungated spillway as the reservoir would be filled with silt in 3 to 4 years. With the first phase of the dam complete, it had already started showing the signs of destruction to the fragile environment with nearly 30km of the road declared unsafe by the BRO, the organization responsible for maintaining the National Highway 1B and while I was on my way to home I found the entire path different, it was like it used to be. It was new and not very familiar to me the silent valleys were speaking all about ill conceived development, and with the govt not prepared for the task, the entire area of the district remained cut off from the rest of the state for more than 20 days, while the people faced acute shortages of essential and basic amenities, medical and health care facilities as the hospitals were running short of life saving drugs despite big claims of the government.  And when it opened it faced one of the worst ever tragic incident in which nearly 41 people got killed.
In fact we have not learnt lessons from the past. Not too far back in 2005, when we witnessed the worst ever earthquake in which more than 75000 lost their life and more than three million lost their homes, and there have been studies in the world where big dams have been linked to the frequent earthquakes. We need to be more dutiful on the question of embedded natural resources, while the treaties needs to incorporate the rights and will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir as a whole. For this our leaders needs to be united at least for this reason in safeguarding the interest and beauty of the mother nature which the God has bestowed upon us, and work together to protect and for bringing peace to this beautiful part of the world. Abdullah bin Umar has said, “I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, ‘All of you are guardians and responsible for your wards and the things under your care. The Imam  (ie. The ruler) is the guardian of his subjects and is responsible for them. A woman is guardian of her husband’s house and is responsible for it. A servant is guardian of his master’s belonging and is responsible for them.’
(Hamid Iqbal is from Department of Botany, A.M.U, Aligarh)

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2009/Apr/18/water-wars-16.asp