It would be difficult for the critical dispensation in the media and the opposition to appreciate the government’s success in getting the International Court of Arbitration to issue a stay order against work on the Kishanganga dam project. But perhaps a round of applause is due for the government’s legal experts who are said to have pleaded their case well.
A recap: as per the Indus Water treaty of 1960, the disputed rivers of the subcontinent were divided between India and Pakistan. The deal, as school kids of both countries know much to their derision, gives India the use of the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi (before they enter Pakistan) and gives Pakistan Indus, Jhelum and the Chenab. Now this treaty does give the countries the right to make run-of-the-river power projects over rivers that have been given to the other country. On the face of it, this might sound simple enough but the devil, as they say, is in the details. India claims the Kishanganga power project is a simple run-of-the-river power project. Pakistan claims it isn’t; it diverts the flow of water away from the river it is on. This redirection of the river Neelum adversely affects the Pakistani Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric power project. With the Pakistani viewpoint accepted, at least at the interim stage, work on the project has been stopped.
While our rights need to be protected in this age of water scarcity, there is a need to realise what the correct attitude is when it comes to solving such issues on a sustainable basis. While a section of the media here in Pakistan would have us believe that India wants to build these projects for no reason other than our destruction, it would do us well to realise they have a stark water and electric power shortage as well. We have water disputes between Sindh and the Punjab as they do between Maharashtra and Gujrat, to name only one.
Spaceship Earth needs to work out holistic solutions based on cooperation and empathy to solve these pressing problems rather than unnecessarily adversarial attitudes. Not to be used as an excuse for the lawyers on our side to slack, which they did not, as they proved in this instance.