Water in Pakatan's history

To understand where Pakistan is today and to appreciate where it may be going, me must look at the role water has played in its development. I use the word "development" in a wider sense. It means not only economic growth but also social, political and cultural change. I will start with the decision taken in London by a Commission appointed by the British who then ruled the Indian sub-Continent to deal with the recurrent famines that took millions of lives in the eastern provinces of Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. The colonial rulers appointed a government body that worked in London to find ways of dealing with the recurrent crises that had resulted in large number of lives lost.

Called the Famine Commission, this body of experts came up with a solution: to turn the virgin lands of what is today's Pakistani province of Punjab into the granary of India. This would require tapping the waters of the Indus River system for irrigating millions of acres of virgin land on the eastern side of the riverbeds. It would also need a communication system that would carry the grain produced in Punjab to the eastern provinces of British India. An extensive road system called the Grand Trunk Road and a railway that came to be known as the North Western Railway, the NWR, were built to carry food surpluses of the Punjab to the food-starved eastern British India. The port of Karachi was expanded to handle hundreds of thousands tons of rice and wheat and have ships carry the grain to Calcutta in East India.

The next major development of the irrigation system came in the 1960s after Pakistan's President Ayub Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister, signed the Indus Water Treaty in a meeting held in Karachi. The treaty was signed on 19 September 1960. That the two countries needed a legal basis for dividing the waters that flowed down the six-river system of the mighty Indus. The Indus got its water from two mountain ranges, the Himalayas and the Hindukush. The river also received waters from its five large tributaries – the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej.

There was trouble when India began to construct dams to regulate the flow of the rivers that originated in its part of the Himalayas. Fearing a water war between India and Pakistan which had already fought two wars over what came to be called the disputed state of Kashmir, the World Bank suggested a water treaty that would allocate the waters of the Indus system between the two countries.

India received about 20 per cent of the water while Pakistan was allocated 80 per cent. The treaty allowed India to use the waters of the eastern rivers for limited irrigation and unlimited non-consumptive uses such as power generation, navigation and fish culture. The preamble of the treaty recognised rights and obligations of each country for the optimum water use. The treaty meant to alleviate Pakistan's fears that India could potentially cause floods and droughts, especially during periods of tension.

Officials from the World Bank were deeply involved in crafting the details of the treaty, especially when it committed itself to finding the money that would be needed to build the system. The system was needed when the use of water was divided between the two countries. Massive link canals would be built to bring water from the Indus to the Jhelum and, going downstream, from the Jhelum to the Chenab and then from the Chenab to the Ravi. The conversations between the officials of Pakistan and India were not easy.

Once when driving from Lahore to Islamabad, SS Kermani, the chief engineer at that time of WAPDA, the Water and Power Development Authority, told me that once late in the evening he was called by President Ayub Khan to drive over to Abbottabad and give a briefing to the World Bank Vice President in charge of the region in which Pakistan was located. The Pakistani president was trying to convince the Bank officials that a dam on the Indus at a place called Tarbela was essential for the system of water diversion to work. The Bank people were reluctant to go that route when a dam on the Indus at Tarbela would add massive amounts of money to the canal link projects. Kermani was called to convince the World Bank officials that without building a reservoir on the Indus, it would not be possible to divert water among the rivers of the Indus system. He drove all night to cover nearly 400 miles between Lahore and Abbottabad. On the way he rehearsed in his mind the statement he would make. What he said at the meeting convinced the World Bank delegation to include the Indus dam in the projects that would be financed as an important component of the Indus Replacement Works.

There are two other water-related events that are deeply affecting Pakistan. Both are the result of global warming. The first is the more rapid ice-melt than normal. Most of the flows in the Indus River system in the summer months come from the melting of ice in the mountain ranges to the country's east (the Himalayas) and to the north (the Hindukush). Rising global temperatures are quickening the pace of meltdown with large quantities of additional water flowing down the rivers and emptying their content in the sea.

Experts have been suggesting for some time the building of cascades of dams in the rivers that would hold this additional water flow in reservoirs. They suggest building a dozen dams in the rivers that are fed by the melting of ice. At one point the World Bank suggested building twelve dams on the Indus and its western tributaries to hold water for later use. But this approach is resource-intensive. It can only be implemented if international development banks are prepared to provide the funding needed.

Another water-related problem is the frequency and intensity of rainfall in the summer months. Global warming has resulted in the air cover over land to become hot and wet. Warm air holds more water than the air that is cooler. This water comes down as heavy rainfall. These are occurring with greater frequency and intensity, doing a great deal of human and economic damage.