IF PUBLIC policy was made solely on the basis of rational analysis, economists would be kings, and their cabinets would include a heavy presence of statisticians and econometricians.

But in the real world, competing interests raise their ugly head. To navigate the grey areas inhabited by flesh-and-blood people, politicians come into their own, mediating conflicting demands and smoothing the passage of controversial, and often painful, compromises.

It is true that collectively, we might be better off with neat, logical decisions. But they would leave smaller, weaker segments of the population worse off, while working in favour of larger, more powerful interest groups. To balance this equation, most political systems have an upper house of parliament to make sure that sheer numbers do not bulldoze smaller provinces.

Unfortunately, this has not worked well in Pakistan, largely because the army has overwhelmed all the checks and balances written into the 1973 Constitution. Compounding this cancer has been the sheer weight of Punjab. With a population greater than the rest of the country put together, it is natural that it controls all the major levers of power.

Natural, perhaps, but resented by the smaller provinces nevertheless. Over the years, they have come to see both the army and the federal government as yet another extension of Punjab’s domination. Deepening this crisis of confidence is the common perception that what is good for Punjab is bound to be bad for the smaller partners in the federation.

These are some of the perceptions that are driving the ‘no’ vote over the Kalabagh dam issue. In a rational world, the government would have produced the numbers and the projections to establish the need for a major dam, and then its data for why the project should be located at Kalabagh. We, or our civil society representatives, would have gone over this information and taken an informed decision. There would have been none of this deeply divisive debate that now confuses rather than illuminates the underlying issues.

However, the argument has now moved far beyond how many million acre-feet of water the dam will store, and the megawatts of electricity it will produce for the nation. Critics of the project — and they are legion — are counting only the units of water and electricity it will produce for Punjab. We are in a classic zero-sum game where Punjab’s gains are viewed as equalling the other provinces’ losses, cancelling each other out. To make matters worse, this government has made a huge mess of selling the project. General Musharraf is not the best salesman around, and his information minister Sheikh Rashid is not much better. Both are viewed in the smaller provinces as spokesmen for the Punjab establishment, irrespective of Musharraf’s mohajir ancestry. The fact is that the government has been unable to rally any major Sindhi, Baloch or Pashtun politician or party to its cause. In fact, supporting the government over Kalabagh is tantamount to committing political suicide in today’s charged atmosphere.

One thing that is especially galling to Sindhis is President Musharraf’s constant refrain that millions of acre-feet of the Indus’s waters are being ‘wasted’ as they flow into the sea. By now somebody should have told the general that this water is crucial to the wellbeing of millions of people living around the Indus’s estuary.

In recent years, when flows down the river have been reduced, seawater has made deep inroads into lower Sindh around Badin, turning much of the land into a salty wasteland. Also, coastal marine life and the whole eco system based on our extensive mangrove forests need a certain minimum amount of Indus water. So when President Musharraf says all this water is being ‘wasted’, he must understand that millions of Sindhis feel he is threatening their livelihood.

At the upper end of the proposed dam, Pushtuns fear it will create a vast lake that will inundate the town of Nowshera and the fertile lands around it. Nothing Wapda or any minister has said thus far has dispelled this concern. Then there is the unanswered question of what will happen to the huge quantities of stored water. But one thing is certain: the present network of irrigation canals is inadequate to handle the additional water. So if new canals are to be dug, who gets the water? Physically, it would make more sense to distribute it in Punjab than to take it down to the lower areas of the country. This is precisely what Sindh fears will happen.

President Musharraf has tried to reassure Sindhi opponents of the project (or the entire population of the province) by offering constitutional guarantees to ensure that agreed amounts of water would never be diverted. Alas, ‘constitutional guarantees’ in Pakistan do not have the comforting ring of sterling currency they do in other countries. Here, the Constitution has been trampled contemptuously by the army so many times that citizens can be excused for not being immediately put at ease by being offered its protection.

Had President Musharraf displayed the same amount of energy and determination in combating extremism, it might have been political capital better spent. As it is, the more he lectures us on the need for the Kalabagh dam, the more suspicions he raises. Given his track record of backing down before fierce opposition from religious groups on a variety of issues, his many detractors are sure that he will not have the stomach for the bitter fight he will have to wage to see the dam built.

Another flank that is exposed in this divisive campaign is located in Washington. Although the World Bank had been supportive of the project in the past, I doubt it retains much enthusiasm now after witnessing the volleys of charges being flung at the project. In fact, given the long gestation period before a dam of this magnitude is completed, any funding agency will want to be assured of broad-based, long-term political support for the venture.

Today, if there is any consensus, it is that the dam should not be built. Only the establishment advocates the project. Instead of whipping up unnecessary controversies, President Musharraf would do far better to focus on issues on which he has wide-ranging support. The struggle against the forces of obscurantism is one of them.