Incendiary water
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INITIATED by India in 2007, Pakistan objected to the construction of the Kishanganga Dam on the Jhelum by submitting a case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 2010. The court stayed the project for three years but vacated the order in 2013, declaring it a run-of-the-river project and not violative of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). As construction resumed, Pakistan cited technical violations and, in 2016, requested that the World Bank establish a court of arbitration to review the designs of the Kishanganga and the Ratle Dam on the Chenab tributary. The Bank looked busy doing lending till India unilaterally held the treaty in abeyance, and the countries had another limited war.
Whether between sovereign states or federating units within a country, trust or confidence-building measures are required; however, water is too incendiary an issue to be the entry point for these. The long and arduous process to address the trust deficit between the contending parties will have to start with equally important but less contentious issues. For instance, in domestic matters, let the issue of missing persons be the entry point. Let the courts provide relief; bolster confidence in the state’s goodwill, and in the process, build back the image of the judiciary. Similarly, focus on the social sector and human resource development to rebuild citizens’ confidence in the system, and then one can move on to issues related to water and the newfound Trumpian obsession with mineral resources.
Riparian rights and obligations don’t begin and end with nation-state boundaries, ie India is the upper riparian on the Indus, Pakistan is the lower. Once it enters Pakistan, Gilgit-Baltistan is the upper riparian, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the lower riparian, and so on, until Sindh. Here, we are faced with a previously overlooked aspect: once the Sindhu enters its namesake province, the party in power decides who among its constituents gets water. Smallholders in the Nara canal command area, at the tail-end of the irrigation system, have pined for irrigation water for as long as successive generations’ memory stretches; now they thirst for drinking water. Their lack of trust in the state does not stop at water scarcity; whenever there are floods, countrywide or local, they get inundated. Floods from all around are diverted toward them both by breaching canals and due to illegal constructions on natural waterways, with full backing of the authorities.
No party with its power base in Punjab or KP can resolve the problems of the subset of lower-riparian stakeholders within Sindh. The constituents must look toward their representatives and their parent party to address grievances. Stop wasting your vote on jobs, transfers, and postings, and instead of using it to get relief in local police and subordinate judiciary matters, make it count for something substantive.
Why can’t we, the people, bring ourselves to conserve water?
Water management, encompassing both irrigation and drainage, should be a top priority for all constituents, regardless of their political affiliation. The rural-urban divide should not stand in the way, as urban dwellers are not just stakeholders in what happens to Sindh’s agriculture, but are also not immune to similar challenges, such as access to drinking water and sanitation. Inhabitants of large metropolises like Karachi have been asking, to no avail, where the hydrant operators, both public and private, obtain their water. Why can’t the same water be piped through the supply networks, metered, and charged according to consumption? If gas and electricity tariffs could have slabs and provisions for lifeline users, why not water?
Leaving the government aside for a moment, why can’t we, the people, bring ourselves to conserve and manage water better? Why cannot we install sectioned flush tanks? Why can’t we incorporate greywater tanks and rainwater harvesting systems into our building plans? Why cannot individual homeowners and commercial builders use greywater for construction? There is significant potential for installing simple, low-cost treatment systems at sewerage junctions through public-private partnerships.
Just like we all care whether India, the regional upper riparian, sticks to the IWT and lets Pakistan’s share of water flow unhindered, once it enters Pakistan, the local upper riparian must ensure that their fellow citizens downstream get their share.
This shared responsibility does not end at the interprovincial level, but continues to the district, taluka, union council, and neighbourhood level.
Growing climate challenges are making it impossible for tail-end farmers to continue demanding that the IWT be honoured by the upper riparian country without its rivulets trickling down.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2025
