FOR the past twenty years if not slightly more Pakistan has been afflicted with a lingering fever which flares up suddenly when least expected. At a time when most Pakistanis could have been forgiven for thinking that the national priority was quake relief and rehabilitation, President Musharraf in his wisdom has ensured that the malady, in the annals of medical science now immortalized as the Kalabagh fever, should seize the country once more.
He is going to take the nation into confidence on the subject very soon, he says, an assurance calculated to strike terror into the hearts of most Pakistanis who know from long experience that when their leaders ‘take them into confidence’, or vow to do so, the results often are far from happy.
But let’s count our blessings. Time was when Pakistan had only one great diversionary banner: Islam. You ran into a problem which had nothing to do with Islam or the hereafter but because you were short of other devices, you said Islam was in danger. Now the country has a second diversionary banner by the name of Kalabagh. Want to divert public attention?
Raise the bogey of Kalabagh. (As the judicious reader would have observed, this fever can mutate into a banner or a bogey, or even a rabbit out of a hat, whenever the need arises.)
We should have been warned, the president having said some moons ago that his uniform (he being president-in-uniform, another miracle) was necessary for taking big decisions, none bigger than announcing construction of the Kalabagh dam on the River Indus. For six-plus years the nation has waited breathlessly for that decision. For some odd reason it keeps getting postponed.
Will it be different this time? Will the president actually ‘take the nation into confidence’? The jury must be out on this because the Kalabagh dam, whether the wretched thing is built or not, has been the source of more confusion on the national scene than any other issue, with the possible exception of the president’s all-purpose uniform.
Who are for the dam? The federal government, Punjab province (which, with one of those philosophical tie-ups for which it is famous, has come to equate patriotism with Kalabagh), the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) which swears by Kalabagh and has a gallery of charts to prove its point, the PML-N which despite being down-and-out still thinks it is the authentic voice of Punjab, and what is known as the Nawa-i-Waqt lobby, another powerful Punjab institution. Who are against the dam? Everyone else.
The case of the Kalabagh-builders is simple. Pakistan’s water reserves are going down and for the sake of agriculture and power the country needs a big dam, otherwise it is headed down the road to ruin and perdition.
From all the government hype and propaganda, you would think that the nay-sayers are opposed in principle to any big dam on the Indus. That’s not true at all. They say a big dam or indeed several on the mighty Indus by all means but not at that one spot called Kalabagh because a high dam there, by hiking up the water table, would spell destruction for the fertile lands of the Frontier green crescent — the golden districts of Mardan and Charsadda. Besides, the huge Kalabagh lake when created would pose a threat to the historic city of Nowshera lying astride the Grand Trunk Road not far away.
Cogent objections to which the only answer from Islamabad and Wapda (partners in this unholy alliance) is more heat and noise. Indeed, banging the patriotic drum is the standard response of all governments in doubt or trouble and on the subject of big dams Pakistani governments are no exception.
Don’t mess with the Pakhtoons is sound advice because the Pakhtoons when angry are a difficult lot to deal with. For most Pakhtoons a dam at Kalabagh is a red rag, almost inviting them to show their mettle. No amount of ‘taking-into-confidence’ is likely to make them change their mind.
But if Frontier objections are strong, those coming from Sindh are couched in almost apocalyptic terms, Sindhis, across the political spectrum, coming to see the Kalabagh dam as nothing less than a sentence of doom. With less water flowing down the Indus, they say, their ancient homeland will become dry while the Indus delta, home to a rich ecosystem, will shrink. With less water flowing into the sea, the sea will march inland, turning the coastal belt into a salt wasteland.
President Musharraf, who prides himself on being a great communicator, says Sindh will benefit the most from the Kalabagh dam. Far from having less water, it will have more, the difference coming from an increase in storage capacity.
Unfortunately, no one believes him, not the rent-a-crowds he addressed during his last tour of the Sindh interior, nor anyone else of any consequence in the province. The PPP is opposed to the Kalabagh dam. So are Sindhi nationalists of all hues. More surprisingly, even sitting Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim is in the ‘no’ camp. The MQM with its finger on the provincial pulse is also not in favour.
Kalabagh, indeed, has become a negative talisman in Sindh. If you are against it, you are kosher; if for it, then you are a traitor to the cause of Sindh. I don’t know what the truth is, official explanations — and courtesy the Wapda chairman, the affable Tariq Hameed, I did receive a full briefing at Wapda House, Lahore, some months ago — only adding to my confusion. But that is the feeling in Sindh and woe betide anyone who goes against it.
Good or bad, Kalabagh dam has thus become a political minefield. The project can be bulldozed with the help of tanks and helicopters — in which case military deployment will have to stretch all the way from the Frontier to Sindh, a task for which the army I know will have little taste — but it is impossible to forge a national consensus around it.
No question about it, Pakistan’s most precious resource, far more valuable than anything else, are the waters of the Indus and its two tributaries, the Jhelum and the Chenab (a military ruler having gifted the other three — Ravi, Sutlej and Beas — to India, incidentally without taking the nation ‘into confidence’, so sure was he of his omniscience). There should be not one but several large dams on the mighty Indus, to harness its life-giving waters for the greater prosperity of the people of Pakistan. But why at Kalabagh which has become so controversial rather than anywhere else?
It almost seems as if official Pakistan is not serious. During all the time that the Kalabagh fever has raged, we could have had one dam up in the Himalayas and one or two more downstream in Punjab. But all that we have to show for our efforts is a lot of stale rhetoric.
Kalabagh is not doable because it lacks a national consensus. We have wasted 25 years already and President Musharraf is now almost promising to waste another 20 more.
Should we be tilting at the windmills — doing something which, on the face of it, we can’t do — or should we begin working on a dam or a series of dams — say at Bhasha and other suitable spots which exist and regarding which, believe me, feasibilities exist — which are more likely to command popular support and are therefore more doable?
Tailpiece: Interesting front-page Nation photo: a somewhat sheepish-looking Punjab chief minister with talented son, Moonis Elahi, in tow calling on Gen Musharraf in Lahore. Moonis, who goes about Lahore with an impressive police escort, was the centre of rumours recently about being involved in a fracas on a Lahore road with someone very important, or someone with the right connections. But he didn’t know it and pulled weight. As a result of which, later in the day or night, he had (unhappily) to endure a good going-over at the hands of official minions (minions of course more powerful than his own minions). The CM’s office was at pains to ensure the photo’s display. Wonder why: to convey the impression that all was now well between Army House and the satrapy of Punjab or to show that the younger Elahi, having come of age, was ‘discussing issues of national importance’ with the boss?
Tailpiece Two: Before plunging the nation into another controversy the ‘real’ government better take a hard look at the situation in both Waziristans. In South Waziristan the writ of authority has all but evaporated with what are known locally as the ‘Taliban’ calling the shots. So much so that barbers in Wana, the principal town in South Waziristan, don’t trim or cut beards any more. In North Waziristan too the situation is drifting in the same direction, as yesterday’s press reports make all too clear.
Aggrieved over the killing of five of their comrades at the hands of some lawless elements, the Taliban went on the offensive, fighting a nightlong pitched battle in which more than a dozen people were killed, most of them gangsters. Later their houses were set on fire and at least three of them were strung up on electric poles after being shot. All this time the security forces kept to themselves, not daring to intervene.