Not Scared

Even minor changes in the flow can cause significant disruptions to Pakistan's largely agrarian economy, delaying wheat planting cycles, causing missed sowing windows, lower productivity and higher costs, besides further degrading an already stressed Indus Delta, 43 per cent of the arable land of which is already salinity affected, and reduced water flow may accelerate further desertification. It may also exacerbate the highly charged water sharing disputes between Punjab and Sind

- GOVIND BHATTACHARJEE The writer is a commentator, author and academic. Opinions expressed are personal

Following the dastardly massacre of innocent Hindu tourists at Pahalgam, India swiftly declared that it will put the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT), brokered by the World Bank, on abeyance. The IWT has survived three major wars between the two nations besides Kargil, and its suspension will certainly escalate the tension between two nuclear-armed belligerent nations. However, nothing will change on the ground, at least not in the foreseeable future.

The origins of the IWT date back to the Partition. Indus, which has given India its name, and its five tributaries, have sustained humanity on the subcontinent for millennia. Both India and Pakistan depend on Indus water for agriculture, irrigation, and electricity, but without the Indus system water, Pakistan would face serious existential threats. So, at Partition, the two countries signed an agreement called the Standstill Agreement to allow the flow of water across the border, and when that agreement expired in 1948, they negotiated for nine long years, mediated by the World Bank, to sign the IWT in September 1960. The treaty gives India access to the waters of the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, while Pakistan gets the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, which account for almost 80 per cent of the shared basin's water.