by A. G. NOORANI
September 1960: India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (left), Pakistan’s President Mohammad Ayub Khan (center), with World Bank vice president W.A.B. Iliff at the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty in Karachi, Pakistan PHOTO/The Hindu Archives
A river is more than an amenity; it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it. New York has the physical power to cut off all the water within its jurisdiction. But clearly the exercise of such a power to the destruction of the interest of lower states could not be tolerated. … The effort always is to secure an equitable appointment without quibbling over formulas. —Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in New Jersey vs. New York 283 U.S. 336 (1931).
ON September 18, four terrorists crossed the Line of Control (LoC) to attack the Indian Army’s Administrative Unit I in the Uri Sector, killing 19 soldiers and injuring 20. Three days later, the Government of India made it known to the press that it would consider “reviewing” the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. News of these cerebral storms in South Block was plastered on the pages of all the newspapers. The adroit spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Vikas Swarup, hinted darkly: “Eventually any cooperative arrangement [sic] requires goodwill and mutual trust” and “for any such treaty to work, it is important that there must be mutual cooperation and trust between both the sides. It cannot be a one-sided affair.” Why, the preamble of the treaty itself said that it was based on goodwill. So, indeed, are preambles of very many treaties. He refused to go further, teaching the press corps a lesson: “In diplomacy, everything is not spelt out.” No wonder foreign diplomats have, for years, ridiculed our diplomats’ penchant for legalese and splitting hairs.
A correspondent noted that it was a “veiled” threat, but he tore apart the diplomatic hijab. “This would mean that water could be the new weapon used by India in teaching a lesson to Pakistan.” Indeed, on September 27, the press carried Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark: “Blood and water cannot flow together.” As ever, he used metaphor as substitute for a statement. The biannual meetings of the Commissioners of the Permanent Indus Commission, which the treaty provides for, will not be held. The treaty will not be abrogated, it will be rendered toothless. Shades of the fate of Article 370—no abrogation, just emptying of the contents. An inter-ministerial task force has been set up to devise plans as to how India can “maximise the benefits” from the three western rivers which the treaty has assigned to Pakistan, namely, the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum. The treaty gives India exclusive use of the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi. However, it gives India some defined restricted rights in respect of the western rivers. On September 28, we were told officially that India was “reviewing” its decision to stay on in the Indus Commission set up by the treaty, as if it is an option it can freely exercise without breaking the treaty.
We have been through this more than once in the past. During Operation Parakram, Brajesh Mishra, the National Security Adviser (NSA), leaked to the editor of a daily the various options that were being considered. Snapping the treaty was one of them. As if on the crack of a whip, there was an orchestrated chorus of voices in support. It included two former High Commissioners to Pakistan and a couple of “experts” on strategic affairs. “When Pakistan cannot honour the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration, then why should we honour the Indus Waters Treaty?” a Union Minister asked.
G. Parthasarathy, a former High Commissioner to Pakistan, went one better: “Should we not consider measures to deprive the Pakistanis of the water they need to quench their thirst and grow their crops? Should we not seriously consider whether it is necessary for us to adhere to the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty? … extraordinary circumstances demand extraordinary responses.” A writer on strategic affairs, Jasjit Singh was as ill-informed and as bigoted as Parthasarathy was. “The option of abrogating or withdrawing from the Indus Waters Treaty brokered by the United Nations in late 1950s exists and Pakistan’s reneging from its treaty agreements with India provide enough reasons to do so. Its follow-on steps could have a serious negative impact on Pakistan’s economy and food security.”
The treaty was not “brokered” by the U.N., but by a more potent body, the World Bank. The diplomat directly targeted the people (“Pakistanis”) and wished to deprive them of water “to quench their thirst” and to “grow their crops”. The “expert” was indirect (economy and food security). But the objective was made plain—to starve the “Pakistanis” into submission.
War crime
It revealed at once in a flash, as it were, barbaric inhumanity, emotional immaturity, intellectual incompetence, great-power arrogance and political ineptness. Water was used as a weapon of war in ages bygone. Article 54 of Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 says: “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.” It specifically mentions drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works. Article 8(b) (xxv) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court lists as a war crime “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them (people) of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies”. Forbidden even during armed conflict, use of water as a weapon in diplomacy is a far graver offence. This is a war crime.Prof. Marcos D. King has aptly characterised it as “weaponisation of water”. He recalls that the Dutch opened their dikes in order to stop advancing French forces in the Third Franco-Dutch War while our newly acquired ally the United States’ strategy in the Korean War involved attacking dams in North Korea.
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