September 15, 2008
There is again conflict heating up between India and Pakistan. There are two well known political issues between these countries. Yesterday a major economic issue was added by India that may well lead to unrest or even war. I suspect that the U.S. has a hand in this.
One political conflict is over Kashmir, the north western state of India that has a Muslim majority and borders Pakistan. Kashmir does want independence from India, but does not want to become a part of Pakistan.
While Pakistan generally supports anti-Indian activities in Kashmir it does not want Kashmir to become independent but would like to incorporate it. Unrest is Kashmir is often a proxy war that Pakistan traditionally stokes whenever it has interior political trouble.
This time though trouble in Kashmir seems to be indigenous. The state government gave a patch of land near a Hindu temple in Kashmir to some Hindi charity. The 6 million Muslims in Kashmir protested over this in large rallies. Hindu protesters then blocked the only road connecting Kashmir with India for several weeks. This led to big losses for Kashmir fruit farmers who now plan to reopen the silk road to Pakistan.
Saturday five bombs exploded in New Delhi and killed 21 people. A group called Indian Mujahideen took responsibility and referred to the conflict in Kashmir. Some accuse Pakistan of supporting the Indian Mujahideen which I find unlikely.
While the recent conflict might not have been activated by Pakistan, India has other grievances too. Last month the Indian embassy in Kabul was bombed and India as well as the U.S. accused Pakistan's military secret service ISI to be behind this. Pakistan feels threatened by any Indian activity in Afghanistan. (Why do the U.S. and NATO allow Indian activities in Afghanistan at all? These practically guarantee a never ending trouble with Pakistan supported Taliban.)
In a rather harsh step India yesterday added a big economic issue to the already problematic situation:
India has closed Chenab water flow and as a result the shortage in Pakistan has become more severe.
Sources told Dawn on Sunday that the water blockade by India could adversely affect the Kharif crops, particularly cotton and sugarcane which were in maturity stage and required final watering, and the sowing of Rabi crops early next month.
...
The water shortage could force Pakistan to import more wheat next year, adding to the foreign exchange pressure and worsening its balance of payments crisis.
The authorities are already estimating more than 35 per cent shortage of irrigation water during the next Rabi season following a decline in the melting of snow in Northern Areas, higher withdrawals by provinces during Kharif and increased hydropower generation.
The sources said India’s unilateral decision to stop the Chenab flows had put additional pressure on the irrigation system of Pakistan, which used to receive more than 23,000 cusecs a day until last week, but it had now been brought down to almost zero.
(Chenab is a river (map) of the Indus system that flows from Kashmir to Pakistan. Kharif is the autumn harvest and Rabi the spring harvest period. A cusec is a cubic foot of water flow per second.)
The flow of water from the rivers of the Indus system is essential for Pakistan's electricity generation and for irrigation. Karachi already sees daily long electricity outages and the government recently raised electricity prices by 31%.
India stopping the flow of the Chenab is a violation of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan.
It is possible that the U.S. has a hand in this and asked India to close the flow. Bush has quite some leverage with New Delhi through the recent nuclear deal. On Friday Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote about the conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan over alleged Taliban support and reminded us:
In this delicate situation, the balance could be tipped by India, on US instigation, mobilizing forces on the Line of Control that separates the Indian- and Pakistan-administered sections of Kashmir, as happened in December 2001. And as happened then, Pakistan will be left with no option but to surrender to America's will in both letter and spirit.
Instead of war at the Line of Control between Kashmir and Pakistan, the threat to Pakistan this time is famine and/or financial ruin. It might fold under this threat or it might get violent over this breach of the international treaty on the river flow.
The new Pakistani president Zardari is visiting London this week and then New York. He will be offered some water. He will also be asked to give the U.S. a free hand to hunt Taliban in Pakistan's tribal eastern areas and to stop firing at U.S. helicopters over Pakistan.
It will be difficult for Zardari to reject the drink.
