Nature of India-Pakistan Water Disputes

This paper analyses India-Pakistan water disputes. It argues that India-Pakistan water disputes owes much to British colonial irrigation in the Indus basin. After signing the Waters Treaty in 1960, India began to build hydroelectric projects on the western rivers; the rivers the treaty had allotted to Pakistan. Pakistan objected to these projects because of its fears of downstream negative implications of the Indian projects. Pakistan not only feared the Indian projects to be detrimental to its downstream agriculture needs but its territorial integrity, as well as the water stored behind the walls of the dams, has the potential to be used as a weapon. India denied any such violation of the treaty as the treaty had allotted certain non-consumptive uses to India on the western rivers. Pakistan also fears that Indian assistance to the Afghan dams on river Kabul in Afghanistan is an extension of Indian hydro-hegemony from Kashmir to Kabul.