- In Pakistan, thousands of protesters have fought against the Cholistan Canal Project, which would divert water from the Indus River to irrigate millions of hectares of desert for corporate farming.
- Opponents say the project would threaten local desert species and leave small-scale farmers and fishers in Sindh province without the water they need; this comes on top of an existing water shortage in the region.
- Water has been one of the region’s most contentious issues, dating back decades and causing a rift between Sindh province and the Federation of Pakistan; now, the future of Pakistan’s water is even more uncertain since India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which governs shared waters between the two countries.
On April 6, Wajahat Hussain, a Sindhi human rights lawyer, spoke at a protest against the planned Cholistan Canal Project on the Indus River in Pakistan. “We will continue fighting against the recent canals and won’t let the state kill us by thirst,” he said. His words came in response to a 945 billion rupee ($3.3 billion) project, the Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI), which would transform the Cholistan Desert with corporate farming, creating six canals to divert water from the river system, leaving small farmers without their farms and Sindh fishers more vulnerable to water scarcity and prolonged droughts.
The Cholistan Canal Project is the biggest component of GPI, a joint effort of the Pakistan Army and government, launched in February. The project aims to irrigate 1.9 million hectares (4.8 million acres) of barren desert land in Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, to enhance food production and economic growth.
The Cholistan Desert is not just a barren land but home to many local and endangered species like the caracal cat (Caracal caracal), chinkara gazelle (Gazella bennettii), houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) and desert fox (Vulpes vulpes pusilla). Turning the desert green would contribute to the decline of these species. Corporate farming would use the latest modern techniques like AI-based disease, weed and pest detection, soil viability mapping, yield forecasting and monitoring. In this way, human labor would be minimized and production of wheat, cotton, rice and canola would likely increase substantially.
Thousands of protesters have blocked the major highway in Sindh in recent weeks, demonstrating against a project they think would cause extreme water shortages in the province — eventually destroying the delta in Sindh, Pakistan’s second-most-populous province, home to more than 55 million people. Sindh has an agriculture-dependent economy that relies on the Indus River for irrigation and drinking water. (The protests have since been suspended.)
Wajahat was one of the protesters. “Every society has different issues, but the issue of water is one that nobody compromises on,” Wajahat told Mongabay. “The state of Pakistan is extending colonial policies like building barrages, dams and canals on the upper riparian that affect the people who live in the lower riparian areas, like Sindh,” Wajahat explained.
The Indus River is one of the largest rivers in the world, flowing from Tibet to Indian-administered Kashmir and then diverting south to Pakistan. It forms several smaller rivers, streams and lakes in upstream Punjab and travels to Sindh, eventually draining into the Arabian Sea. Mongabay spoke to Naseer Memon, who is a climate change expert and civil engineer, to understand the environmental challenges of this project. “For the last 25 years, there has been a 19.5% annual average water shortage in the Indus system. There is no other way to irrigate a desert without diverting Indus water from upstream.”
He explained that this diversion would have devastating consequences, leading to extremely limited water for Sindh. While speaking of the proponents of the project, he said their arguments are rooted in a belief that water is wasted in the delta. “Freshwater does not get wasted in the delta, but on the contrary, it is the source of silt disposal that resists water intrusion and land loss. This nonscientific attitude has to be changed, or it will destroy ecology,” he argued.
Sindh is already facing multiple climate change effects, including sea level rise, extreme heat waves, droughts and a disappearing delta. These factors have triggered migrations, especially in the coastal region. The fisherfolk of low-lying areas are migrating to Karachi to survive, but water intrusion on Karachi’s coast has again put them in a vulnerable situation. The shrinking of the delta and water intrusion on the Sindh coastline result from the absence of the Indus River’s freshwater flow from the upstream Kotri Barrage. The water shortage leads to low flows in the delta that are not strong enough flow for silt deposition — or for the river to thrive, Naseer said.
Water has been one of the region’s most contentious issues, causing a rift between Sindh province and the Federation of Pakistan, and this conflict has a long history. It first emerged after the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 between Pakistan and India. According to the treaty, Pakistan controls three rivers — the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum — while India controls the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. In 1980, under martial law, the government of Pakistan proposed building a dam on the Indus River from Punjab’s Kalabagh city, which was named the Kalabagh Dam. It was the most controversial dam project in Pakistan, and the people of Sindh agitated against it.
“The Cholistan Canal Project is an extension of the Kalabagh Dam project. Both times, the government disregarded the water crisis Sindh will face just to upscale fresh crop production in Punjab,” Ibrahim Buriro, a researcher on the ecology of Sindh and development, told Mongabay on the phone. However, the Kalabagh Dam was never built, and after the controversy, the federal government introduced the Water Apportionment Accord 1991, which laid down principles for sharing river waters among the provinces.
“The grievances of the people of Sindh have a historical background, and unless those are addressed, this issue cannot be solved,” Bisma Barkat, a representative of the Save Indus Student Alliance, told Mongabay. “I have seen communities coming together to save the Indus; it resonates with the emotional attachment to the river, which is just water for the state — and for us, it is our everything,” Bisma said.
The movement against Kalabagh was also large and spread across Sindh. Women were at the forefront of that movement. Pireh Soomro belongs to the women-led Sindhiyani Tehreek (the Movement of Sindhi Women), which was involved in the struggle against the Kalabagh Dam, and now the organization is again on the streets against the canal project. Before joining one of the main protests, a sit-in at what’s known as the Babarloi Bypass, Mongabay talked to Pireh on the phone to understand how this project will affect women and children, especially those who are farmers or fisherfolk. “Women living on the delta are losing their jobs, autonomy and agency due to the loss of their habitat,” Pireh said. “Seawater has gulped our land and forced us to migrate to higher grounds. If the water is diverted from the upstream, whatever life is left in the delta will be extinct.”
However, despite these protests across Sindh, Karachi’s urban middle and upper classes remained isolated from the ongoing movement. The protests that happened in Karachi for the canal issue saw little participation from non-Sindhi-speaking communities. Khurram Ali, an Urdu-speaking organizer with the Save Karachi Movement (Karachi Bachao Tehreek), thinks water shortage in the Indus River is directly threatening Karachi’s infrastructure. “Water in Karachi is a class issue. People who live in posh areas can afford water tankers, but lower classes cannot, nor do they have streets where a tanker can travel.”
“There is a wide gap, and people of Karachi feel they have no representation politically; that’s why they are alienated,” Khurram said.
Karachi has a water shortage of 650 million gallons per day (MGD), and to supply the shortfall, a federal agency is constructing another project that will supply water from Keenjhar Lake, located roughly 120 kilometers (75 miles) away from Karachi. This lake originates from the right bank of the Indus River. If the Indus faces a water shortage, this will also affect the supply to Karachi.
For now, the Cholistan Canal Project is up in the air, though tensions over water have only escalated. On April 28, the Pakistan government suspended the canal project and instructed that until all the provinces are on the same page, the project will not kick off. A few days before this announcement, the Indus River had made international headlines after a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, killed 26 tourists. This event has put the two countries face-to-face on the borders. Following the attack, the Indian government suspended the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 — a decision that could have serious consequences for Pakistan’s water security. In the 65-year history of this treaty, never before has such an escalation occurred.
From development projects like dams and barrages to the disappearance of the delta, the Indus River has been the bone of contention among provinces since colonial times, and after centuries, it still is. Sindh has only two creeks left out of 17, because seawater is gulping the lands at increasing rates. These problems date back to when the British government tried to alter the Indus River upstream to irrigate “wasteland.” Pakistan extended the legacy by making more canals and barriers. And now, experts say it remains unclear how the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty could ultimately affect Pakistan’s populations downstream — though concerns run high.
“Rivers are living consciousness; they remember their flowing patterns and diversions, blockades, and any attempt to tamper with them only results in destruction,” Ibrahim explained.
Banner image: A seminomadic man carries water in the Cholistan Desert. Image by Tahsin Shah via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Citation:
Ranjan, A. (2016). Disputed waters: India, Pakistan and the Transboundary rivers. Studies in Indian Politics, 4(2), 191-205. doi:10.1177/2321023016665529
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