Asia Times: Drought bridges nuclear rivalry


	May 09, 2000	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Drought bridges nuclear rivalry
By Mahesh Uniyal

NEW DELHI - An acute water shortage crisis gripping large parts of India and Pakistan has made the two nuclear rivals realize the need to put politics aside to improve the lives of their majority poor.

Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf has indirectly appealed to India to help battle the worst drought that is causing acute distress to millions of people in his country. ''At a time when our people are affected with such natural calamities, we must devote our resources and attention to alleviating their sufferings, rather than making aggressive postures,'' he said. In a public statement issued in Islamabad Wednesday, Musharraf, who overthrew a democratically elected government last year, described the drought that has gripped large parts of southern Baluchistan and Sindh provinces as ''one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history''.

''The people in Pakistan feel for those impacted by the drought in Afghanistan and India,'' he declared.

According to preliminary estimates by UN agencies, about 3 million people in the two Pakistani provinces are facing a chronic shortage of water for drinking, farm irrigation and for their livestock. Describing the situation as ''very critical'', UN officials in Islamabad said the drought has forced large-scale migration from the drought-affected areas and killed hundreds of livestock in the mainly rural nation.

The situation is worse in neighboring India where, according to official estimates, some 50 million peasants face thirst and starvation. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing their villages in the western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan along the India-Pakistan border. Even as Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, in a nationally televised appeal, asked countrymen to donate liberally to drought relief operations, weather experts were predicting a shortage of monsoon rain this year. The four-month monsoon starting early June is vital for recharging natural water supplies of the mainly rural nation of nearly 1 billion people.

Musharraf's statement should cheer New Delhi, which has long insisted that the two neighbors should not let their dispute over Kashmir keep them from working together for the well-being of their people. Chances of bilateral cooperation were seen to have been blocked by the continually rising military tension following the tit-for-tat Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapon tests two years ago.

Although the Indian government was still to respond to Musharraf's suggestion that the drought ''be dealt with in the context of regional cooperation'', water experts agree that this is the only long-term answer to the region's growing thirst. According to well-known Indian water expert B G Verghese of the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, India and Pakistan have much to gain by working together to use their limited water resources efficiently.

The main source of water for Pakistan and the adjoining areas of India is the Indus river that flows down from the Himalayas across northwestern India before entering Pakistan. The river and its five main tributaries that also flow across India carry an estimated 0.2 billion cubic meters of water annually. India and Pakistan initialled a highly successful Indus Treaty four decades ago to share the water of these rivers. Verghese thinks the time has come for an ''Indus II Treaty''. ''We can enhance the benefits from the Indus Treaty,'' he said.

The water of these rivers have made India's northwestern border state of Punjab the country's food granary. However, Pakistan's adjoining Punjab province is still to catch up.

The chief ministers of Indian and Pakistan Punjab had met in Lahore during Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee's landmark bus ride to the Pakistani city a year ago. The Pakistani Punjab chief minister had agreed to visit Indian Punjab along with Pakistani experts to learn from the Indian state's farm success. But the trip was called off because of last summer's undeclared war over Kargil between the two countries. Also shelved were proposals to sell surplus Pakistani electricity to India that could have been used to power farm irrigation pumps in India.

There are possibilities of building more storages across the Indus and its tributaries to ensure that this water does not flow down unused to the Arabian Sea.

A key area of cooperation can be learning ways to cut down water wastage on farms. Agriculture accounts for the bulk of water use in South Asia, yet studies show that more than half the water used on farms in India and Pakistan goes to waste. Like elsewhere in India, rice farms in Indian Punjab and are notoriously wasteful users of water that could have been used for other needs. On average 15,000 liters of water are used to produce a kilogram of paddy. Experts think that not more than half of this is actually needed.

''This is sufficient to supply 100 nomads with 450 head of cattle for three years, 100 rural families for four years, 100 urban families for two years,'' noted a Food and Agriculture Organization publication.

(Inter Press Service)

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