Can India Avenge The Uri Attack With A Water War?

Can, or rather should, India break the Indus Water Treaty to hit back at Pakistan?

- Rekha Dixit

On November 20, 1960, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told Parliament that he had purchased peace with the Indus Water Treaty (IWT). He knew the treaty was more give than take, but it was a small price to pay for getting peace in return. Fifty-six years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called a meeting of top officials to discuss how India could wrench back peace using the same treaty, which so far has been generously ensuring life-sustaining water to Pakistan. The message is that a non-violent offensive could be a payback in water, or rather, without it.

Within a day of declaring that “blood and water cannot flow together”, India said it would review the most favoured nation (MFN) status given to Pakistan. It also decided not to attend the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meet to be held in Islamabad in November.

Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan, too, dashed off their regrets to Nepal, the current SAARC chair. Bangladesh cited the “growing interference in the internal affairs of Bangladesh by one country”, Bhutan mentioned escalation of terrorism in the region, while Afghanistan said its leader Mohammad Ashraf Ghani was fully engaged in “dealing with violence as a result of imposed terrorism on his country”.

The MFN review is not likely to cause much flutter, given that it was lip service anyway. However, the three steps together show an energy at hitting back at Pakistan with a multi-pronged non-war offensive; the support of other SAARC nations is certainly a boost for India. Pakistan has responded to India’s refusal to attend SAARC by saying that “India has been perpetrating and financing terror in Pakistan’’.