Don't roil the waters

Pakistan has got an unexpected setback with regard to the dispute with India over the Baglihar hydel-power project in Jammu and Kashmir.

It walked off the negotiating table in a huff last month, in the hope that it would be able to internationalise the issue by referring it to the World Bank, which had brokered the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960.

But the Bank, as could have been expected, has distanced itself from the dispute and advised Pakistan to exhaust all the options available in the treaty before seeking its intervention in the appointment of a neutral expert to review the project.

Not only that, the World Bank has also delineated the steps Pakistan must take before approaching it again.

Islamabad is now left with two options""go in for protracted procedural wrangles to get a hearing from any third party, or get back to the negotiation table for another bid to resolve the differences bilaterally.

Though it is difficult to foresee Pakistan's next move, the resumption of direct talks would surely be the saner course, especially since India has suggested that it is willing to be flexible.

The World Bank's position therefore presents the two countries with a new opportunity to sort things out amicably.

There are several factors in favour of a negotiated settlement of the dispute. For one thing, the waters of the six rivers which the Indus treaty deals with are equally important for both countries.

As such, this issue is as emotive for the people of Pakistan as it is for those in India, especially those in Jammu and Kashmir.

If the waters of the three west-flowing rivers allocated to Pakistan under the treaty constitute the life-line of that country, the non-consumptive use of these waters by India, also allowed by the pact, is of equal significance for Jammu and Kashmir.

The development of this militancy-ridden state is severely hampered by the acute paucity of power, despite the existence of a huge untapped hydro-electricity potential.

This apart, it is essential for both India and Pakistan to keep the 45-year-old water pact going, even though the treaty is full of flaws that make it a fit case for review.

Indeed, the treaty has apportioned rivers and not waters between the two countries, irrespective of the quantum of water flowing in each of these rivers and the requirement of the population depending on it.

But this is not the time to go into these flaws. For a review would only add another irritant to bilateral relations, which are being nursed to a semblance of cordiality.

Islamabad is obviously worried about the possibility that India, the upper riparian, will get control over the flow of water and use it for arm-twisting Islamabad.

But this has seldom happened in the past, not even during the worst of times like wars, and in any case it should be possible to work out the operational modalities for water release, as has been done with Bangladesh with regard to the Farakka barrage.

India's declared willingness to reconsider some of Pakistan's objections to the project design and come out with possible modifications should be taken in the right spirit by Islamabad.

India, too, should do whatever it can, short of stopping the Baglihar project, to allay Islamabad's fears.