July 3
Misplaced Water
Diplomacy
Brahma Chellaney
This is one of the
very worked around articles about a simple yet very stupid mistakes that the
nation is committing. Call him the right person placed at the wrong place, but
Manmohan Singh has made some really big flaws in terms of the Indian foreign policies
of natural resource sharing. In that particular sector, water is one of the
most basic and essential commodity obtained exclusively out of rivers and rain
waters. As the country faces constant deficit of water, we have landed some
really compromising water treaties with our unthankful neighbors. Starting with
the Indus River Treaty, India gave away more than 80% of the total Indus river
water to Pakistan soon after being declared a republic, keeping to itself less
that 20% of the total share even though the nation caters to a major section of
the upstream branch of the river. Apart form that we have also shared 50% of
the waters with Bangladesh derived from the common rivers according to the
Teesta River Treaty despite of the fact the India plays a sole role in the
upstream development of all the shared rivers. This immense generosity towards
her neighbors has only invited trouble for the country. The diplomacy has never
been backed with proper purpose. Pakistan, even after enjoying immense freedom
of region and resources, has sought to takeover more from the nation. Ever
since the war of 1965 when India had hardly recovered rom the 1961 war with
China. They still stand to occupy a majority of Kashmir and are demanding more.
It has become very crucial from the country now that it stops the charity spree
as its own citizens are dying under the weight of the something along the lines
of a deliberate inflation. The nation has also been providing billions of
dollars of aid to the neighbors despite of the fact that its own citizens crib
every night with only with the sky as the shelter. This may be backed up by the
argument that the center is trying to maintain strategic ties with the
surrounding nations but that infact has not been fruitful directly in any
manner. We do not have any solid grounds of support for that fact, and to add
to that misery, we have our past experiences to prove the point that being
friendly to these nations (say China and Pakistan ) has never been of very much
benefit to us and has always opened gateways towards troubles. It is very
important for the country now to for a very strict and strong foreign policy
towards its neighbors and act accordingly. There is also a constant necessity
to make the water laws (which already are but not strictly followed) a state
matter and not a federal matter. This will allow stronger governance at the
border and a multilateral solution to every problem that we face in terms of
resource sharing with our neighbors on international grounds. To sum it all up,
it is high time that we may act greedy and shellfish for our own good.
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