Baghliar Dam and Future Prospect

BAGLIHAR DAM AND FUTURE PROSPECT
Introduction
1. In the twenty first century many parts of the world are likely to witness their wars on water. Probably the tensions on water are nowhere as intense as they are in South Asia. The Baglihar project manifests how difficult it is to reconcile the mutually exclusive positions taken by the sides.   The project is controversial in every single respect. Pakistan prefers a name, which conveys that it is being built to divert the water of River Chenab.   The preferred Indian name is Baglihar Power Project, which is an attempt to make the people think that Baglihar has no purpose other than power generation. Such differences are accompanied by another important disagreement over the project's design. Similarly, the dispute stems from a mutually exclusive reading of the Indus Basin Water Treaty and the World Bank’s role in dispute resolution. Baglihar Dam, however is an example of Indian intransigence and indifferent attitude towards needs of its smaller neighbour. It also highlights that how a powerful country can so easily opt to violate the international treaties.
2. The Baglihar controversy has its genesis in Indus Waters Treaty, which has worked well for the last forty five years. The treaty has survived mostly because it involves actors outside the region - the World Bank being the most important of them.
3. The two sides under the treaty enjoy exclusive rights over the rivers flowing through the one to the other. Few Indians think that the treaty gave no consideration to the issue of future requirements that both the countries may have, as far as utilising common waters is concerned, power generation being only one of the most important of these usages. In another Indian view, the treaty failed to visualise, and consequently provide for, any water shortages to occur in the future.
4. These factors are at the heart of the current dispute over Baglihar project. The Indian attitude has heightened fears in Pakistan, that...