Waxing lyrical about pitfalls of not building Kalabagh dam

Shazia Marri did prove right in the end. Our National Assembly has seemingly lost interest in discussing water-related issues in a comprehensive manner. Instead of focusing on the larger picture, a definite mindset, primarily representing Punjab, manages to steer the discussion around an oft repeated but yet to be resolved question of building a dam at Kalabagh.

Belum Hasnain had no intention of debating the idea of building the dam anyway. The resolution that she had moved primarily wanted the government to take “immediate steps to resolve the issue of construction of dams by India on the waters of Pakistan.”

Speaking for or against the proposed resolution, our representatives simply needed to focus on those clauses of the Indus Basin Water Treaty that help India to continue building dams on rivers, considered exclusively reserved for Pakistan by letters of the same treaty.

Shafqat Mahmood of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf tried doing the same by admitting that certain clauses of the said treaty were alarmingly ambiguous. India takes full advantage of the inherent ambiguity. It was time to convince India for a sincere review of the Indus Basin Water Treaty to ensure averting a serious water crisis for Pakistan.

Working full time for a high profile parliamentary party committee on Kashmir in the mid-1990s, Shafqat had diligently aided and assisted Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan in promoting Pakistan’s case before the international community. On the seminar and NGO circuits, he also keeps holding informal negotiations with an influential group of peace promoting Indians. He needs no tutor for discovering that a blanket rejection of the Indian Basin Treaty would not serve Pakistan’s long-term interests, but we must keep pushing for a dispassionate review of the same to preserve our rights.

Shazia Marri fully endorsed Shafqat’s preamble. In the flow of her speech, however, she did feel the need to forewarn that while speaking on the issue of Indus water, some of her worthy colleagues would ultimately end selling the idea of building a dam on Kalabagh. And she proved so right when, immediately after her, Bashir Virk took the floor from the PML-N side to passionately promote the idea of building a dam at Kalabagh.

Everyone sitting on the PPP benches began vying to steal the chair’s attention during his speech. Nawab Yusuf Talpur got the floor after him to “speak for Sindh.” That provoked many on the PML-N benches. Recklessly disregarding their pretentions for a ‘national and a mainstream party’, speaker after speaker from the PML-N side went on and on to sell the idea that Kalabagh was the only spot in Pakistan that had ample space and right environment for building a huge water reservoir. Besides storing water, a dam at this point can also produce massive amounts of cheap electricity.

Javed Hashmi could have easily left the debate hanging in the shape of a pro and anti-Kalabagh dam feelings, passionately dividing the PML-N and the PPP. He has, of late, begun to take himself too seriously, though. The rabble-rouser of yesteryear rather wants to sound like a statesman these days, enriched with doable answers regarding all questions under the sun.

After a yawn-inducing preamble that wanted to prepare us for nuclear wars on the issue of water, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi eventually came round to selling of the idea of building a dam at Kalabagh. Pakistan, he thundered, would turn into a desert if a dam on this site were not built on an urgent basis. Being a ‘seasoned politician’, he also felt very uncomfortable with “narrow thinking of my brothers and sisters from Sindh.

“Let me tell them,” he pronounced in a sagacious tone, “a day will soon come when every Sindhi may appear desperately begging for a dam at Kalabagh, but by then we would have no water to store there.”

Throughout Hashmi’s dramatic speech, I kept wondering as to why he had not been motivating Imran Khan to take up the cause of building a dam at Kalabagh, if he were so convinced of its long-term benefits for Pakistan. After all, Wali Khan of Charsadda was the first top-ranking politician of this country who had opposed the building of this dam in the mid-1980s. Sindh took some time to follow him in its vehement opposition to the dam.

These days, Imran Khan of Mianwali appears to have taken over the job of expressing the Pashtun sentiments. His party also leads the coalition government in K-P. With iconic input from Imran Khan in support of building a dam at Kalabagh, the K-P government could formally make the demand of building it and Sindh would then find itself alone and isolated in opposing this dam.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2013.