Change the course of water wars

The likely withdrawal, around the end of 2016, of the El Nino (“Christ Child”) weather system is likely to mitigate the adverse effects on the monsoon winds associated with it. It is a matter of cautious hope for India, which has been suffering for the last three years from prolonged drought in the southern, western and central regions. El Nino’s strongest effects on precipitation are in Southeast Asia and Western Pacific region.

Of further cheer is the recent prediction of the Indian Meterological Department that the southwest monsoons due in June would be normal and up to the mark, with rainfall in some cases perhaps even exceeding the normal.

The ongoing drought in India has been attributed to the creeping effect of climate change — a topic that covers a host of technical, socio-political and economic factors that are much discussed in various fora. All these discussions have led to the unyielding bottomline that chronic shortage of water will now be an almost normal feature of human existence over large parts of the world, both first and third.

Countries in the former obviously possess greater capabilities to ride out the impact, while those in the latter, in many cases, remain mortally stricken and floundering.

The deepening sense of all-round crisis has been compounded by the sense of fear and insecurity created in many parts of the world by unrelated geopolitical factors, i.e. religious radicalisation, fundamentalism and terrorism by organisations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Al Qaeda and their outriders in South Asia like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

India is a good example. Not yet in First World, but nevertheless slowly pulling itself by its bootstraps out of the third. The visual media daily brings home the grim reality of the climatological catastrophe creeping up over the country.

The images of women trekking long distances under a blazing midday sun with headloads of metal or plastic pots to collect a few litres of water — often dirty and polluted, from dried-up wells, muddy ponds or water tankers, which often operate at irregular intervals and to no fixed schedule — are harrowing.

The stoicism and enduring courage of India’s womenfolk in Maharashtra and other states in this daily battle for preservation of hearth and home makes each one them true incarnations of every warrior-goddess in the pantheon. In this context, China had “promised” to release water from March 15 to April 10 to drought-hit neighbouring countries located downstream along the Mekong river, from the network of hydropower dams and reservoirs constructed along its upper reaches as a good neighbourly gesture. The amount of water released by China is too low to help alleviate drought-stricken Southeast Asia.

This is of tangential significance to India because India and China are at best uneasy neighbours. They share common riverine water resources of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, which originates on the high plateau of Tibet and flows into China, with a major channel branching off into India where it flows through both India and Bangladesh as the mighty Brahmaputra-Jamuna-Meghna river system, and flows through the Sunderbans Delta into the Bay of Bengal. In this instance, both India and Bangladesh are the lower riparian countries and ultimately dependent on the Chinese goodwill for access to the Brahmaputra waters.

As in India, where several states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been affected by drought, the northern regions of China, mainly Inner Mongolia, Qing Hai and Sichuan provinces have reportedly been similarly hit. This has caused losses of $1.2 billion due to crop failures. Droughts are said to be occurring in China with increasing frequency which, coupled with the inexorable rise of population pressure, have caused massive increase in the demand for water, both potable and non-potable.

China is casting about for additional resources of fresh water, and international rivers like the Mekong and the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, which flow through more than one country to outfall through China have the potential of becoming future flashpoints of “water wars” unless these issues are addressed in a timely and serious manner.

China has indicated future plans to construct no fewer than four run-of-the-river (a type of hydroelectric generation plant whereby little or no water storage is provided) hydroelectric power plants on the Yarlung Tsangpo at Zhangmu (510 megawatts), Dagu (320 megawatts), Jiacha and Jiexu (capacities not yet known). India’s abiding concern has been the potential utilisation of these power plants as choke-off points, should China choose to regulate or even stop the flow of water downstream to India. Though an unlikely contingency at present, if it happens, it will, of course, affect Bangladesh as well.

India needs to watch and address the future course of geopolitical events on the subcontinent with balance and circumspection. But it should also remain confident, keeping in mind the interplay of forces many of which retain their traditional institutional biases against India.

In the specific context of management of India’s national interests in any future water-sharing arrangements relevant to the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra waters, the terms set out in the 1997 UN Convention on Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (which has not yet been ratified by China), should be informally adopted by India to base its overall guidelines to ensure equitable sharing.

India, China and Bangladesh — the concerned riparian states — have earlier held technical discussions in respect of sharing of hydrological and other relevant data. A workable answer will ultimately lie in the creation of a suitably structured tripartite Tsangpo-Brahmaputra commission, comprising representatives of the three upper and lower riparian countries.

But beyond the façade of the United Nations and international conventions, treaties and cooperative commissions of management remains the ultimate factor which in the end always takes centrestage, especially in an issue as critical as water, the giver of life — India’s national interests. Is India ready?