India began to use its unilateral ‘abeyance’’ of the Indus Water Treaty by stopping waters of the Chenab to fill up three of its own dams, the Baglihar, Pakal Dul and Sajal Dams. The three dams have a storage capacity of 1.2 million acre feet, and if the water of all three is released after theory fill up, the result would be flooding in the area irrigated by the Chenab. It is worth remembering that these projects were objected to strenuously by successive Pakistan governments for the last several decades. India’s declaration of suspension was initially pooh-poohed by a section of Pakistani irrigation experts on the ground that India simply did not have the capacity to stop the waters guaranteed to Pakistan under the IWT.
However, while it seems that stopping the Indus Water altogether and using them for its own irrigation may be beyond India’s ability at the moment, and may well lie in the future, it can indulge in causing damage to Pakistan. In fact, the damage it can inflict is likely to be quite severe, as it can hold back the waters throughout the monsoon, and release them as soon as they reach flood level. That way, India can subject Pakistan to repeated floods whenever it wants. Knowing the BJP, this is likely to be further weaponised, with its military forces launching an attack in the flood area in coordination with the artificial flood so that the devenders are caught in the rushing floodwaters. The way the BJP strutted after its 1998 nuclear tests, particularly the way then Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani chortled that Pakistan would have to behave itself, indicates that it would like to keep this Indus Waters as a bludgeon to beat Pakistan on the head with.
In 1998, Pakistan itself carried out nuclear tests, and it was wonderful to see how India piped down after that. However, there seems to be no quick response now. In 1998, Pakistan braved international condemnation for the tests, but now it cannot carry out any action which would violate the IWT, because it wants to hold India to it. However, What India perhaps did not realize is that IWT follows international customary law of upper and lower riparian’s, which still applies. The Indian action is already outrageous. If it is not stopped now, it will only grow worse.
