The terms “Water War” and “Water Wars” are media darlings. The famous quote apocryphally attributed to US humorist Mark Twain “[w]hiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over” is so overused that many water professionals are pleading to ban its use. To get a feel as to when the hysteria over water wars began, we explored Google labs tool Books Ngram Viewer which revealed that geographers were using the terms to describe water situations in the US and Middle East as early as the late 1800s with an exponential increase in the use of these terms starting in 1988.

The experts they mention – Gleick, Yoffe, Giordano, Susskind – are the main sources earlier mentioned reviews draw on. They close with a very valid conclusion:

Much of the hype about water wars is good business for conflict beneficiaries and book sales, but in reality conflicts over transboundary waters are normal, and managing that conflict offers constant opportunities for dialogue and cooperation.

I have just reviewed such an attempt to cash in on the ‘water war’ hypothesis for DAWN.

Brahma Chellaney’s Water: Asia’s New Battleground sums up the arguments for why South Asia may go to war over water in the near future (and how that could be averted). It is representative of a number of recent publications along these lines — and serves as a good example of where they may be going lost in the thicket of hyperbole that lushly grows when policy experts muddle in sensitive engineering or natural science topics (or equally when engineers have an urge to develop political arguments on such).

The arguments for and against the threat of near future war over water resources are at loggerheads. For South Asia examples for a dire future situation are ample, and since many countries are extremely dependent on huge water courses originating in a neighbouring country (with which it often has other disputes ongoing), the argument for violent conflict seems close to come by. The counter argument observes that while there is and will be conflict over water resources, countries have not gone to war over it in the past, and because of effects explained with Pareto optimality, both parties would be loosers in an outbreak of such, and are therefore inclided to solve the problems via cooperation.

What makes the topic very interesting on the Subcontinent and in Asia in general, is the fact that the debate is being carried out very actively (3). For the case of the Indus Basin, conflict between India and Pakistan, one should read on the recent history of water resources in the two countries (4), what the current challenges are (5) and what kind of solutions may already be around and need not be introduced by ‘international experts’ – see MS Gopal’s great photographs of the Barefoot Geologists in Kutch.

For Central Asia, the research reaches from Climate Change, via the stand off between the rather poor Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, who have all power over the water sources Amu and Syr and are excerting it, and the richer downstream Uzbekistan, to the effects of water overuse on the common property Aral Sea (6).

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¹ Two good and rather recent overviews can be found here: Thomas Bernauer and Anna Kalbhenn. 2010. The Politics of International Freshwater Resources The International Studies Encyclopedia. Wiley-Blackwell.; Dinar, A., and Dinar, S. (2003) Recent Developments in the Literature on Conflict and Cooperation in International Shared Water. Natural Resources Journal (43) (4), 1217–87 (a revised form of this paper can be downloaded here)
² Most notably the Databases on the Transboundary Waters Website
³ See for example Briscoe’s comment in EPW India on the Indus and India-Pakistan and Iyer’s response.
⁴ John Briscoe et. al. on Pakistan (Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry) and India (India’s Water Economy – Bracing for a Turbulent Future)
⁵ On Pakistan the Wilson Centre’s Report Pani ki Kahani is excellent, for India, the papers from the IWMI’s NSRLP project are a take, as an introduction the first chapter from a series.
⁶ On Climate change, see Bernauer, T., Siegfried, T. Climate Change and International Water Conflict in Central Asia., on the conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan by the same authors (2007) Estimating the performance of international regulatory regimes: Methodology and empirical application to international water management in the Naryn/Syr Darya basin.

Singh means to critizice Indians on their admiration for the Gora’s writing on their homeland – Dalrymple is pissed – Singh accepts the challenge.

UPDATE I: A very similar haggle, Patrick French and Pankaj Mishra take on here and here.

What’s a foreigner allowed to understand on the sub-continent?

UPDATE II Or differently put by Salil Tripathi at Mint here…

[Article] Karachi water mafia by Alex Rodriguez in LA Times

[Article] Fishermen pay for the political hickhack by Alex Rodriguez in LA Times

These are stories by all means not new. But they are rather what the journalists now again increasingly posted in Pakistan seem to churn out when there is no Taliban-head capture controversy to report about. Or when they simply realize, that the country has many other issues apart from the Taliban threat.

[Blog] Hunza landslide at PamirTimes.

A natural disaster still relatively unnoticed by foreign media has occured in Hunza and is threatening to become an ever bigger problem. The landslide took a whole village north of Aliabad and Karimabad into the Hunza river in January, until now the earth masses are holding back the water which is now reaching back nearly all the way to Passu. The first of the famous foot bridges is already under water. The lake already has a length of 12 km.

[Interview] Recent interview with the Indus Water Comissioner for Pakistan Jamaat Ali Shah in Dawn. Talks about the water issues between the two countries began today in Lahore (see Dawn article).

Pankaj Mishra has earlier, nearly 10 years back written an article-triptychon in the Review on Kashmir.

The first in the series (Death in Kashmir, September 2000) dealt with then recent lethal encounters between Muslim separatists, Indian army and civilians. A long, sad insight into the Indian misconception of happenings there and the burden lying on the Kashmiri’s shoulders.

The second part (The Birth of a Nation, October 2000) deals with the history from Partition to the 90s, from Iqbal’s ideas for a Muslim state and Nehru’s assertion that Kashmir needed to be with India (both have Kashmiri roots) to Sheikh Abdullah and the creation of Islamic Groups on the Pakistani side infiltrating over the LoC.

On where the disillusioned Kashmiris could turn Mishra writes:

Pakistan was a natural choice. It had tried to liberate Kashmir by force twice by sending in armed infiltrators—first in 1948 and then in 1965—and on both occasions had failed to muster enough support among the local population, which, though not entirely happy with Indian rule, was also wary of Pakistan. But the fast-growing disillusionment with Indian rule through the 1980s made many Kashmiris look toward Pakistan for assistance: it was the only country in the world that consistently affirmed, at least rhetorically, the Kashmiri “right to self-determination.”

Looking at the Pakistani Kashmir today, especially the situation of Kashmiris from the Indian part who live in AJK without a legal status, often in tin sheds since years is dire (ironically these people suffered less in the Earthquake of 2005, since they didn’t have houses that could collapse over their heads). The Mohajrs from Indian Kashmir I know mock the Pakistani term Azad Kashmir and call it “Azab (azab-al-qabr being the hellfire) Kashmir” themselves.

What is missing from the Pakistani side in any case, is an assessment of the Pakistani Kashmir in the style of Mishra’s articles on the Indian part. While DAWN regularly writes about incidents on the Indian side of Kashmir, apart from AJK Cabinet reshufflings one never reads about the Pakistani part. While I respect figures like Yasin Malik who is given ample air time on Pakistani Talk shows, coverage of Kashmiri figures from this side of the fence is restricted to sad post-zalzala stories and I guess it would just be fair to hear their side of the story as well. The job would not be too hard, it’s not a case for self-criticism or pouring oil into a nationalist debate. Mishra has managed to give an unbiased account from “his” side – so could a Pakistani in Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Neelum.

The last part (Kashmir: The Unending War, November 2000) looks at the 90s and offers an outlook and some more insight into the plight of the local people.

The cycle of violence and destruction has been so swift and severe in Kashmir; the insurgency has poisoned and destroyed so many lives. Yet the insurgents’ political cause remains as lonely and hopeless as before. Independence, which a majority of Kashmiris seem to want, or integration with Pakistan, which for many Kashmiris is the second-best option after independence, are not possibilities that any Indian government can ever consider without immediately losing the support of the Hindu middle classes. The European Union and the US are unlikely to risk antagonizing India, with its lucrative markets and resources and the trappings of a democracy, by taking up the Kashmiri cause.