The February 12, 2007 verdict on the Baglihar Project has made India concede the Pakistan demand that the freeboard should be reduced by 1.5 metres. This is a minor matter because freeboard is a safety measure against overflowing of the dam by impounded river waters. Every modern dam has this provision. In case of the Tehri Dam, the freeboard is of eight metres, above the highest expected flood level.

While welcoming the Swiss expert’s verdict, Indian engineers and political leaders should not lose sight of the considerable sacrifice India made in the years immediately after partition for making the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) a reality and winning for India the right to utilize the entire flows in the three “eastern” rivers of Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

Two major “sacrifices” India was persuaded to make by the World Bank, which had brokered the Treaty, were not somehow discussed for many years and even now few people are aware of them.

First, India made cash payment of Pound Sterling 62,060,000 over a ten –year period to enable Pakistan build head works to regulate the flow of these rivers in its territory.

Second, India was debarred from fully utilizing waters of these three rivers for ten years (April 1960 to March 1970(extendable up to 1973). It undermined Indian green revolution in a manner of speaking.

Says R. Rangachary, noted irrigation expert at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, “The Nangal Barrage and the canal system became operational from July 8, 1954. The Bhakra Dam was completed in October 1963 but the impounded waters of the Gobindsagar reservoir could not be fully utilized till 1970 Rabi season. In fact, the full reservoir level was reached for the first time only in September 1975. No surprise therefore the full potential of the Green Revolution, which had become a reality from the Rabi season of 1967-68, became available only from the Kharif season of 1970-71.

Pre-partition South-west Punjab and the adjoining Ganganagar region of Rajasthan used to witness droughts and devastating famines. The situation changed after India built the Bhakra Nangal Project.

According to Rangachary, the Indus basin had extended over 26.30 million hectares (65 million acres) of cultivable land in British India. The rainfall in the Indus plains was low, ill-distributed and mostly undependable. Hence, prior to the advent of large-scale irrigation, vast areas remained barren and unoccupied in the Indus basin. These were called “crown waste lands” as these were owned by the State.

In the early twentieth century, the British rulers gave preference to the reclamation and irrigation of these crown waste lands ignoring the strong claims of the famine-prone semi-arid tracts of south-western Punjab. At the time of partition, about 10.5 million hectares in the Indus basin were irrigated, perhaps then the largest in any single river system in the world.

8.5 million hectares of these irrigated lands went to Pakistan leaving a mere two million hectares for India. In addition this country was left with an un-irrigated land consisting of 15.80 million ha of cultivable – but not irrigated – land. Pakistan got 10.5 million ha of cultivable land of which 8.50 million ha were already irrigated. Pakistan also got nearly four-fifths of the irrigation system together with some of the most fertile agricultural areas of the country.

“Thus the advantages of the vast irrigation system, built in the Indian plains over many decades went away in a disproportionable manner to Pakistan. In other words, partition disabled India overnight”, says Rangachary.

Even as it was saddled with irrigation-starved land, East Punjab received millions of people from the Western half of Punjab as refugees. It is another matter that the hardy Punjabis faced adversity with admirable nonchalance, but the fact is prosperity eluded them till the Bhakra system became operative and the 10-year Indus Treaty restrictions ended in 1970.

During this ten-year period and even after that, waters of all rivers were flowing into Pakistan without any restriction. The situation changed somewhat after the construction of Pong Dam across the Beas, the Ranjit Sagar (Thein) Dam and the Beas-Sutlej Link through the Pandoh Dam. Some quantity of combined flows of the Beas and the Sutlej were diverted from the Harike head works (Punjab) for the Rajasthan Canal (Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana).

Pertinent is the question why did India agree to the Indus Treaty? Well, it is because while the irrigated areas of undivided Punjab went largely to Pakistan, the head works of the canal systems remained mostly in India. The Madhopur head works across the Ravi, for example, built in 1859, as the source for the Upper Bari Doab canal, remained in India although the canal irrigates land mostly in Pakistan.

Also, Pakistan had thought –somewhat unjustly, one might add - that India would interfere with the flow of water of these rivers by manipulating the head works such as the one at Madhopur on the Ravi, the Ropar across the Sutlej (before Bhakra),and the Hussainiwala near Ferozepur. India entered into several short-term agreements with Pakistan to dispel its suspicion till the World Bank stepped in to facilitate the signing of the Indus Water Treaty on September 19, 1960.

Despite the two wars and the attack on Parliament House by Pak- based terrorists (December 2002), when demands for abrogating the Treaty had gained momentum, the Government of India did not even think of interfering with the provisions of the Treaty.

In return, India has been presented with objections to the Baglihar and the Tulbul (navigational) projects, and the first reference to an international neutral expert for settling the Baglihar issue.

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