Blood and water can’t flow together, says PM
New Delhi : Weighing its options to hit back at Pakistan for sponsoring terror, India has decided to revisit the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday bluntly said that “blood and water cannot flow together”.
Using water as a weapon, the government has decided there would no meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission set up to overlook implementation of the treaty till “terror is in the air”, and that India would also take a final call on the unilateral part of suspension of the Tulbul water navigation project in Jammu and Kashmir depending on what Pakistan did next.
The two major steps as well as maximising the flow into India of river waters – used by Pakistan – were decided upon at a meeting of senior officials chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.
The meeting decided that an inter-ministerial commission would be set up to look into various provisions of the bilateral water treaty that was signed in Karachi on September 19,1960, out of Pakistan’s fear that since the source of rivers of the Indus basin is in India, it could potentially create droughts and famines in Pakistan during times of war.
“Blood and water cannot flow together,” official sources here quoted Modi as having said during the meeting. The meeting was attended, among others, by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar and Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Nripendra Mishra.
The meeting decided to look at the full utilisation of the waters of the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum, the three western rivers of the Indus water system that flow through Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan. Around 95 percent of the waters of the three eastern rivers of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi is utilised by India.
Signed after 10 years of discussions, the Indus Waters Treaty was designed to generate goodwill between the two South Asian neighbours and has survived three wars. The meeting, according to sources, decided that with things being “rather difficult” with Pakistan in the past few weeks, India should revisit the treaty.
It was also decided that there would be no meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission, till Pakistan stopped sponsoring terrorism against India. The commission has held 112 meetings till now at an average of two a year. According to sources, the government will look into reviving work on the Tulbul water navigation project on the mouth of the Wular Lake in Jammu and Kashmir.
OUR BUREAU ADDS
Meanwhile, in the Supreme Court, the Bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice A M Khanwilkar refused to give an urgent hearing on a PIL filed by advocate M L Sharma, wanting the treaty declared as unconstitutional since it was not signed as per the constitutional scheme. “There is no urgency in the matter. It will come up for hearing in due course,” the Bench told Sharma who rushes to the court with PILs at the drop of the head.
