Has India ‘weaponised water’ to deliberately flood Pakistan?

Islamabad, Pakistan – For the second time in three years, Catastrophic monsoon floods have sculpted a path of destruction in the northern and central regions of Pakistan, in particular in its province of Punjab, submerged villages, drowning agricultural land, moving millions And kill hundreds.

This year, India – the Archrival of Pakistan and neighboring nuclear weapons – is also in shock. It is Northern statesIncluding the Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Indian Punjab, have experienced widespread floods while the heavy monsoon rains swell rivers on both sides of the border.

The Pakistani authorities say that since the end of June, when the monsoon season has started, at least 884 people died nationally, more than 220 of them in Punjab. On the Indian side, the victims’ count crossed 100, with more than 30 dead in Indian Punjab.

However, shared suffering did not bring the neighbors together: in Punjab in Pakistan, who borders India, the federal minister Ahsan Iqbal in fact accused New Delhi of having deliberately released the excess water from the dams without a timely warning.

“India began to use water as a weapon and caused large -scale floods in Punjab,” Iqbal said last month, citing discharges in the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers, which all come from Indian territory and Pakistan.

Iqbal also declared that the release of flood waters was the “worse example of aggression of water” by India, which, according to him, threatened lives, goods and means of subsistence.

“Some problems should go beyond politics, and cooperation in water must be one of them,” said the minister on August 27, while he was participating in rescue efforts at Narowal City, his district that borders India.

These accusations occur in the midst of increased tensions between India and Pakistan, and the rupture of a six decades pact which helped them to share the waters for rivers which are living lines of the two nations.

But experts argue that evidence is thin to suggest that India could deliberately have sought to flood Pakistan – and wider nation misfortunes indicate the risks of such a strategy, even if New Delhi contemplates it.

Water arms

Relations between India and Pakistan, already in a low historical history, fell more in April after the Pahalgam attackin which armed men killed 26 civilians in cashmere administered by the Indians. India blamed Pakistan for the attack and came out of the Water Treaty in Indus (IWT)The transbound agreement that governs the six rivers in the Indus basin.

Pakistan rejected the accusation that he was in a way behind Pahalgam’s attack. But in early May, the neighbors led four -day conflicttargeting the military bases of the other with missiles and drones in the most serious military climbing between them in almost three decades.

As part of the TVI, the two countries had to regularly exchange detailed water flow data. India no longer adhering to the pact, fears have mounted in recent months that New Delhi could either try to stop the flow of water in Pakistan, or flood its Western neighbor through large sudden versions.

After New Delhi suspended his participation in the IWTThe Minister of India of India, Amit Shah, in June, said that the treaty would never be restored, a position that caused demonstrations in Pakistan and accusations of “water terrorism”.

But while the Indian government has not published an official response to the accusations that she chose to flood Pakistan, the Indian High-Commissariat of Islamabad has, in the past two weeks, shared several warnings of possible cross-border floods for “humanitarian grounds”.

And water experts say that the allocation of Pakistan floods mainly to Indian versions from dams is an “excessive simplification” of the causes of the crisis which is likely to obscure urgent and shared challenges posed by climate change and aging infrastructure.

“The Indian decision to release the water from their dam has not caused floods to Pakistan,” said Danish Mustafa, a professor of critical geography at King’s College in London.

“India has major dams on its rivers, which end up going to Pakistan. Any excess water that will be released from these rivers will have a significant impact on the own states of India,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shared monsoon strain

Pakistan and India depend on the glaciers in the chains of the Himalayas and Karakoram to feed their rivers. For Pakistan, the Industry river basin is a rescue buoy. It provides water to most of around 250 million people in the country and underpins its agriculture.

Under the IWT, India controls the three oriental rivers – Ravi, Sutlej and Beas – while Pakistan controls the three Western rivers, Jhelum, Chenab and Industry.

India is forced to allow the waters of Western rivers to flow into Pakistan with limited exceptions and to provide detailed hydrological data in a timely manner.

India has built dams on the oriental rivers it controls, and the flow of the delight and the Sutlej in Pakistan has reduced considerably since then. It has also built dams on some of the Western rivers – it is authorized to, under the treaty, as long as it does not affect the volume of water flowing in Pakistan.

But the merger of the glaciers and an unusually intense summer monsoon pushed the river levels on both sides of the dangerously high border this year.

In Pakistan, glacial explosions followed by heavy rains increased levels in Western rivers, while growing flows put infrastructure on oriental rivers in India at serious risks.

Mustafa of King’s College said that dams – like other infrastructure – are designed by keeping in mind a safe water capacity that they can hold and are generally supposed to operate for about 100 years. But climate change considerably changed the average precipitation that could have been taken into account when designing these projects.

“The parameters used to build the dams are now obsolete and meaningless,” he said. “When the ability of the dams is exceeded, the water must be released or it will endanger the structure in destruction.”

Among the main dams upstream of the Indian territory are the Salal and Baglihar on the Chenab; Pong on the beas; Bhakra on the Sutlej; And Ranjit Sagar (also known as Thein) on the delight.

These dams are based on Jammu and Kashmir, Indian Punjab and Indian Pradesh, with large Indian territory areas between them and the border.

Bleam India for floods in Pakistan makes no sense, said Shiraz Memon, a former Pakistani representative of the bilateral commission charged by the TWT to monitor the implementation of the pact.

“Instead of recognizing that India has shared warnings, we blame them from water terrorism. It is [a] Simple and natural flooding phenomenon, “said Memon, adding that in late August, the region’s tanks were full.

“With capacity water, the spills had to be opened for downstream versions. This is a natural solution because there is no other option available,” he told Al Jazeera.

Blame policy

According to September 3 data on the website of Central Water Commission, at least a dozen sites face a “serious” flood situation, and 19 others are higher than the normal flood levels.

On the same day, the Ministry of Pakistan Water Resources published a notification, citing a message from the Indian High Commissioner, warning “high floods” on the Sutlej and Tawi rivers.

It was the fourth notice of this type of India after three previous warnings last week, but none contained detailed hydrological data.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department, in a September 4 report, said two sites on Sutlej and delighted on the Pakistani side were confronted at “extremely high” flood levels, while two other sites on Ravi and Chenab have experienced “very high” levels.

The volume of water during an intense monsoon often exceeds a single dam or the capacity of a dam. The controlled versions have become a necessary, although dangerous, part of flood management on both sides of the border, said experts.

They added that, even if IWT forced India to alert abnormal flows for Pakistan, Pakistan also needs better surveillance and data systems in real time rather than relying solely on diplomatic exchanges.

The game of blame, warns analysts, can serve short -term political objectives on both sides, especially after the May conflict.

For India, the suspension of the treaty is considered a firm position against what it considers as terrorism sponsored by the state of Pakistan. For Pakistan, India’s blame can provide a political scapegoat that distracts internal failures in the attenuation of floods and governance.

“Rivers are living and breathable entities. This is what they do; they are still in motion. You cannot control the flood, in particular a high or serious flood,” said Mustafa Academic.

Bleam India will not stop the floods. But, he added, it seems to be an “easy way to get out of responsibility”.