Given the size of the two countries, the time has come to share the waters, instead of the rivers, in a reverse proportion: India 70 per cent and Pakistan 30

In a private conversation an American scholar once described Pakistan’s army as the monkey on India’s back. The phrase is used to describe a huge and unsolvable problem. It has also been said that whereas other countries have an army, the army has a country in Pakistan.

The thing about this particular military monkey is that it fulfils the classical definition of madness. This definition is attributed to no less a person than Albert Einstein, namely, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Since 1948 the Pakistani army has provided enough proof of this definition. It was in that year that it first tried to take Kashmir by force. It has kept trying and failing repeatedly.

Not just that. It has also been an army for rent. First the Americans and now the Chinese have rented it. Ironically, Mohammad Ali Jinnah had once famously called Muslims in the Congress party as ‘bhaday ke musalman’ or Muslims on hire.

It has not mattered whether it’s a civilian government or a military one. The Pakistan army has refused to learn any lessons. And it’s always been available for hire.

So the question before India is whether it is obliged to feed this army’s country. All these years we have assumed that if we feed it, there’s a chance that it will change its behaviour. But since that hasn’t happened and looks unlikely to happen, the time has come to stop feeding it.

This is the perspective in which the decision to put the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance must be seen. There’s nothing like thirst, especially in the summer, to teach a monkey new tricks.

Some people think it is morally wrong to “weaponise” water. But that’s a wrong term to use. Incentivise or nudge is more accurate.

Share water, not rivers

Have you ever wondered why, when the rest of the world shares the waters, we share the rivers? The idea didn’t originate either in India or in Pakistan.

Instead, it came from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as the World Bank was then known. That was in 1954.

At that time the IBRD was one of America’s important instruments to get countries to cooperate. America had rented Pakistan via the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO). How Pakistan became a part of Southeast Asia testified to its available for rent character.

Anyway, the IBRD “persuaded” India to accept not only a sharing of rivers but a strange allocation of the rivers as well. To date there’s no good explanation as to why Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to this counterproductive arrangement. All we have are statements saying he was fair. Fair to Pakistan, that is.

The Indus Waters Treaty was the result in 1960. India got 41 billion cubic metres. Pakistan got 99 billion cubic metres. Overall, India got only 30 per cent of the Indus system waters. Pakistan got 70 per cent.

That was fair? It seems Pakistan had 21 million hectares to be irrigated compared to India’s 5. Enough it was said for current needs. The future was ignored. It was a ridiculous arrangement by any yardstick. That’s why, for the last several years, India has been asking for a new treaty.

Given the size of the two countries, the time has come to share the waters, instead of the rivers, in a reverse proportion: India 70 per cent and Pakistan 30. If nothing else it will prevent Pakistan from stealing water from its Sindh province to irrigate its Punjab province where a lot of its army personnel own land. The Sindhis are not amused.

Sindh also happens to be the stronghold of the Bhutto family party, the PPP. It is in coalition now with the Punjab party of Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif called Pakistan Muslim League (N). But the two are mortal enemies.

India will need help

To get a new treaty India will need American help. The time seems right for that. That’s perhaps why the Pakistani prime minister reminded the US that his country had been doing the “dirty work” for it for 30 years. It’s 45, actually, starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

Pakistan may well ask China for help. That help can come in many ways, including launching cyber attacks on Indian institutions and infrastructure.

But just as America has had to, China will also have to decide if Pakistan is worth the trouble. A friendly India can keep Chinese factories running. A friendly Pakistan will be as much use as a tranquillised monkey.

Published on April 27, 2025

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