This brief is largely based on several discussions organised at Observer Research Foundation over a period of time. These discussions were enriched by the presence of some of the well-known experts on water issues in the country, like former Union Minister for Water Resources, Dr. Suresh Prabhu, current High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Tariq Ahmad Karim, Mr. Sunjoy Joshi, Director, Observer Research Foundation, Ms. Clare Shakya, Senior Regional Climate Change and Water Adviser, DFID*, India, Mr. Samir Saran, Vice President, ORF and Dr. Dinesh Kumar, Executive Director, Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy, Hyderabad.
Water will be one of the critical drivers of peace and stability in South Asia in the second decade of the 21st century. If the first decade of the new millennium was shaped by terrorism, the next two decades (2010-2030) will witness issues around water dominating internal and external policies of countries, especially in South Asia where the fresh water crisis is brewing with great intensity.
It is estimated that by 2030, only 60 per cent of the world’s population will have access to fresh water supplies . This would mean that about 40 per cent of the world population or about 3 billion-people would be without a reliable source of water and most of them would live in impoverished, conflict prone and water-stressed areas like South Asia.
Since over 70 per cent of the available fresh water supplies are utilised to produce foodgrains, the depleting water availability will accentuate the already worsening per capita availability of food in large parts of the world. The demand for food in 2030 will witness a quantum jump of 50 percent while there is likely to be a 30 per cent rise in the demand for fresh water by the time the world population crosses 8.3 billion.
These developments would drive the present agrarian crisis in many countries around the world to a deeper morass, rendering millions of farm owners and workers jobless, pushing a large number of them towards urban centres. Countries in South Asia, by their sheer number of people and demand for food and water, figure high on the list of such critical regions. It is quite obvious that availability of clean, unpolluted water, its management and the willingness, or reluctance, to find a cooperative mechanism to face the crisis will, in more ways than one, influence geo-strategic policies in South Asia in the decades ahead.
Water is already an extremely contentious, and volatile, issue in South Asia. There are more people in the region than ever before and their dependence on water for various needs continues to multiply by leaps and bounds. The quantum of water available, for the present as well as future, has reduced dramatically, particularly in the last half-a-century. This is due to water-fertiliser intensive farming, overexploitation of groundwater for drinking, industrial and agricultural purposes, large scale contamination of water sources, total inertia in controlling and channelising waste water, indifferent approach to water conservation programmes and populist policies on water consumption.
Although fresh water scarcity is a common problem across the borders, the situation is particularly acute in Pakistan and India. Both the countries have a high rate of population growth, wide-spread poverty, declining food production and a rapidly rising demand of water for domestic, agricultural as well as industrial uses. The fresh water crisis is reaching critical proportions in these two countries at an alarming speed. In Nepal and Bangladesh, two other countries in South Asia with water problems, the issues are different. Both have relatively abundant supplies of water but it is the lack of capacity to utilise the available water resources and prevent the cycles of frequent floods and shortages during lean seasons that render their water future ‘critical’.
Despite the looming threat of water scarcity staring at many of the countries in South Asia, there has been a persistent reticence, often deliberate, in working together to reduce the impact of the impending crisis on the people of the region. Most of the blame should squarely lie on the political and bureaucratic leadership of these countries which has treated water strictly as a sovereign issue, ignoring the fact that many of the rivers and river systems that feed billions in the region transcend political boundaries. Water is treated as a political feature with the corresponding shorthand on rights, volumes and ownership describing the
narrative. Petty squabbles, feudalistic approach and plain obduracy among the policymakers in the region have considerably accentuated the possibility of a ‘water war’ not only between two countries but within the countries themselves.
narrative. Petty squabbles, feudalistic approach and plain obduracy among the policymakers in the region have considerably accentuated the possibility of a ‘water war’ not only between two countries but within the countries themselves.
The latter is perhaps already a reality and may result in unrest and ‘water riots’ in India and Pakistan, particularly due to their ethno–political composition and rivalries. Due to the politicisation of ‘water’, each country in the region has pursued policies that are almost always at variance with policies in neighbouring countries sharing the same river systems for sustenance. Water governance is disjointed, weak and often at odds within and across the countries in the region.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to break this gridlock for ensuring sustainable water security for the people of this region. One of the creative ways could be to reassess the problems associated with water availability and use. This can be done by identifying and documenting issues related to water, common challenges for the affected countries in the region and discuss and develop cooperative water management and governance frameworks that are both sensitive to the specific locality and also add to the regional effort of securing supply and availability of this resource.
The following issues would be included in any such cooperative framework are as follows:
(i) Declining Water Availability;
(ii) Water Mismanagement;
(iii) Water Salinity and Pollution;
(iv) Climate Change
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