Brahma Chellaney -- Rivers of conflict between India and Pakistan
Any water treaty's comparative benefits and burdens should be such that the advantages for each party outweigh the duties and responsibilities, or else the state that sees itself as the loser may fail to comply with its obligations or withdraw from the pact. If India begins to see itself as the loser, viewing the treaty as an albatross around its neck, nothing can save the pact. No international arbitration can address this risk.
When China trashed the recent tribunal ruling that knocked the bottom out of its expansive claims in the South China Sea, it highlighted a much-ignored fact: Major powers rarely accept international arbitration or comply with tribunal rulings. Indeed, arbitration awards often go in favor of smaller states, as India's own experience shows. For example, an arbitral tribunal in 2014 awarded Bangladesh more than three-quarters of the 25,602 sq. km disputed territory in the Bay of Bengal, even as it left a sizable "gray zone" while delimiting its maritime boundaries with India. Still, India readily accepted the ruling. However, nothing can stop India in the future from emulating the example of, say, China.
To be sure, Pakistan and India face difficult choices on water that demand greater bilateral water cooperation. The Indus treaty was signed in an era when water scarcity was relatively unknown in much of the Indian subcontinent. But today water stress is increasingly haunting the region. In the years ahead, climate change could exacerbate the regional water situation, although currently the glaciers in the western Himalayas -- the source of the Indus rivers -- are stable and could indeed be growing, in contrast to the accelerated glacial thaw in the eastern Himalayas.A balance between rights and obligations is at the heart of how to achieve harmonious, rules-based cooperation between co-riparian states. In the Indus basin, however, there is little harmony or collaboration: Pakistan wages a constant propaganda campaign against India's water hegemony and seeks to "internationalize" every dispute. Yet, in New Delhi's view, Pakistan wants rights without responsibilities by expecting eternal Indian water munificence, even as its military generals export terrorists to India.This rancor holds a broader lesson: Festering territorial and other political disputes make meaningful intercountry cooperation on a shared river system difficult, even when a robust treaty is in place.
, I would say many of those people deserve to be punished, a country's actions against another(like Uri) have consequences for the attacking country, and India has to do something, which is better than nothing. So yes, go ahead and restrict the water, if it's feasible.
I hope MAD seriously consider renegotiate IWT to set right follies of 1960s.
