The day after the termination of the standing agreement on the Indus basin, India shut off water supplies from the Ferozepur headworks to the Dipalpur Canal and to the Pakistani portions of the Lahore and main branches of the Upper Bari Doab Canal. As a result about 5.5 per cent of sown area and nearly 8 per cent of culturable command area in Pakistan were left without water at the beginning of the critical kharif-sowing season. Lahore was deprived of its main source of municipal water and distribution of power to Pakistan from the Mandi hydroelectric scheme was cut off. Why did India do this? Because of the 'situation in Kashmir'. India was 'anxious to take every measure to bring pressure on Pakistan to withdraw her 'volunteers' and her violent objections to Kashmir's accession to India'. In addition, 'certain of the Indian leaders were completely unreconciled to the emergence of Pakistan as an independent state (some still are)....they felt entitled to use every means at their disposal to wreck her economy, to demonstrate that she could not succeed alone, and thus to bring her back to India. Denial of vital irrigation water would be one way to expedite the process.' That was the spring of 1948. Eerie echoes are evident in the current 'situation in Kashmir' and the shrill demand from some sections in India to scrap the Indus treaty and use water as a weapon of war against Pakistan. The above description of the 1948 crisis is from Aloys Arthur Michel's massive study, The Indus Rivers. The 'Standstill Agreement' signed on December 18, 1947, which provided for maintenance of the allocation of water in the Indus basin irrigation system, terminated as scheduled on March 31, 1948. On April 1, India shut off water supplies. Geography dictated that 'India held all the cards', as one of the chief Pakistani negotiators summed up simply during the Indus treaty negotiations. Michel describes Pakistan's negotiating position as 'feeble' in 1948. Their only possible recourse was war, but the newly created state risked extinction since all the strategic advantage lay with India. Unable to survive without water, Pakistan signed an 'Inter-Dominion Agreement' with India on May 4, 1948. India claimed all the waters of the eastern rivers and demanded payment from Pakistan for its supply until 'replacements' could be developed. Pakistan was required to deposit in the Reserve Bank of India a sum to be specified by the prime minister of India. In short, a neat spot of blackmail using water as weapon by an upper riparian state against a weak and helpless neighbour. The chorus currently demanding that India scrap the Indus waters treaty and 'shut off' water supplies to Pakistan therefore has an unhealthy precedent. India has done it before. It used water as a weapon for political ends. It cut off a vital source of life from a shared resource to millions of fellow human beings, motivated by the conflict over Kashmir. It used the geographic advantage afforded by Partition to squeeze its weak neighbour. Pakistan tried to bring her case to the International Court of Justice, but India would not cooperate. Twelve years passed before the Indus waters treaty was signed between India and Pakistan in 1960. The negotiations involved an initiative from David Lilienthal, chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, mediation by the World Bank, and the Bank's persuasion of 'friendly countries' like the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Australia and New Zealand, to finance the deal. So then as now, the resolution of a subcontinental crisis became the white man's burden. As a senior water resources analyst in the US puts it, essentially the two sides were 'bought off' by the international community in 1960. Indeed, the Indus treaty was published as an 'annexure' to the Development Fund Agreement, which Michel takes as a clear indication that the World Bank and the US in particular had 'purchased' the agreement from the two warring states. Whatever it took to get the parties to sign, the Indus waters treaty has stood the test of time so far and was not revoked even during the 1965 and 1971 wars. It is widely held up as a model for hostile states to come to a negotiated arrangement over shared resources. No surprise, as Professor Peter Rogers of Harvard University points out, since it is the only treaty of its kind brokered by the World Bank. All the more reason, one would think, for India and Pakistan to stick to it. More than 200 river basins are shared by two or more countries, accounting for about 50 per cent of the earth's land area. Despite the absence of a uniform legal framework, the situation 'is not a Hobbesian jungle', according to Rogers. Nearly 300 agreements have been signed by countries on water issues and a body of conventions has built up over time which 'inhibit some of the worst aspects of sovereign behaviour by upstream, and in some cases, downstream, states'. In recent times, there has been much speculation that water might be at the heart of future international conflicts, especially in west Asia. Serious water disputes exist within countries as well, such as between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in India, and Punjab and Sind in Pakistan. In the tension surrounding the annual Indus commission meeting amidst calls in India to revoke the treaty, concern has been expressed both in the Indian media and foreign editorials that India and Pakistan may go to war over water. In this context it is interesting to note the view of Professor Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University, coordinator of a water disputes database, that no inter-state war has actually been fought over water except one between the Sumerian city-states, Lagash and Umma, 4,500 years ago. However, there are violent conflicts related to water disputes and water can clearly be used as a weapon in a wider conflict. Usually international attention has focussed on a water conflict only after a crisis, such as in the case of the Indus. Early dispute resolution is a key to avoiding future conflict. Unfortunately, in addition to calls to revoke the treaty, the ongoing dispute over India's construction of the Baglihar project on the Chenab has not been suitably addressed yet. A similar dispute had arisen in the Eighties over the Wular barrage/Tulbul navigation project. Pakistan maintains that the Baglihar project, as currently designed, violates the Indus treaty since there would be a significant degree of water extraction. India argues that Baglihar represents a 'run of the river' hydroelectricity project to which it is entitled. However, as per the Indus treaty, India may only build new 'run of the river' hydel plants with Pakistan's agreement and subject to the treaty provisions for dispute resolution. Large storage or diversion works on the western rivers on the Indian side are ruled out. Professor Robert Bradnock of King's College feels that a suitable design of Baglihar could be agreed upon to ensure that India obtained the added benefit of the project without seriously disadvantaging Pakistan. However, he adds, 'I believe that it could be held to be in breach of the treaty to proceed unilaterally without Pakistan's agreement.' A site inspection due to be held last December was postponed by India and despite the routine annual meeting of the permanent Indus commission held in May, the issue is unresolved. Many commentaries in India blithely refer to the Indus treaty as being 'biased' in favour of Pakistan. No such bias is evident in scholarly works. Rather the treaty is seen as a remarkable achievement in conflict resolution and river basin development despite deeper hostilities between India and Pakistan. Bradnock reflects the general view when he says that 'the treaty has brought - and continues to bring - enormous benefits to both India and Pakistan. The fact the treaty has survived through the Indo-Pakistan wars is a testimony to this mutual benefit.' There is something deeply demeaning therefore about the venom against the Indus treaty that is spewing from senior echelons of India's government, diplomatic service and strategic analysts. By demanding that the Indus treaty be scrapped and water be used as a weapon in a political conflict, these 'patriots' are inciting India to simultaneously violate an international treaty and commit a crime against humanity. Indeed, they are asking India to become the sort of country that would not be worth fighting for.