The 1941 census report in undivided India stated that 460 crore population depended on the Indus river water system. According to the report of the Radcliffe Commission, after the partition, 25 million of this population went to Pakistan and 21 million people remained in India. After this partition, the headworks of canals originating from Sutlej, Ravi and Beas rivers and 20 out of 25 canals originating from these rivers remained in India. A canal flows through the territories of both India and Pakistan. If India wanted, it could have stopped the water of all the canals going to Pakistan, but India did not do so.
On 20 December 1947, a status quo agreement was reached between the engineers of Pakistan and India regarding these canals, the period of which was to end on 31 March 1948. After this a new agreement was to be made but it did not happen. On the day the agreement ended, India cut off water supply to two important canals and demanded a new permanent settlement. Water supply resumed a month later when it was agreed between the two countries that water supply would not be stopped without giving Pakistan another option.
The leaders of India considered it a technical problem, but the leaders of Pakistan considered it an Indian conspiracy to ruin Pakistan's agriculture. Once again a temporary agreement was reached between India and Pakistan to maintain the status quo but a permanent agreement was necessary. Therefore, the arbitration of the President of the World Bank was accepted.
World Bank President Eugene Black formed a committee to study this problem in which engineers from India, Pakistan and World Bank were included. This committee made the following suggestions to India and Pakistan on 5th June 1954-
(1) All the water of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab should be allowed to be used by Pakistan and that water of river Jhelum which is used in Kashmir should be allowed to be used by India.
(2) All the waters of Sutlej, Ravi and Beas should be allowed to be used by India. India should give some of that water to Pakistan for 5 years.
(3) Every country shall build dams etc. in its land, but India shall bear the cost of connecting canals to the extent that India will benefit from it. This expenditure comes between 40 to 60 lakhs.
(4) According to the World Bank committee, India was to get 20 percent of the Indus river watershed for its 2 lakh acres of land. Pakistan was to get 80 percent water for its 4 lakh acres of land.
By following the recommendations of this committee, India was going to suffer a lot and Pakistan was going to gain a lot because India had to build the link canals and it had to get only 20 percent of the water, as well as India would get the water of the Chenab river forever. was denied. Despite this, India accepted this proposal immediately while Pakistan accepted these proposals on 5 August 1954 with many negatives and conditions.
After accepting this agreement proposed by the World Bank Committee, Pakistan raised an objection to the Bhakra Dam being built on the Sutlej River in India and complained to the World Bank about the violation of the agreement by India. When the World Bank investigated this complaint, it was found that the plan of this dam was made in AD 1920 and work on this dam was going on since AD 1946.
E. The World-Bank Committee constituted in 1952 was also informed about this dam and its construction is being done under the agreement itself. In 1957, when Suhrawardy was the Prime Minister of Pakistan, he once again opened a front against India in international forums regarding the sharing of canals.
On 1 June 1957, Suhrawardy said in an interview to The Associated Press- 'The two screws of India's grip on us are canal water and Kashmir. …… India has built dams and India intends to cut off the Sutlej and two other rivers that supply water for irrigation to the western part of Pakistan. They will be ready next year to do so. They can also control the water of the three rivers originating from Kashmir. India claims that it needs water to irrigate the deserts of Rajasthan. They ask Pakistan to make up for the shortfall in water from the inflow of water from all the three rivers originating from Kashmir. It would require expensive dams and canals, but I don't think they really intend to pay us anything for this plan.'
In conclusion, it can be said that the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Suhrawardy, was brazenly asking for money not only for the connecting canals and dams to be built in India, to use the water of the rivers originating from India in Pakistan, but also very shamelessly. And brazenly, he also wanted money from India for the dams and canals to be built in Pakistan.
Commenting on this, Indian Irrigation Minister S. Of. Patil made a statement- 'Suhrawardy has made it his life's goal to distort all the facts and truths about the canal water dispute.
On 30 October 1958, at a newspaper conference in Karachi, the new military ruler of Pakistan, General Ayub Khan, threatened to wage war with India over Kashmir and canal water issues. He also said that- 'Projects meant to deal with Pakistan's water problem will take 10 to 15 years to complete. Therefore, during this period, India should give water to him and also bear the expenses of these schemes. The quantity of water which we have been getting till now, we should keep getting it otherwise our land will become barren. Whatever is possible, we will have no choice but to take any other route.'
In the matter of shamelessness, Pakistani military ruler Ayub Khan had even gone miles ahead of Prime Minister Suhrawardy. He was not only demanding money from India for the canals and dams to be built in Pakistan but was also threatening to wage war for it. It was the language of the Pindaris, which in AD 1818 was crushed by the British and wiped out from the whole of India. It seemed that now the same language was appearing once again in Pakistan.
On 17 April 1959, a new Interim Agreement on Canal Water was signed in Washington after pressure built on India's international fora. Giving information about this agreement in the Indian Parliament on 6 and 7 May 1959, the Minister of Irrigation and Energy of India, MM Ibrahim said that the governments of both the countries have accepted this agreement and assured that this agreement will lead to The work of Rajasthan canal will not be affected.
The Indus Water Treaty was signed on 19 September 1960 in Karachi between General Ayub and the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The main terms of this agreement were as follows-
1. India will have full right to use the waters of the three eastern rivers- Sutlej, Ravi and Beas.
2. Pakistan will have the right to full use of the waters of the three western rivers – Jhelum, Chenab and Indus.
3. The World Bank and the 6 Allied nations America, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and West Germany will fund the construction of canals connecting both India and Pakistan by 1977. Till then India will continue to give water to Pakistan as it is.
4. India agreed to give 100 crore rupees to Pakistan for the construction of new canals and dams.
5. The duration of the water which will be given to Pakistan can also be increased on the request of Pakistan, but the amount of the amount to be given can be reduced in the same proportion.
With the Partition of India, even after the serious water dispute with Pakistan, due to the laxity of the Government of India, for the last seventy two years, the water of India's part has been flowing in the rivers and canals flowing towards Pakistan, due to which Punjab, India's Punjab, The people of the states like Haryana and Delhi are unable to get the quantity of water according to the regional river-water agreements and are struggling to get more water by pressurizing the Delhi government and not to give water to other provinces.
The current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has changed the old policy of India after the Uriyan and Pulmawa terrorist attacks from Pakistan and has promised the people of India that they will accept the share of Indians from the waters going to Pakistan from the rivers of India. Will stop water from flowing towards Pakistan. If this happens, then sufficient water will flow in the rivers and canals flowing towards Punjab, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan and sufficient water will be available for irrigation and drinking water to the people of North-Western India.