To have a fresh understanding of the tensions in our Jammu and Kashmir border areas, particularly the recent escalation in attacks in Jammu region, we need to relook at the Indus Water Treaty and understand if it’s increasingly getting weaponized.
We need to set up fresh mechanisms that just don’t talk about building dams and infrastructure but going further that deal with communities inhabiting the border and understand their relations with their geography, particularly rivers and forests. We need to relook how our river ways and forests have become weaponized because of infiltration from across the border that’s increasingly embedding into them a narrative of conflict and tension.
In this heightening context of conflicted border, the Indus Water Treaty needs to encompass not just river water and its sharing but it now needs to become inclusive of the hydrogeological aspects of the underlying geography—meaning river water can’t be held in separation from its geography which includes multiple parameters like altitudes, climate and natural resources and how the interplay of these various parameters impacts the native societies particularly their agriculture and economy.
Relooking at the Indus Water Treaty from the national security perspective of “cognitive geography” becomes all the more important because of the discourse on climate change. More so also because the Climate Change narrative is also getting into multilateral diplomacy which means it has already become a geopolitical adage. The entire issue including its economical and anthropological factors should be classified under border related national security discourse.
UJH’S CASE STORY
Because of my ancestry in the Kathua hills where terrorist attacks have increased in the past one year—I have witnessed things very closely both as a native and as a journalist. On March 23 when the region faced fresh infiltration from across the border in Hiranagar region followed by an encounter on March 27—I obviously had much to think about. The operation is ongoing and has become the longest counter-terror operation in recent years.
Three terrorists were gunned down and four policemen lost their lives in an encounter in Jakhole village in the Ghati Juthana area of Rajbagh in Kathua, amidst intensified operations against the infiltrated group of militants. The agencies are looking for three more.
I had visited Rajbagh in September last year for a reporting assignment. Rajbagh isn’t a simple border stretch for the security agencies working on the Jammu international border. It’s the area where, Ujh the major distributary of Ravi river enters the border and is known for its high vulnerability to cross-border infiltration.
Ujh starts from the Kailash range at Bhaderwah at a much higher elevation and makes its way through a dynamic geography of forests and continuously morphing altitudes of the Shivaliks before it reaches the plains where the border extends. Our comprehension of the river hydrogeology in the western Shivaliks is obscured because of the presence of an international border that cuts through a continuous geography and history creating problems that can never be perpetually resolved.
Ujh is the river of my childhood—visible from the roof top of my ancestral home. The shrines on its banks were our pilgrimage and picnic spots—its water irrigated my ancestors crops and it continues to be the topic of discussion in our homes, particularly more because for many years we have been expecting a dam called the ‘Ujh Multiple Purpose Dam Project’ at the Panjtirthi site in Billawar.
It’s somewhere near Panjtirthi that an encounter broke out on Monday evening but the three terrorists escaped. Note their movement along the Ujh’s floodplain–news reports said agencies believe they are moving towards the Kailash trijunction between
With no industry, economy and grassroots livelihood opportunities, before 2019 the Ujh multipurpose project was a source of excitement for many because it built up expectations for land sale on government prices. The land in these remote regions otherwise had pitiable value—it neither had takers nor laws supporting its sale.
In 2019 with the abrogation of Article 370, the land prices suddenly shot up and the expectations of the stakeholders started to change. Now with increasing attacks there’s again an underlying sense of anxiety about what the future may hold. Meanwhile the land has certainly become a more capital generating assert while no new opportunities of live hoods have been generated. This has led to stranger demographic trends of migration and created new problems for local authorities.
More notable are security problems created by sale of lands to unscrupulous elements as well as undetected land grab in remote areas. It’s to be particularly noted that in conflicted societies, land issues gather heightened sensitivity which can become very unfathomable for those outside.
COMMUTABLE GEOGRAPHY
What makes things more complex is the commutability of the western Shivalik geography. Border has disabled us from understanding that someone walking from Pakistan into Jammu has to simply walk on long existing routes which were shaped by rivers.
The Indus network of rivers in the western Shivaliks except for Ravi and Chenab isn’t made up all by perennial rivers. Ravi and Chenab are supported by a complex mesh of distributaries (called Khads) that for most of the year remain dry except for the monsoons. Their wide pebbled beds with narrow water streams meandering through them become easy conduits. In fact, they always were in the historic past.
In those days of no roads, the river commute was supported by a Pahadi, Dogra community of “Luwangs” whose profession was just to help people cross the deeper streams on these river beds. During my September trip to Rajbagh the locals told me that Rajbagh is a complex border to manage because after monsoons when the water recedes, the border fence calls for more repairs and that’s when vulnerability to infiltration also increases.
For that matter even if the border fence stands tall and strong, the soil nature isn’t different on both sides of the border and infiltrators who are experts in digging tunnels perpetually know it’s the same earth both sides. The continuous geography and similar language and cultures creates familiarity.
The dangers caused by cross border tunnels has pushed the border managers to increasingly calls for more anti-tunnel campaigns on this stretch of the border where tunnels also mean a persistent and increasing mafia for narcotics.
WIDEN POLICY PERCEPTION FROM INDUS RIVER TO INDUS BASIN
In order to relook into the Indus Water Treaty and make it more inclusive of the communities inhabiting its hills and plains, it’s important that we relook into our national policy perception of the Indus Basin System. After relooking into our national policy imperative, we should follow this up with widening our perception of the cross-boundary river basin and propose a new Indus Water Treaty.
This would obviously be an exercise calling for competence and vision and the government of India should take the lead creating and implementing it in a handholding manner with the new UT government.
Parallel to it the Défense Ministry should set up a ‘Border Geography and National Security Institution’ in Kathua somewhere on the Jammu-Pathankot border. It should also involve local intellect and delve beyond traditional research into fresh understandings as well as innovative approaches to border management that encompass diverse and cross-cutting strategies involving population and resources.
This could be inclusive of setting up model border villages and managing sites like the Lithium reserves of Reasi.
Lastly, make “knowledge economy” a part of the widening economic landscape of Jammu. Fostering innovation, building capacities and encouraging start-ups that facilitate knowledge generation in the region would help build a lasting change.
In addition to inviting states to build their tourist bhavans in Jammu and Kashmir (like Maharashtra has started doing), do invite states to set up start-up villages, capacity building centres or NGOs in Jammu and Kashmir. List key areas of development interventions where other states can participate by investing their resources in the territory.