Water scarcity and environmental degradation are existential concerns for the people of Sindh. Until 1960, the Indus consistently claimed land from the sea as the outflow was an average of 94 million acres per feet annually. Now the sea claims millions of acres of fertile land periodically in Badin, Sujawal, Thatta districts and even jeopardises Karachi.
Sindh has been destroyed due to the lack of annual water flows, and sea erosion has claimed more than three million acres of fertile land since Mangla and Tarbela Dams were built. At present, the out flow is often less than the absolute minimum of 7.3 maf. Sadly, the once mighty Indus often runs dry even before it meets the sea.
For millennia, the Indus River wholly and exclusively provided for Sindh, and Sindh alone. In 1945, a fallacious concept was devised: The Indus River ‘System’. It was floated by the British in cahoots with the Unionist Government of Punjab. Earlier and in preparation for the subjugation of Sindh, a brave and independent chief minister, Allah Bux Soomro, had also been removed in 1942.
Hidayatullah’s party had only three seats in a house of 60 members of the Sindh Assembly. He signed the infamous Sindh Punjab Water Agreement of 1945, which was then used to provide a framework for the Indus River ‘System’ which now was deemed to comprise Indus as well as its five tributary rivers: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas.
Earlier, the undivided province of Punjab took water from the five rivers, excluding the Indus. Hydrologically and geographically, the Sindhu (Indus) is a separate and independent river. Up until 1945, Sindh had exclusive rights to the waters of the “mighty” Indus.
Amalgamating the Indus with other rivers and then sharing the pooled waters paved the way for disputes and grave inter-provincial discord. Nature on its own had achieved a fair distribution under which Sindh historically took waters of the Indus exclusively and Punjab, from the other five rivers, with the proviso that Punjab would not interfere with water flows into the Indus at Panjnad.
This arrangement had ensured separate water regimes for both Sindh and Punjab. However, the British had their own colonialist goals to pursue. Therefore, Punjab and Sindh, under the 1945 Agreement, were each granted 48% of the waters of the Indus. From the Punjab’s share, 5-6% would go to NWFP (KP) and the remaining 4.0% to Balochistan.
Under the 1945 Agreement, a dispute resolution mechanism was arranged between Sindh and Punjab and decisions were made by consensus (each having equal voting right). The role of referee fell to the federal government.
In 1960, at the behest of the World Bank, General Ayub Khan, agreed to the Indus Basin Water Treaty with India. For a paltry sum of $200 million, General Ayub Khan did the unthinkable and sold the waters of Ravi, Beas and Sutlej in perpetuity to India.
In exchange, Pakistan received the grandiose Mangla and later Tarbela Dams designed, built (and even operated initially) by the most expensive consultants, contractors, engineers and suppliers in the world, with borrowed money from the World Bank.
Most dictators want mammoth infrastructure projects constructed during their rule. Ayub was no different. He particularly wanted to garner support and admiration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. The Mangla and Tarbela dams were constructed on River Jhelum and River Indus, respectively.
It must be remembered that until then, western Punjab was fed by Jhelum and Chenab as three rivers were given away to India. So Punjab was compensated from the Indus via new diversionary off-takes such as Jinnah and Chashma Barrage, and the Thal Canal, thereby drastically affecting water flows to Sindh.
As if this arrangement was not lethal enough, in 1990, the establishment installed another government of its choice in Islamabad as well as in Sindh to bulldoze another new Water Accord of 1991, enacting the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) Act of 1992 (by replacing the Sindh–Punjab Water Agreement of 1945).
The PPP opposed this revisionist policy and voted against it. It had fathomed that this would create bad blood between the provinces in future. Water disputes erupted and have only exacerbated since 1992.
Both the Water Accord 1991 and the IRSA Act 1992 were imposed during highly unrepresentative setups installed by a powerful military-civil-bureaucracy-feudal (Punjab) cartel.
Surreptitiously, Punjab had managed to retain the lion’s share that it enjoyed in the 1945 Sindh-Punjab agreement, when east and west Punjab were one territory: Punjab’s share remained at 48%. Sindh’s share, which should have stood at 66% (in the absence of Indian Punjab) was reduced to 42% whilst the shares of KP and Balochistan were retained at 5.8% and 3.8% respectively.
Once again, the water dispute resolution under the IRSA Act was most unfair to Sindh. Prior to 1991, Sindh had 48% share of Indus waters but was allowed equal power in decision-making with Punjab, whereas the other two provinces and Islamabad had no vote each. Under the 1945 Sindh Punjab Waters Agreement, Sindh was at least an equal stakeholder with Punjab, whilst the British government played the role of referee.
Post 1991, a federal government that had no previous entitlement to a share of Indus waters suddenly became party to water issues, accentuating water disputes even further. After much struggle by the PPP, other parties and the civil society, the federal government finally yielded in the year 2000 and conceded that the federal member of IRSA shall be appointed from Sindh, being the lowest riparian.
The notification issued in 2000 is protected under Article 270AA of the constitution. The 17th Amendment paused the contentious Water Accord and Sindh got some relief, as it now had two members out of five.
However, this practice was inexplicably discontinued in 2014. The decision was challenged in the Sindh High Court in 2014. The SHC declared in 2017 that the constitution protected Sindh and the federal member of IRSA shall be appointed from Sindh. Interestingly, the federal government filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, but the appeal was dismissed in 2021.
To date, the federal government has failed to appoint a member to IRSA from Sindh. Without IRSA having two mandatory members from Sindh (as determined by the constitution), a ‘Water Availability Certificate’ was issued by IRSA for the construction of the Cholistan and Thal Canal(2) project, on January 24, 2024 during the caretaker setup.
The government of Sindh immediately opposed this move and ECNEC has yet to approve the project. The government of Sindh’s appeal is pending in the Council of Common Interests and can be challenged under Article 155 by an aggrieved government in a joint session of parliament. Until this legal process is completed, no scheme can be initiated or started on the ground.
The government of Punjab allegedly commenced digging on the site. This is unconstitutional and illegal. It has led to fears in Sindh that constitutional forums are being bypassed, and construction is being carried out. No lawful construction can be carried out in the absence of decisions by ECNEC, CCI or the joint session of parliament under Section 8 of the IRSA Act, 1992 and Article 155 of the constitution.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has warned the PML-N government in the centre that the federal and Punjab governments cannot construct canals or sow seeds of hatred among provinces by bypassing provinces. Bilawal Bhutto has also said that the Cholistan and Thal Canal (phase II) are highly divisive issues and the federal government must cancel this ‘on the demand of the people’. President Asif Ali Zardari had also spoken similarly whilst addressing a joint session of parliament on March 10, 2025.
The people of Sindh are rightly enraged and furious as a carefully constructed yet fragile federal mechanism of water sharing is being violated yet again. If continued, it will have a very negative effect on the environment, the fertility of the delta and water availability in Sindh’s capital city, other cities, towns, villages and hamlets of Sindh.
The writer has served as advocate general of Sindh. He tweets/posts zamirghumro
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.