In the surge of healing- the case of Indus basin

Abstract: Water being a vital resource and an inevitable ingredient for the existence and sustenance of life drew the attention of human settlements from the beginning. Nearly all human activities i.e. commerce, sanitation and transportation get influenced by water in one way or the other. Since water resources are continuously depleting due to myriad problems, so water sharing is also becoming a conflicting point between nations. Although the debate of saving water draws its trajectory from 1980’s however, the link between water and security has emerged only in the post-Cold War scholarly debate about the scope of the security concept itself. To understand the concept of water security in the South Asian context the case study of Indus basin is chosen in this dissertation. Shared by four riparian states i.e. China, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, the Indus basin serves as a trans-boundary water resource from ages. But unfortunately the Indus basin lies in a part of the world where intense distrust, chronic conflict, and bitterly contentious water policies have a long history too. Stagnant or decreasing agricultural productivity, increasing dependence on groundwater, growing population, high risk of climatic variability, enhancing industrialization, and unplanned and un-regularized urban growth are the major challenges which are gnawing the Indus basin. However the issue of water security and scarcity does not merely dependent on the absolute (or physical) availability of a natural resource. But water insecurity at the individual and regional scales is as much about political and social construction in this context. Drawing on insights from the interdisciplinary tradition of political ecology, here the issues pertaining to Indus basin are restricted to the realms of two riparian states only, i.e. India and Pakistan. Although the geographical setting of the Indus River system has facilitated the partitioning of the six rivers in equal numbers between the two riparian countries India and Pakistan under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT), nevertheless, there have been a number of acrimonious conflicts between India and Pakistan over Indian projects on these eastern rivers. This dissertation brings forth the perspective of political ecology rather than restricting the connection between water scarcity and water security in the Indus Basin through the lens of decline of physical water supply per capita. Rowing through the political ecology of water resources nourished by Indus basin, it culminates at the case study of Ravi riverfront development project. These case studies suffice the analysis of political ecology at macro and micro scale and portray the issue of water commodification in the South Asian context.