Sindh-Punjab Water Dispute 1859-2003, By: RASUL BUX PALIJO

SINDH-PUNJAB
WATER DISPUTE
1859-2003
By: RASUL BUX PALIJO
(The century-and-a-half long illegal, criminal and conspiratorial plunder of Sindhs share
of the Indus Basin Waters, the serious water famine imposed upon Sindh, the ruin of its
agro-based economy and the apprehended genocide of Sindhi people)
Reproduced by:
Sani H. Panhwar
Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 2

Foreword
The conflict of water in Pakistan is assuming serious proportions. Two out of four
provinces of Pakistan i.e. Sindh and Punjab have very acute differences in the sharing of
water resources. It is also a major source of conflict in Pakistan. The major argument of
Punjab is that, at an average, 35 MAF of water goes waste in to the Arabian Sea every year.
This water or part of it, it argues should be productively utilized to produce grain. Sindh
on the other hand contain that this figure is a mirage and that Punjab has progressively and
illegally appropriated more water than its legitimate share, greatly damaging the agro-
based economy of Sindh, especially in the years of natural shortage. For its deep distrust,
Sindh cites the example of the last four years (1998-2002) of natural shortage, when Sindh
was clamoring for drinking water while Punjab was harvesting record and bumper crops.
Mr. Rasul Bux Palijo’s research paper to a large extent explains the reasons of
mistrust felt by the people of Sindh. It also depicts the present feelings of Sindh towards,
what they consider an age old attempt by the ruling classes of Punjab to subjugate Sindh.
In view of the great mischief the conflict of water can play the social harmony of country
affecting the lives of very many people. Mr. Palijo’s paper goes a long way in explaining
the deep rooted historical causes of the conflict.
I and many others, who have passed to ponder over this matter, consider that the
conflict of sharing of water resources of Pakistan is the precursor of very serious threat to
the integrity of people of country and a cause of very great unhappiness to a large number
of people of Pakistan.
Center for Peace and Human Development (CPHD-South Asia) takes pride to
publish this important and worth reading paper to put this case before people of Pakistan
and of South Asia. We are thankful to Pattan Development Organization for their financial
support in this regard.
Jami Chandio
Executive Director,
CPHD-South Asia
E:mail: jami8195@hotmailcom

Dedicated to the stolen mighty River Indus.
(RASUL RUX PALIJO)

SINDH-PUNJAB WATER DISPUTE 1859 - 2003
(The century-and-a-half long illegal, criminal and conspiratorial plunder of Sindh’s share
of the Indus Basin Waters, the serious water famine imposed upon Sindh, the ruin of its
agro-based economy and the apprehended genocide of Sindhi people)
RASUL BUX PALLJO
Most of the great world civilizations have been the gifts of the great rivers of the
world. Disputes over waters of rivers have been occurring from time to time in world
history.
Thanks to the enormous development and more or less effective implementation of

International Law about rights of co-sharers of river waters, most of the present day river-
water disputes of the world have been amicably settled. The cardinal principle of the river-
water law that has emerged out of centuries of intra-national as well as international
litigation on the issue, is that the party at the upper side of a river (legally known as upper
riparian) has no right to withdraw or divert water from the common river if it causes loss
or injury to a party at the lower side (legally known as the lower riparian). Prof: H.A.
Simth’s famous work “Economic uses of International Rivers”, which examines treaties
between states since 1785, states that all these treaties proceed upon the principle that
works executed in the territory of one state required the consent of another, if they
injuriously affect the interests of the latter.
In undivided India, the law of equitable use of common river waters developed
steadily with the passage of time.
The river Indus with its five tributaries and the agriculture based upon this river
system, has been the mainstay of the economy of the former north-western Indian
territories, now constituting Pakistan. Three tributary rivers of Indus, namely Ravi, Bias
and Sutlej enter Pakistan from India and the other two viz Jhelum and the Chanab flow
into Pakistan along with Indus, from the State of Jamu and Kashmir. The waters of all the
above five tributary rivers join that of the Indus at Panjnad, irrigate the province of Sindh
and discharge into the Arabian sea in southern Pakistan, at and around Keti Bandar in
Sindh.

There were, therefore, two main riparian (co-sharers and beneficiaries) of the waters
of the six rivers of the Indus River system in the pre-partition period viz-undivided Punjab
and Sindh, since time immemorial. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the
authorities of the province of undivided Punjab started diverting water from this system
against the interests and rights of the Sindh province and this started the nearly a century-
and-a-half-long, Sindh-Punjab water dispute.
“During the last hundred years under the guidance of British engineers, irrigation
was greatly extended (in Punjab RBP) through the construction of head-work weirs on the
rivers and through canals. Flourishing colonies were established. Cultivation of cotton,
wheat, rice and sugar cane was expanded. New towns sprang into existence. Orchards and
well-tended farms covered the countryside. More land is irrigated from the Indus rivers
than from any other river system in the world... one (dam) planned before partition was the
Bhakra Dam on the Sutlej River in East Punjab.. .Before it was sanctioned, the down-stream
Province of Sindh complained that the operation of Bhakra Dam would adversely affect the
functioning of its in undation canals,”(”The Emergence of Pakistan” by Chaudhri
Muhammad Ali P: 317). This dispute attracted the intervention of the government of British
India from time to time. It is however, continuing unabated to this day, due to reasons
discussed below.
The government of British India constituted in 1901, India Irrigation Commission

which ordered Punjab to seek permission from Sindh about any project which it may wish
to implement with regard to the waters of Indus river system.
In 1919 the Cotton Committee appointed by the government of India to settle the
Sindh-Punjab Water dispute held that Punjab should not be given any waters from Indus
river system till the results of the projected Sukkur Barrage do not become evident. The
1919 government of India Act lay it down that the matters regarding Sindh-Punjab water
dispute should be decided by no less an authority than the Viceroy of India himself.
The government of India Act 1935 Section 130 and Section 131(6), interalia laid down
the principle that no province can be given an entirely free hand in respect of a common
source of water such as an inter-provincial river. Examining the riparian rights, and the
claims of the authorities of the (undivided) Punjab, that an upper riparian province in India
may take as much water as it needs from rivers flowing through it, the Rao Commission
headed by Sir B .W. Rao, of the Calcutta High Court, who latter became a Judge of the
International Court of Justice, opined in “the Report of Indus Commission” (Para 49, Page
33), “pushed to its logical conclusion, this means that a province in which the head- waters
of a great river are situated, can abstract any quantity of water and make a desert of the
provinces or states lower down. We have already pointed out that this view is against the
trend of international law and that in any event, so far as India is concerned, it would

conflict with the manifest intention of section 130 and the succeeding sections of the
government of India Act 1935.”
Commenting on the principle of “equitable apportionment” of the river waters, laid

down by the Rao Commission, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Chaudhry
Muhammad Ali says, at pages 117-118 of his book “The Emergence of Pakistan”:-
“The Rao Commission laid down, as the principle governing the respective rights of
the parties, “equitable apportionment”. This principle, which is internationally recognized
as regulating the rights of states having a common river basin, includes the rule that an
upper riparian can take no action that will interfere with the existing irrigation of the lower
riparian.”
The one and a half century old dispute between Sindh, the lower riparian and
Punjab the upper riparian, over the sharing of the waters of the Indus and its main
tributaries, the five rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Bias and Sutlaj, is probably the longest
surviving unresolved water dispute of recent history. It has culminated in the weaker and
lower riparian Sindh coming in the grip of a horrible water famine and economic and social
ruin. In the perception of many people of Sindh, there is a real danger of virtual physical
extinction of the people of Sindh in the not too distant future, if the artificially imp water-
famine conditions are perpetuated and/or any more dams like the Greater Thal Canal or
Kala Bagh Dam take away even the present meager supply of water to Sindh, as every drop
of water taken away from the down ward flow of water of the Indus river system, under
any pretext whatsoever (e.g. prevention of wastage of water discharging into the sea), will
lessen Sindh’s already vastly plundered water supply and will accentuate the acute water
famine condition in Sindh and accelerate its economic and social ruin.
A deep-rooted apathy about general public concerns and cares dominates the minds
of our common men. They are too pre-occupied with and over-burdened, by their day-to-
day personal struggles for sheer survival, to care about anything else. They have no means
of knowing properly, that in human society even one’s strictly personal and family
interests are inseparably inter-connected with and inter-dependent upon, broader clan,
group, ethnic, national, regional and global interests. Very few of us know that despite the
entire variety and contradictions of our multi-furious social and other interests, in the last
analysis, the most fundamental, the broadest and biggest interests of our people of all
ethnic entities, nationalities and provinces are, in the broadest general sense, more similar
and identical than dissimilar and contradictory. We have yet to realize that ultimately, the
things which divide us are not as important, for our collective good life and progress, as
those, which unite or at least should unite us. Consequently there may not be too many
people in Punjab who may know the fact that whatever grievances the people of Sindh,
have, in this matter, are against the ruling classes not only of Punjab but also of Sindh, and

not against their brothers, the common people of Punjab, the majority of whom, they
believe, are leading a more or less miserable life, like Sindhis and other people of Pakistan
and the third world.
It may therefore not be easy for them to realize how absolutely impossible it is for
the people of Sindh to have any feelings other than those of fraternal admiration and
respect for the people who have given our country and the sub continent, such unique,
grand and fascinating personalities as, to name but a few, Sayyad Ali Hujwere (Data Ganj
Bakhsh), Baba Farid, Baba Nanik, Shah Hussain, Waris Shah, Alama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed
Faiz and yes, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, whose gigantic contributions to our common
culture are a matter of great and just pride for all us.
Under the circumstances, to the uninitiated general public of the country, the
present imperiled condition of the endangered human specie named “the people of Sindh”,
especially that of its agro-based rural population, dependent wholly and solely on the
water of the now dried up Indus, is just one of those unfortunate but inevitable things
which keep happening to people in this unhappy world of ours, every now and then.
The situation is hardly better even in the case of well educated and the newspaper
reading sections of the public.
Due to a most persistent clever disinformation campaign of the vested interests, the
problem of the just settlement of the historic Sindh-Punjab water dispute, for resolving of
which the then government of British India appointed three high powered authorities: the
Cotton Committee in 1919, the Anderson Committee in 1935 and the Rao Commission in
1941, and which has defied the efforts of no less than four committees and commissions
appointed after the establishment of Pakistan, (Akhtar Hussain Committeel968, Fazal
Akbar Commission 1970, Anwrarul Haque commission 1981 and Haleem Commission in
1983) is being merely reduced to questions of superficial and frivolent interpretations of the
so-called water “accord” of 1991 foisted through that notorious establishment puppet Jam
Sadiq Ali, the iota Chief Minister, which on its very face, does not address, the most
fundamental core issues of the Sindh-Punjab water dispute 1859-2003.
It all started in 1859, when the authorities of the undivided Punjab, the upper
riparian for Sindh, of Indus and its tributaries, suddenly began diverting the waters, of
Indus tributaries without the consent required under International and sub-continental law
of river waters, of the lower riparian Sindh, which was sharing the waters of all these rivers
since times immemorial. In that year they constructed the central Ban Doab Canal on the
Ravi, adversely affecting the water supply of Sindh. This proved to be merely the first shot
in the one-and-a-half-century long predatory water-war the authorities of the province of
Punjab are waging against its poor and weak neighbor the Sindh. It is an operation for

misappropriating and plundering Sindh’s share of common waters of the Indus River
system by hook or crook, in hundreds of brazen as well as subtle and surreptitious ways. It
has continued unabated till today.
The latest shot is the on-going fast-track construction of the Greater-Thai canal
project, which is being dug day and night to present Sindh with a fait accomplice, under a
regime of military “democracy”.
After the Central Ban Doab, the upper riparian constructed between 1885 and 1901,
three more canals viz Sidhnai, lower Chenab and lower Jhelum canals, all without the
consent of the lower riparian Sindh. Paharpur Canal in 1908, upper Swat Canal in 1914
followed in similar fashion. In 1915 they went over to a new stage of water
misappropriation and plunder in the face of international and sub-continental law of
common river waters. They started diverting water on a grand scale with multiple canal
projects. The first one was the triple canal project for diverting the common waters through
three new canals viz Jhelurn Canal, Upper Chenab Canal and the Lower Ban Doab Canal.
In spite of their strong imperialistic, anti-people and biased strategies and cynical
policies, the British colonial government in India did have some irreducibly minimum
administrative decencies and moral restraints which, by and large, they firmly held to, in
the face of other strategic and tactical considerations which indicated purely tactical and
opportunistic courses of action.
They never utterly deserted that great banner of good government, inherited by
them from the Greco-Roman civilization, the rule of law and not of persons.
The ruling class of the Punjab was the ally of the British since 1807 treaty of Amritsar
with them. It was their junior partner in their war of subjugation of surrounding Muslim
areas and Afghanistan and later on, became the most loyal swordsman of the British
empire, having proved its super- loyalty to the empire, by helping it in a big way, in the
suppression of the 1st Indian War of Independence in 1857, for which it had been royally
rewarded, besides other bounties, by the then greatest irrigation system of Asia, the Indus
rivers irrigation system in Punjab.
“For Punjab - the... (British) imperialists and empire- builders devised an entirely
different scheme of exploitation. Punjab was not naturally fertile and rich in water
resources as Bengal...
“Unlike Bengal, where large land holdings of the Muslims were broken and
parceled out to petty cultivators, in Punjab ….. the imperialists bestowed their patronage,
in huge parcels of canal-irrigated and thus perennially fertile land, to a new breed of

landed, Muslim aristocracy they had conjured up for their convenience, a century-and-a-
half hence, we in Pakistan are still contending with that imperialist legacy and paying a
colossal premium in national disarray and political chaos for that 19th century
‘convenience’.
“The wounds of the Sepoy mutiny were still fresh. They (the British-RBP) had
succeeded in putting it down with the help of Punjabi mercenary soldiers recruited for
them by petty Muslim middlemen. So they showered their favors in spades on these
middlemen when virgin land became cultivable, thanks to the canals. Petty middlemen
became aristocrats, overnight. Naturally they were beholden to their masters and readily
became their pawns in the imperial game of rapacious plunder.”(”The Punjab Under
Imperialism: 1885- 1947”, by Imran Ali — Review by Karamatullah K. Ghori, Dawn Nov: 2,
2003 Reviews, P.10)
Sindh was then the step-child of the Bombay presidency that’s advanced and
prosperous Hindu majority was loath to allow itself to be unduly perturbed by the woes of
a far off piece of land, with a backward rural Muslim majority, like Sindh.
In spite of their obvious imperialist bias in favor of the Punjab, the British did not
view the grave injustice being done to Sindh like a spectator, nay, as an undeclared
partisan of the aggressive, stronger side, as the pseudo-federal government authorities of
Pakistan have been and are doing.
In the matter of historic Sindh-Punjab water dispute, the British Indian central
government tried to do justice and to ensure that it be seen by the world that the central
government of India was really a central, non-partisan and impartial central government
and that justice was being done between the big and small entities of the empire without
fear or favor, in matters of fundamental importance to the common people.
In the meantime, the authorities of the (undivided) Punjab did not keep sitting idle.
In 1919, they started the huge Sutlaj Valley project for construction of 11 canals and 4 head
works on the Sutlej River at one stroke. A complaint was lodged with the central
government of India, which appointed in the same year, a committee headed by Mr.
Cotton. The (undivided) Punjab government adopted the stand that it had the right to use
the waters of rivers that pass through their province to the extent it is needed by them.
“Cotton Committee….reported the same year that (undivided) Punjab should not be
allocated water from Indus till the effects of construction of the proposed Sukkur Barrage
had not become evident.”

In September 1919 government of Punjab presented Thal project as against Sindh’s
Sukkur Barrage project. The Viceroy Lord Chelmsford rejected the Thal project.
According to Dispatch No. 3-Public Works dated 2nd June, 1927, from the
Government of India to the Secretary of State for India.(P.1), in April 1923, the Sukkur
Barrage Project was sanctioned by the Secretary of State for India. (See “Indus Water
Allocation” by G.K. Soomro, P.1) Within a month of this, the Government of the Punjab
against what they regarded as a preference to Sindh and raised for the first time, the
question of duties adopted for the Sukkur Project. The Govt: of Bombay strongly objected
to this attitude on the part of the Punjab Government and contended that the Punjab had
more than their share of the water of the Indus System for its schemes of perennial
irrigation, while Sindh which at the time was a part of Bombay Presidency, had not
commenced a single one. They also complained against the Thai Project, and considered it
to be of the greatest danger to Sindh.
The Government of India fully considered the two protests…. in a letter addressed
by the Government of India to the two Provinces on 21st August 1923.
It was pointed out that the Sukkur Barrage and Canals Project had been designed for
the benefit of the region that was fully entitled to the water, which it was proposed to allot
to it, and that its supplies must obviously be assured. It was also stated that the duties
adopted in the Sukkur Project had been accepted, after careful consideration, as reasonable,
regard being had to the peculiar conditions and scanty rainfall obtaining in Sindh. The
Government of India said that they were not prepared to re-open the subject. (P.2)
To establish some sort of claim on Indus Waters Government of the undivided

Punjab, in November 1924, again re-opened the question of Thai Project, this time with a
proposal to construct a small experimental Canal involving 750 cusecs. While the
Government of India were negotiating with the Government of Bombay, regarding this
request, they received, in September 1925, a communication from the Government of the
Punjab stating that they had decided to drop the proposal for the experimental Canal and
were desirous of proceeding with a bigger Thai Scheme. In the following month the
Government of India, which contemplated irrigating 8, 80,000 acres, with a withdrawal of
3085 cusecs from the Indus in the cold season, received the Thai Canal Lesser Project from
the Punjab. In February, 1926, Lord Reading’s Government found themselves forced, on
grounds of equity, to support the stand-point adopted by the Bombay Govt: and
announced their final decision as follows:-
(a) That until such time as Sukkur Barrage Scheme comes into operation, and further
experience of perennial Irrigation in Sindh is available, the question of the volume of
water required for that scheme cannot be re-opened.

(b) That, faced as they are with the unknown effect of the withdrawals which will be
necessary for the supply of the Sutlej Valley Canals in the Punjab, the Government
of Bombay have the right to object to further withdrawals from the Indus or its
tributaries unless & until definite proof can be given that the supplies necessary for
the Sukkur Barrage Project will not be endangered thereby.
(c) That such proof must be based upon the result of more accurate gauging of the
river and its tributaries, which were instituted as a result of Sir Thomas Ward’s note
of the 10th December 1929.
In spite of the above, the Punjab Government continued to protest against the Sindh
Allocations. The Government of India then referred the matter to the Secretary of State and
asked for his instructions. The Secretary of State replied that he agreed with the conclusions
of the Government of India, and that nothing but experience could show exactly what
value should be taken for those duties, and having regard to the fact that Sukkur Canals
have not yet even begun to irrigate, no reason had been shown for reconsideration of the
duties, and it would be unreasonable in itself, and unfair to the Government of Bombay to
re-open the question of the duties at that time and that the Government of Punjab should
accordingly be informed that he regretted that after full consideration he was unable to
accede to their request. (P.2-3)
The water dispute between Sindh and Punjab had by this time reached such
proportions that government of India was forced to constitute an eight member committee,
under the Chief Engineer of UP, Mr. Anderson, with the clear and express direction that no
fresh withdrawals (by the upper riparian, the province of Punjab) be recommended which
may be detrimental to the other riparian or may adversely affect not only the existing but
also the future rights of such riparian over the waters of the Indus waters.
“(One of) the terms of reference of Anderson Committee (was)....“The possibility of

finding such supplies without detriment to the parties interested in the waters of the Indus
and its tributaries and the effect upon the existing or prospective rights of those parties of
any fresh withdrawals, the authorization of which the committee may recommend.”
In the meantime the (undivided) Punjab authorities who seem to have made mass
manufacture of schemes and projects for taking away as much water from the Indus
system as possible, their permanent occupation or rather an eternal passion, which
continues till to-day and promises to continue as long as there is even a single cusec of
water left in the system, for going down-stream to the lower riparian, produced yet another
massive project for the purpose, the Bhakhra Dam project.

Since the Punjab authorities thus continued to plan for further extensive
withdrawals and storages, the Government of Sindh was compelled to lodge a complaint,
in 1939, before the Government of India, under the provisions of Government of India Act,
1935, regarding the apprehended effects of the Punjab Projects on the canals in Sindh. The
complaint in its final form was submitted to the Governor General of India on 7th June
1941. The Governor General appointed a Commission on 11th Sep, 1941, to investigate the
complaint. This commission had three members, with Justice B.M. Rau, a Judge of the
Calcutta High Court as its Chairman, by whose name, the Commission has subsequently
come to be known.
The Commission concluded that the withdrawals necessary for the Punjab Projects
mentioned in the complaint, when super-imposed upon the requirements of other Projects
already in operation or about to be completed, were likely to cause material injury to Sindh
inundation canals particularly in the month of September.
The Commission recommended that the only satisfactory way of preventing such
injury was the construction of two new Barrages one in upper Sindh and the other in lower
Sindh costing about Rs. 16 Crores. The Commission further found that Sindh would not be
able to finance these two Projects without borrowing, even on the assumption that the
Punjab would make a contribution of Rs. 2 Crores, which the Commission considered to be
a not unreasonable sum for her to pay as compensation for the damage to Sindh Irrigation
she was likely to do. (P.6)
The Commission directed Punjab authorities not to take any action on their
proposed project up to October 1945 and in the meantime it directed both the governments
of Sindh and Punjab to come to an agreement. In the meantime status quo was ordered
with regard to the distribution of water between Punjab and Sindh. On the orders of
government of India, the Chief Engineers of Sindh and Punjab started negotiations under
the guidance and supervision of Sir Claude Angles, the director of central irrigation and
Hydro Dinlock Research at Poona, Bombay Presidency.
At last on 28September 1945, the Sindh-Punjab draft Agreement was finalized which
was signed by the Chief Engineers of both the provinces. According to that agreement, at
Ghazi Ghat Punjab was to take one share from the Indus and Sindh was to get three shares.
Article 8 of the agreement laid down that in future Punjab could not construct any dam on
river Indus or on any of its tributaries without the consent of the government of Sindh.
The Sindh-Punjab Agreement fixes priorities and provides the framework for
sharing all the waters of the Indus main and the five Punjab Rivers for canals, which
existed in 1945 as well as for all those, planned or projected. The Agreement gives detailed
schedules for sharing of supplies when the availability of water in the river was less than

the allocation. The Agreement also provides the framework for all future projects and
sharing of all surplus supplies in the rivers beyond’ the needs of the then present and the
projected scheme.
As a result of this Agreement, the Punjab asked for a postponement of the reference
to his Majesty-in-Council by six months to enable the financial agreement to be reached.
Obviously the Punjab signified their acceptance of the Agreement on the Water Clauses to
the Governor General. In reply to this, vide Secretary to the Governor General (Public’s)
D.O. No. 204/41-G.G.-(A) of October 1945, the Viceroy refused the requested deferment, as
this would delay construction work in both Provinces, and suggested that a clause be
inserted providing for arbitration on the financial issue. Sindh agreed entirely with this
stand-point, vide... Secretary to Governor’s D.O.No.1001, dated 7th November 1945.
Former Chief Engineer and Irrigation Secretary of Punjab Mr.: Pir Mohammad
Ibrahim in his book “Water rights of West Pakistan” wrote in 1948, at page 66 of his book,
“The draft agreement between the Sindh and United Punjab on the clauses of which the
Agreement was arrived at after very careful consideration, Gives the fairest possible
distribution of Indus waters between the Sindh and Punjab...”
The united Punjab government duly confirmed the agreement. Its only reservations
were about the amount payable by it under the agreement to Sindh. Its letter dated 13. 10.
1945 to Sindh Government on the subject makes it abundantly clear that the Punjab
government fully agreed, without any reservation whatsoever, with the terms of
distribution of water between the two provinces under the agreement. The letter states
inter alia:
From
E.L.Protheroe, Esquire, I.S.E.,
Secretary to the Government,
Punjab, Public Works Department, Irrigation Branch.
To,
The Secretary to the Government of Sindh,
Finance Department, Karachi.
No.013 Cn. Dated Lahore, the 13th October 1945.
SINDH PUNJAB INDUS DISPUTE
Sir,

I am directed to acknowledge receipt of your letter No. 1442-W. And S., dated 2nd
October 1945, regarding the above and to say that the contents thereof have received the
careful attention of the Punjab Government.
I am to confirm that the tentative agreement reached by the engineer representatives

of the two governments in their recent discussions at Karachi are acceptable to the Punjab
government, provided it is an accompanied by a satisfactory solution of the financial
issue...”
“This Agreement has been followed, both in letter and spirit, right up to the break-
up of One Unit. This can be seen from the fact that all actual distribution of supplies during
the period was made on the basis of this Agreement.
“When the Government of the Punjab proceeded to construct a large capacity B.S
Link, it evoked a protest from the Government of Sindh and the Punjab Government had to
limit the size of link within the capacity permitted by the Sindh-Punjab Agreement,
Similarly, the Sindh Government proceeded to construct the G.M. and Gudu Barrages as
envisaged iii the Agreement, without any protest from the Punjab. When the late Mr.
Gazdar, Member of the Central Legislature, and himself a competent Engineer, protested
against the Punjab proposals for various links on the floor of the Central Legislature, the
Government of Pakistan gave a positive assurance to the Sind Government that no works
outside the Sindh-Punjab Agreement would be allowed to be constructed, without full
consultation of the Government of Sindh. (See the Government of Pakistan D.G Letter No.
P-19 (67)153 dated 26th March, quoted by G.K. Soomro, “Indus Water Allocation”, History
of the Case, P.144)...”
“Messrs Hunting Technical Services Ltd., who prepared the Lower Indus Report
under the guidance of West Pakistan WAPDA dealt with Sind-Punjab Agreement in their
1966 Report. In this “Lower Indus Report Part 1, Chapter 3.5 at Page 47 the company has
stated:
“...For many years prior to Independence, the Sind Government was very concerned
lest excessive quantities of water are diverted in the Punjab, and Sindh in the process
deprived of its rightful share.
“It was not until 1945 that an equitable solution was found when the ‘Sindh-Punjab
Agreement’ regarding the sharing of the waters of the Indus and the five Punjab rivers’
was signed. Although the Governments making this Agreement have now passed into
history, the Agreement is still operated.”(P. 146)

“This Agreement was the first of its kind, in the known history of sub-continent
when sensitive riparian problems has been solved by mutual agreement and acted upon by
mutual agreement for a very long time. Sindh-Punjab Agreement of 1945 is thus an
instrument of great significance and cannot be brushed aside as advocated by the Punjab
(authorities). In fact by distribution of waters for all these years on the basis of Sindh-
Punjab Agreement, the Punjab has established its rights only up to the allocations,
contained in the Agreement. (G.K. Soomro, ibid, P.53)
No life-processes can proceed in an absolute vacuum. Besides the Sindh-Punjab

water dispute, there were many other inter-connected inter-dependent and inter-
penetrating socio political processes in India which were not at all at a stand still at all this
time. The intensely religious and revivalist well- wisher and supporter of the British
Empire and the great freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi had taken-over the Congress from
the slow-going moderate liberal and secular Parsi group of Bombay long ago. The impetus
given to efforts for Indian national unity by the 1916 Lucknow Pact had become a thing of
the past. The 1928 All Parties Conference for Indian unity at Calcutta had miserably failed.
In his presidential address to the 1930 Allahabad Conference of the Muslim League, Allama
Iqbal gave a call for the administrative grouping of Muslim majority provinces / regions
viz Punjab, Frontier, Sindh and Baluchistan within British India. But the proposal met a
cold response from the Muslims of Frontier, Sindh and Baluchistan.
There were weighty historical reasons and grounds for this. The rest of Muslims of
India especially those of the Muslim majority neighboring territories of Punjab viz NWFP,
Baluchistan, and Sindh, were not exactly happy with what they perceived as the
aggressively collaborationist role of the Muslim elites of Punjab under the Sikh and British
rules. As for Sindh, it could not forget that during the Sikh rule, Punjab elites kept
constantly menacing Sindh and trying to subjugate it. Besides its obvious weakness as
compared to the British might, it was the constant, ruthless pressure of Punjab rulers,
which made Sindh absolutely helpless before the British machinations leading to its
eventual subjugation by the British in 1843 (see “Sindh Since Centuries”- Ranjit Singh’s
relations with Amirs of Sindh, P. 260). During British rule, Punjab elites and beaurocracies
did not give up attempts to get Sindh annexed to British Punjab. Besides as mentioned
above, Sindh had the longest and bitterest experience of the extremely negative attitude of
the elites of Punjab in the matter of the wholesale plunder of its share of the water of the
Indus system of rivers. Hence it did not trust the elite of the most powerful Muslim
majority province of united India and could not afford to throw the fate of their resources,
rights and liberties at the mercy of a united province totally dominated by those most
favored elite of the British Indian Empire.
For the preponderant majority of the Third World Countries, independence,

unfortunately, is almost a myth. In most of such countries the direct rule of the British,

French, Dutch, Portuguaze, Spanish and American imperialists was replaced by the
indirect rule of US imperialism, through the old imperialist elites and beurocracies of these
formally liberated countries.
There has been no dearth of people in the Pakistan ruling class who, judging by their
entire attitude to Pakistan and their haughty behavior with its peoples, apparently regard
themselves as the virtual authorized agents and successors to, the British Raj directly
inheriting the state of Pakistan along with its powers and resources from that Raj, as a
reward, for past services to the Raj and beyond India.
Incidentally, not a few Punjab elites and authorities, rather than dissociate
themselves from the high-handed, aggressive doings of the Sikh State against its neighbors,
lost no opportunity of proudly owning them as their national heritage, going to the extent
that they sometimes are known to have reckoned sub-continental history from the time of
Ranjit Singh only, forgetting all that was and went before him in the preceding centuries.
Consequently in the historic, founding document of Pakistan, the 1940 Lahore

Resolution, subsequently named the Pakistan Resolution, there was absolutely no mention
of Pakistan or for that matter, of any single, united state of the Muslims of undivided India.
Through this historic 1940 resolution, therefore, the crores of Muslims of undivided
India voiced, their unanimous historic demand that the Muslim majority provinces of India
viz Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and the territory of Baluchistan, the homelands of
Bengalis, Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtoons and Baloch Muslims of India should be made
independent and sovereign states.
It was for the achievement of the above five independent and sovereign Muslim
states in the Indian sub continent that after the passage of the 1940 Lahore Resolution and
the fixation of the above grand goal, that the crores of Muslims of the sub-continent waged
a historic valiant struggle for independence which along with other political forces of the
country shook the foundation of the British Empire.
In the mean time, All India elections were announced for 1946. The Muslims of India
duly seized this opportunity and massively voted for the Qaid-e-Azam and Muslim League
who promised them these independent and sovereign homelands and thus compelled the
British Government and The Congress to recognize Muslim League as the sole
representative of the Muslims of India and a power to be reckoned with, for deciding the
future fate of India.
As it happened, the elected Muslim representatives of India after their elections in

1946 did not honor this electoral mandate. They decided to substitute a single state for the

proposed five independent and sovereign states. Incidentally this was the first major
historic and fateful violation of the declared mandate given by Muslims of the Indo-Pak
Sub continent to their elected representatives through their massive vote, which tradition
has been regularly followed in later times till today, with fatal results like the debacle and
betrayal of East Pakistan by military usurpers and their puppet politicians.
To allay the well-founded grave apprehensions of the four provinces and

Baluchistan, it was declared that the proposed single state would not be a unitary but a
genuine federal state, consisting of five autonomous provinces with real equal rights for all
provinces. It was judged that the presence of the preponderant numerical superiority of
Bengali Muslims would never allow any one to dominate the whole country or its western
half in the periphery of Punjab. This totally unexpected new prospect of a single Muslim
state brought a sudden veritable sea-change in the thinking of the Punjab elites and
authorities.
The Punjab elites and authorities who, because of their stead-fast and powerful
military and political support to the British Empire dating back to 1807 Amritsar Punjab-
British Treaty, were closer to the imperial government than those of any other province,
possibly soon sensed, after the above change in the prospects of the Muslims of India, that
the British rule might not last very long and partition may not be far off. They seem to have
surmised that after the end of the period of the relatively fair and impartial legal
supervision and protection of the British rule, Sindh was bound to succumb to the future
unrestrained and irresistible pressure of the elites and authorities of Punjab as in the
radically changed post-partition circumstances, Punjab was, instead of remaining the
respondent and accused in the dispute, as before, most likely, overnight, to become
virtually the owner and master of the newly established Muslim state of Pakistan and all its
resources, including the common waters of the Indus river system. They seem to have
guessed that on this old, old vital issue, they would soon be able to out-wit, out-maneuver
and brow-beat Sindh, bring it on its knees and, in due course, misappropriate the bulk of
the waters of the Indus and its tributaries. In any case, they took a sudden U turn and one
sidedly refused to ratify the 1945 Punjab-Sindh Water Agreement, so painstakingly
hammered out, after prolonged negotiations, under the constant prodding of the British
Indian central government.
The Punjab authority’s non-challantly dismissed their historical U turn in a couple of

innocuous and innocent sentences.
“The two Chief Engineers of the Irrigation Department of the Punjab and Sindh
started discussions... prepared a draft in 1945... (Which) could not be ratified?” (Indus
Water Committee, January 1971, The Punjab Brief, P.54)

Whenever there is a partition between countries, new arrangements for the division
of the common assets have to be made.
In 1947, at the time of partition between India and Pakistan, a committee was
constituted by the government of India named committee B, for making arrangements for
the division of the waters of Indus Basin Rivers between the two countries.
The governments of India and Pakistan were required to place their problems
regarding the distribution of water before this committee. If any side was to be dissatisfied
with the decision of this committee, it could appeal to the Arbitral Tribunal, which was
headed by the Chief Justice of India, Sir Patrick Spense. The Tribunal’s tenure was up to
31st March 1948.
As stated above, the then West Punjab province and Sindh both were getting water
from all the rivers of the Indus system.
In the case of matters regarding these waters, before partition, both these provinces
were respectively the upper and lower riparian, co-sharers and beneficiaries of these
waters. Because of the partition of India and Punjab and constitution of the new provinces
of West and East Punjab from the pre-partition united province of Punjab, the Indian
province of East Punjab is now the first and upper-most co sharer (riparian) of Indus
tributaries, Ravi, Bias and Sutlaj. As between Sindh and Punjab, the Pakistani provinces of
Punjab and Sindh are co-sharers No 2 and 3 respectively. Pakistani Punjab is the lower
riparian of Indian Punjab and Sindh is the lower riparian and co-sharer of both the Indian
and Pakistani provinces of Punjab. Thus as between these two provinces, both Pakistani
Punjab and Sindh are equally interested, affected and necessary parties in all questions,
matters and disputes, both internal and external, pertaining to the waters of the Indus river
system. Consequently as between these two provinces, without prejudice to the rights and
interests of any other interested and entitled party, all such questions, matters and disputes
were/are legally and morally, under international law as well as the law of the sub-
continent, the equal common concerns of both the above riparian, co shares, beneficiaries
and interested and affected parties viz the then province of West Punjab (now Punjab) and
Sindh. As such, none of them, neither West Punjab/Punjab nor Sindh by itself and alone,
had any right under any law, whether national or international, to negotiate or decide such
questions with a third party behind the back of the other.
If any negotiations were carried on and decision were made in such matters, under
the circumstances, with any third party with the participation of only one interested and
affected party without and behind the back, of the other interested and affected party,
whether Punjab and Sindh or any one else, such negotiations and such a decision had and
has to be regarded, under all civilized legal systems throughout the world, as illegal,

without jurisdiction, of no legal effect and void abinitio i.e. as having no legal existence from
the very beginning. It could not be binding on the party deprived of participation and
representation whether it he Punjab and Sindh or any one else.
More than twenty centuries back, the Roman law declared all adverse decisions
taken behind the back of concerned and affected parties, as illegal. Their law said in Latin
“Audi alteram parterm” or “hears the other (affected and concerned) party.”
The British law says the same thing in a different phrase, “No one should be
condemned unheard”. Is it Islamic or any other civilized legal system, you simply cannot
take any valid decision behind the back of the other interested, concerned and affected
parties. It will be illegal and immoral and not binding at all upon the party against whose
rights and interests such illegal decision is taken.
The law of India and Pakistan is absolutely clear on this vital and fundamental point
of administration of justice. It calls this principle viz that no valid and binding decision can
be legally taken against the interests of any one, without giving him a full opportunity to
present his own point of view, as a principle of natural Justice. No matter whether a law
does or does not say so, it being a superior law recognized by all civilized judicial systems
of the entire humanity, it is binding on all decision-makers, with or without any express
legislation to that effect by any legislature.
To mention only a few decisions of the superior courts of Pakistan, in 1959 in the
case of Chief Commissioner Karachi and another (PLD 1959 SC 45) the Supreme Court of
Pakistan observed:
The above rule of natural justice (that an adverse d behind the back of a concerned
party has no legal validity is not confined to proceedings before courts but extends to all
proceedings, by whosoever held which may affect the person or property or other rights of
the parties concerned in the dispute. As a just decision in such controversies is possible
only if the parties are given the opportunity of being heard [S.C.M.R 2232 (2238)].
In the case of Maryam Tousif (PLD 1990 Sc 666) the Supreme court of Pakistan
observed:-
“From the above stated cases, it is evident that there is judicial consensus that the
Maxim “audi alteram partem” is applicable to judicial as well as to non-judicial proceedings.
In the case of Dr. Nusratullah Chaudhry [1994 Lah 353 (358)] the Lahore High Court
has said:

“It is an established principle of law that no man shall be condemned unheard. It has
been repeatedly held by the Superior Courts that the rule of natural justice embodied in the
maxim “audi alteram partem” is not confined to proceedings before courts but extends to all
proceedings by whosoever held which may affect the person or property or other rights of
the parties concerned in a dispute”.
In the case of Mst: Qaisra Illahi (PLD 1995 Peshawar 22) the Peshawar High Court
decided that if any decision is made behind the back of an affected party, the law will treat
such a decision as having no existence at all. The Court has said:
“It is a well-settled legal proposition that any order passed in violation of “audi
alteram partem” (no body is to he condemned unheard) would be a nullity.”
In order to deal with the matter of fair and equitable division of water assets of
undivided India, after the partition of the sub-continent, between the new states of India
and Pakistan, each country had to appoint its team of representatives to negotiate a
settlement. In view of the above factual and legal position, Pakistan had to appoint a team
of negotiators from both of the Pakistani riparians and co-sharers of these waters viz the
provinces of West Punjab and Sindh, which did represent, not technically and formally
only, but in fact and genuinely the interests and view- points of both the riparian sides who
had remained locked in conflict for nearly a century over this very vital and crucial matter
and further, which could reconcile these opposing interests and view-points in the larger
interests of the good of the whole country.
Thus, in order to he just and proper, valid and legally binding, all negotiations with
India regarding the commonly owned and used common waters of the Indus river system
viz Indus, Jehlum, Chanab, Ravi, Bias and Sutlej, affecting the respective interests of the
two provinces at dispute, were necessarily to he held by all the three riparians viz the
province of Fact Punjab on Indian side and West Punjab and Sindh on Pakistan side.
But the federal government of Pakistan appointed Ministers and Officials of West
Punjab, riparian No.2, as the sole representatives of Pakistan to negotiate and decide with
India, the riparian No. 1, behind the back of Sindh, riparian No.3, matters of the division of
waters of Indus basin between India and Pakistan.
Thus with a single ruthless stroke of the pen a long historical chapter; that of the
tradition of the British imperial rule over India, in which all provinces, had approximately
equal rights, could look up-to the central government for redress and protection against the
high-handed actions of more powerful neighboring provinces, was to be closed. The times
when the Punjab authorities, almost permanent and regular plunder of common waters
could be regularly challenged, when that central government stayed further adverse action

and got hammered out mutually beneficial compromises and agreements like the 1945
agreement, had gone for good, making a keen and sensitive observer of Indo-Pakistan
history to commiserate, in spite of all other just negative observations and sentiments to the
contrary with the Poet:-
Like, the dew on the mountain,

Like the bubble in the fountain,
Thou art gone and gone for ever!
The people of all the smaller/weaker provinces of Pakistan have, through their
bitter experience over the last half a century, come to know now, to their great sorrow and
pain, that Pakistan state is a democracy and a federation only iii name, is being virtually
run as one unit and as a colonial autocracy and that where and when, there is any conflict
of interests between the vested interests of the neo-colonial masters and their local
representatives the ruling classes of the dominant province, on the one hand and those of
the people of the rest of the provinces on the other, there and then, the so-called Federal
Government of Pakistan, dominated by what ever civilian or non-civilian sub-servant,
autocratic and dictatorial clique, would, in utter discard of the common permanent and
fundamental interests of all the deprived and oppressed people of the whole country,
including those of the vast majority of the people of the province of Punjab, throw off their
federal disguise, wipe out the democratic make up and appearing in their true partisan
colors and shouting slogans of “Solidarity of Pakistan” “Glory of Islam” or “Save Pakistan
from internal and external dangers” or whatever, would pounce upon the weak and
helpless common people of the dominated, nominally autonomous provinces and throttle
them into submission and silence.
But at the time, not all people fully understood this sad and tragic reality or the
sordid motives and sinister implications of the above pre-posterously illegal and
abhorrently unjust decision of the federal government of the time. No body could have had
any inkling as to what havoc of what gigantic proportions was indented to be played, stage
by stage, in the coming years and decades, with the people of the province, which gave
India the freedom fighter, the Muslims of India the leader and Pakistan the founder like
Qaid-e-Azam.
“The partition of Punjab cut across the rivers and canals of the Indus Basin irrigation
system, making India the upper and Pakistan the lower riparian. Among the official
committees appointed to deal with the various problems arising out of the partition of the
Punjab was committee B. This committee consisted of an equal number of officials from
East Punjab and from West Punjab, and was charged with settling questions of the future
management of joint assets. the division of other physical assets and their valuation he
report of committee B came up before the Punjab partition committee, presided over by the

Governor and consisting of ministerial representatives of East Punjab and West Punjab.
The partition committee accepted the matters on which committee B was in agreement,
namely that the pre-partition shares of West Punjab and East Punjab in the canal waters
would he maintained. The partition committee, like committee B, was however, unable to
agree on the valuation of the canal system and it was decided to refer this question, to the
Arbitral Tribunal.” (Chaudhry Muhammad Ali “The Emergence of Pakistan” P.318)
But strange to say, this most sensitive and grave matter of most vital national
interest was not pursued in the Arbitral Tribunal at all, no stay order was obtained from it
till the tenure of the Tribunal expired and as a result, India, which had become, in the
meantime, thanks to The Raddiffe Award, the owner of two head-works of Pakistani
canals, was enabled to stop from Indian side, the flow of the water from the eastern Indus
basin rivers, into two canals of Pakistan.
Thus the representatives of the then West Punjab, one of the two affected and
adverse lower riparian sides (Sindh and Punjab), whose water supply had bean put in
danger by the Radcliffe Award, did not take the normal elementary precautions which
even a muffusil lawyer of tahsil level would be expected to take, under the circumstances.
Of course, their legal representative before the high-powered Tribunal, presided over by
the Chief Justice of India, was no muffusil lawyer of tahsil level. He happened to be none
other than the Attorney General of Pakistan, the highest law officer of the State of Pakistan.
Choudhry Mohammad All observes in his above- mentioned book:
“Despite the fact that the Radcliffe Award had placed the control of head-works
vital for Pakistan in the hands of India, the west Punjab government remained content
because of the agreement reached by committee B and the Punjab partition committee, that
the pre-partition shares of water would not be varied. No formal document specifying the
precise shares of East Punjab and West Punjab in irrigation waters was drawn up and
signed. The West Punjab ministers and officials felt assured by the repeated declarations of
their counterparts in East Punjab that there was no question of any change in the pre-
partition arrangements for canal waters. The East Punjab representatives before the
Arbitral Tribunal also made the same declarations, when the disputed question of the
valuation of the canal system came up for a hearing. Actually, as events showed, the East
Punjab ministers and officials were planning a deadly blow against Pakistan and were
lulling the West Punjab government to sleep with sweet words. They were waiting for the
day when the life of Arbitral Tribunal would come to an end on March 31, 1948.
“On April 1, 1948, the day after the Arbitral Tribunal ceased to exist, the East Punjab
government cut off the water supplies in every canal crossing into Pakistan. These

consisted of the central Bad Doab Canal System, the Dipalpur Canal System, and the
Bahawalpur State distributary.
“Of this action, Sir Patrick Spens Chairman of the Arbitrail Tribunal, said before the
joint meeting in London of the East India Association and the Overseas League of
February23 1955:-
‘I remember very well suggesting whether it was not desirable that some order
should be made about the continued flow of water... But we were invited by Attorney
Generals [of India and Pakistan] to come to our discursions on the basis that there would
be no interference whatsoever with the then existing flow of water, and the award which
my colleagues made, in which I had no part, they made on that basis. Our awards were
published at the end of March 1948. I am going to say nothing more about it except that I
was very much upset that almost within a day or two there was a grave interference with
the flow of water on the basis of which our awards had been made.’
“...East Punjab now contended that Pakistan had no right to any water and
demanded seignior age charges as a condition for reopening the canals. There was acute
distress, which, with every day that passed, became more intolerable. In large areas where
the subsoil water is brackish there was no drinking water. Millions of people faced the ruin
of their crops, the loss of their herds, and eventual starvation due to lack of water.”
(Incidentally the existing situation in Sindh created by the artificial water-famine

imposed upon Sindh, is a hundred times more severe and disastrous than described above
but this time the people facing “the ruin of their crops, the loss of their herds and eventual
starvation due to lack of water” are merely the people of poor Sindh.)
Indian Punjab adopting the posture of an aggressive bully and Pakistani Punjab
adopting that of village simpletons, trudging home on foot, after being robbed by big-city
cheats of the last penny of their back—fare, the latter duly raised an anguished hue and
cry, promptly marched to Delhi, instantly acknowledged India as the master of Ravi and
Bias and Sutlej, abjectly signed an strange agreement literally and admittedly dictated by
India, obediently paid signeorage money, thereby legally acknowledging India as the legal
owner of these rivers and got temporary restoration of the supply of water on the explicit
condition that the supply will he gradually decreased and finally stopped after some time!
“Under the distressful circumstances, a delegation was sent from Pakistan to Delhi
in the beginning of May, 1948, to seek a solution to the problem. The delegation was led by
Ghulam Muhammad, the Finance Minister of Pakistan and included two ministers from
West Punjab- Shaukat Hayat Khan and Mumtaz Daultana. At the meetings in Delhi, East
Punjab representatives insisted that they would not restore the flow of water to the canals

unless West Punjab acknowledged that it had no right to the water. To this the
representatives of West Punjab could not agree. The Pakistan proposal that the two
governments should submit their differences to the arbitration of the International Court of
Justice was not acceptable to India. There was an impasse. Ghulam Mohd appealed to
Mountbattan who consulted with Nehru. A statement was then placed before Ghulam
Mohd, and he was asked to sign it without changing a word or a comma - a condition for
restoring the flow of water.
“On May 4, 1 948, the statement was signed by Ghulam Mohd and two West Punjab
ministers on the one hand and by Nehru and two East Punjab ministers on the other.
“Though India restored the flow of water to the Dipalpur canal and the principal
branches of the Central Ban Doab canals, water was still withheld from the Bahawalpur
state distributary and nine lesser distributaries of the Central Ban Doab system. Eventually,
considerable areas in Bahawalpur State reverted to desert. Notwithstanding the
compulsion under which the arrangement was signed, Pakistan performed its part and
deposited in escrow the sums specified by the Prime Minister of India.”(P.3 1 8-321)
But Sardar Soukat Hayat Khan, the then Minister of the government of West Punjab,
who was among the members of the team of West Punjab which negotiated with the East
Punjab authorities about division of common water assets between India and Pakistan
expressly admits that the Pakistani West Punjab authorities deliberately decided to by pass
the Arbitral Tribunal, entered into direct negotiations and made an undeclared deal with
the authorities of the East Punjab at the meeting of the two sides at Jallandhar and arrived
at an unspecified agreement, the terms of which he does not choose to reveal.
“The Division of Assets Committee had been in East and West Punjab and met
alternately at Lahore and Jallandhar, the temporary capital of East Punjab. The rules were
that, in case of difference between us, the case would be referred to the Arbitral Tribunal
headed by the chief Justice of India, Sir Patrick Spens...
“The question of division of water between India and Pakistani Punjab was to be
decided at a meeting to be held in Jallandhar. I attended this particular meeting along with
the secretary-cum-Chief Engineer of the Irrigation Department Mr.: Abdul Hameed, and
the Chief Secretary, Hafiz Abdul Majeed ICS…. The next day we had to tackle the matter of
the division of water on which our economy entirely depended. We discussed it amongst
our own party and came to the conclusion that even if we took this problem to the Arbitral
Tribunal and got a favorable decision, how were we going to get it implemented when the
Head works had been unfairly allotted to India, in the so-called Radcliffe Award. Therefore
we decided that we should find a via media to share the expenses of running the Head
works and part of the canal system located in the East Punjab.... The Hindus, after long

discussion, came to an agreement. (“The Nation That Lost It’s Soul” by Sardar Shaukat
Hayat Khan-P: 202-203).
“Thereafter the Government of India called a Conference at New Delhi. Mr. Ghulam
Mohammad, who was on fairly good terms with the Indians, was to lead the Pakistan
delegation; Mian Mumtaz Daultana and I were the other members of the Pakistan Team.
Pandit Nehru took up a stiff attitude but both of US from the Punjab refused to budge from
the Agreement we had arrived at Jallandhar…. (italics mine RBP)” (ibid, p.204)
Pakistani west Punjab authorities not only did not utilize the bilateral legal avenue
of recourse to the Arbitral Tribunal in order to prevent the stoppage of water by India, but
also took no recourse to the international legal forum of the World Court at Hague after the
stoppage of water, though it was claimed that no such court could refuse to give relief
under International Law in such a clear case as that of Pakistan. Various half-hearted and
superficial efforts have been made to pass off this secretive and mysterious, apparently and
admittedly disastrous series of misconduct by the concerned authorities, as innocent errors
of judgments, undue credulity and misplaced trust, rather than to identify, recognize,
condemn and punish it as an ingenious, deep and dark intra Punjab conspiracy to deprive,
their traditional adversary, the lower riparian of the Indus rivers, the province of Sindh, of
its remaining share of the water of the rivers of the Indus system and divide the loot among
the two sister Punjab provinces viz provinces of West and East Punjab.
Mr. Muhammad Ali tries to take the acts of all those responsible for this disaster
very lightly and to explain away the sordid and heinous affair and the hand-made
“disastrous consequences for Pakistan” created by the West Pakistan authorities, by
attributing them to such categories of petty wrong-doing as mere “neglect of duty”,
“complacence” and “lack of prudence” on the part of Pakistani West Punjab authorities on
the one hand and to the Machiavellian duplicity of the Indian East Punjab authorities on
the other, in keeping with our well-tried and tested and brilliantly successful policy of
portraying ourselves, to our entire satisfaction, as innocent “Babes in the wood”, after
committing every conceivable inhuman and treasonable act against the nation and the
people and every crime against Man and God e.g. debacles in Kashmir, 1965 and 1971
wars, massacres of our own citizens in East Pakistan and our continuing and unending
disastrous adventures in Afghanistan. “On the side of East Punjab there was Machiavellian
duplicity. On the part of West Punjab there was neglect of duty, complacency, and lack of
common prudence which had disastrous consequences for Pakistan.” [The Emergence of
Pakistan” p.319 by Chaudhary Mohd Ali].
This apparently strange attitude is not confined to Mr. Muhammad All alone. The
other stalwart of Punjab Government at the time, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan also
dismisses the grave dimensions of the disaster and the unpardonable culpability of all

those responsible for it in a few formal lines, as if, such occurrences can only be regretted as
unavoidable though unfortunate mistakes.
“Alas, in keeping with their (Chanakien) philosophy, they (the East Punjab
Government authorities) reneged later, a day after the end of the Arbitral tribunal. They
stopped our share of the water….. From the headwork at Madhavpur…. and Ferozpur
headwork….. This came as a deep shock to me.” (Nation That Lost Its Soul’ P.203)
Malik Feroze Khan Noon the ex-Chief Minister of West Pakistan and ex-Prime
Minister of Pakistan also justifies indirectly, in his book “From Memory” the secretive and
declared practical by-passing of the Arbitral Tribunal by the authorities of both provinces
of Punjab which
(a) Enabled them to avoid and prevent the issuance of stay order against possible
stoppage of water flow to Pakistan
(b) Provided the excuses which both sides needed to fulfill the requirements of their
common criminal conspiracy against the people of Sindh and Pakistan in the matter
i.e. to the Indian East Punjab side the planned excuse for stopping the flow of water
to Pakistan and to the Pakistani West Punjab side the planned excuse for raising a
hue and cry about devastated fields and cattle dying of thirst etc, thus totally side
tracking and practically eliminating from the agenda of division of common waters,
the above mentionedl887-1948 Sindh-Punjab water dispute and Sindh’s rights on the
common waters and setting up a totally new stage and scenario for
misappropriating and dividing among themselves alone the common waters of
Pakistan
(c) Provided an excuse for treasonable implementation of the terms of the secret
conspiratorial Jullandhar deal under the cover of helpless unavoidable surrender by
West Punjab authorities under the pretended compulsions of the circumstances in
order to save West Punjab from a most terrible catastrophe. Mr. Noon rules Out, as
useless, the other legal and then available, highest forum for settling disputes about
division of waters between India and Pakistan in the normal course viz the
International Court at Hague, though he concedes that, that forum was bound to
rule in favor of Pakistan under the clear international law upholding the rights of
lower riparian. Referring to the “sudden” stoppage of water supply to West Punjab
from East Punjab in April 1948 by Indians, Mr. Noon says:
“The water dispute though not as important as Kashmir, has now been settled. In
1947, when India stopped the water from the Ravi and Beas, a large number of our cattle
died of thirst and fields remained uncultivated. The magnitude of our dependence on these

rivers was brought home to us. It was one of the most illegal and crude methods that India
could have tried, to bring us to heel. 1 always resisted any suggestion of ours to go to the
International Court of Justice at the Hague, because no Court could have denied us our
riparian rights of the waters of the Eastern Rivers. But what is the use of winning suits in
Court, if such a decision cannot be backed up by the physical power to enforce it….
“(“From Memory” by Feroz Khan Noon, p. 263)
It is the contention and the case of the people of Sindh that the authorities of the
upper/middle riparian, the Pakistani province of West Punjab (the upper and lower
riparian after partition, being Indian province of East Punjab and Sindh province of
Pakistan respectively), took the following among other, malicious, illegal actions in
furtherance of their criminal conspiracy among themselves and with their former fellow-
provincial Indian authorities of East Punjab to misappropriate the bulk of the waters of the
rivers of the Indus river system to the virtual exclusion of Sindh, the lower riparian, the
lawful co-sharer and beneficiary of these common waters:
1. Behind the back of Sindh, they illegally and wrongfully entered into a colossal,
undeclared, secret and surreptitious collusive deal with the above-mentioned
authorities of the eastern Indian fellow inhabitants of former undivided Punjab,
treating the international Indo-Pak problem of the just and equitable division of
Indus basin water between India and Pakistan as an exclusively internal family
affair of the inhabitants of the old province of pre-partition, undivided Punjab to the
exclusion and detriment of the fundamental rights and interests of Sindh and the
whole of Pakistan.
2. The totality of their behavior and actions subsequent to this illegal, secret,
fraudulent and collusive deal irrefutably proves that as per the requirements of the
success of the above conspiracy, their object was to create an artificial major water
crisis between India and Pakistan and a consequent artificial serious threat to
regional and world peace, so that under the pretext of averting the above artificially
created fictitious threat, the Indian accomplice in the above conspiracy, the
authorities of the East Punjab illegally and unjustly got among other things, three
entire rivers of the Indus system just for pea-nuts and the other accomplice, the
authorities of the then West Punjab, got among other things, the control and virtual
ownership of the three remaining rivers to the virtual exclusion of Sindh and billions
worth of engineering works constructed ostensibly for the whole of West Pakistan
but in reality for itself exclusively, at the expense of whole of Pakistan.
3. In accordance with that deal, they did not present the just case of Pakistan as
against that of India with regard to these waters, before the competent legal

authority i.e. the Arbitral Tribunal which, had been set up for the purpose by mutual
agreement of both the states of India and Pakistan.
4. They did not therefore apply for a stay order to guard against the imminent
danger of stoppage of the flow of the waters to Pakistani canals from their head-
works, now left in India, by Radcliffe Award, after 1st April 1948 when the interim
arrangements were to come to an end.
5. With similar illegal and fraudulent object they refused to accept the suggested
offer of the Chairman of the Arbitral Tribunal Sir Patrick Spence, the former Chief
Justice of India, for a stay order to ensure, continued flow of the then existing supply
of waters to Pakistan pending final decision of the whole matter.
6. They never revealed the agreement that they had admittedly arrived at secretly
with the East Punjab authorities at Jullundher about the division of water assets
between India and Pakistan.
7. In order to provide a fig-leaf cover for their conspiratorial, anti-Sindh, Anti

Pakistan actions, they invented and obliquely peddled a fictitious excuse expressed
through seemingly incidental remarks of different leaders trying to explain the
reasons for their authorities not taking the normal, proper and agreed course of
action of putting their case properly before the officially created Indo-Pak Arbitral
Tribunal, and for not obtaining from it a proper stay order against possible sudden
stoppage of water by India.
8. This obliquely and impliedly offered excuse was that it was useless to go to the
Arbitral Tribunal because its decision could not be implemented against powerful
India.
9. Every one knows that India had not suddenly become far bigger and stronger
than Pakistan over-night, in the beginning of the year 1948. The land, people and
resources of the territories comprising the new states of India and Pakistan were
never equal. Those of the territories comprising the present state of India were
always greater then those of the territories comprising the present state of Pakistan.
This obvious fact was known by all when Pakistan was demanded as well as when
arrangements for partition including the constitution of partition committee and
Arbitral Tribunal were agreed upon by both the India and Pakistan sides. No new
revelation about the relative strength of India and Pakistan had suddenly descended
from the heavens upon the West Punjab authorities to necessitate and justify their
suddenly boycotting the mutually agreed forum of Arbitral Tribunal and entering
into a super-secret, deliberately unwritten and undeclared, private, intra-Punjab

deal in the darkness, behind the hack of the other people and provinces of Pakistan
and declining the almost express offer of an stay order from the Arbitral Tribunal to
protect the continued flow of water to the concerned Pakistani canals. The actual
purpose was to set the stage for the pre-arranged stoppage of water by India, raising
of hue and cry by West Punjab authorities about Hindu Chanakian betrayal and
impending destruction of Pakistan and ultimately facilitating and resulting in, the
distribution of the bulk of the water of all six Indus system rivers by the new
provinces of the Punjab viz West and East Punjab among themselves, to the virtual
exclusion of Sindh.
10. Struggling peoples and emerging countries like those of Pakistan do not face
their national problems and challenges in the way the West Pakistan authorities are
shown to have done as the representatives of Quid e-Azam’s Pakistan. The initially
weak peoples and their emancipation movements, like those of Angola,
Mozombique, Nomibia, South Africa, Algeria, Cuba, Lous, Combodia, Korea,
Palestine etc, do not desist from struggle because of the overwhelming strength of
their adversaries. Even Pakistan itself, in subsequent encounters with its powerful
neighbor, in spite of its relative weakness, never boycotted the notoriously weak and
practically worthless international settlement forum of United Nations, never
knuckled under to India and never entered into any secret un-declarable, shabby
dark deals with it, because of its superior strength.
11. The authorities of West Punjab, the famous erstwhile swords-man of the British
Empire, had not suddenly become transformed into frightened lambs, trembling
with terror at a glance at the mighty lion, India. They could only have been
gambling and play-acting for very sound, very selfish and highest-ever stakes.
Subsequent march of events has proved that they were indeed busying big-game
hunting and stooping to the above pathetic role only in order to conquer.
12. What they had created the artificial crisis for was not the mere restoration of
water supply for their two affected canals, of course. They wanted to use the
managed discontinuation of water supply for building darns and link canals in
Punjab, in order to siphon away the bulk of all the Pakistani waters for Punjab alone.
“….I was firmly of the view that the sooner we build our own dams and link canals
the better for our future. When I became Chief Minister in 1953 I expressed this view
to the Central Government and to Mr. Mueenuddin, C.S.P., who was one of the
delegate’s in-charge of these negotiations on behalf of Pakistan. And I am glad to say
that ultimately my views prevailed...” (“From Memory”, by Firoz Khan Noon, P:
264)

13. They were laying a death-trap for catching and enslaving the mighty Indus, the
world-famous Lion River and for thus decertifying and destroying their century-
long adversary, Sindh, incidentally the first gate-way of Islam, the first to pass the
Pakistan resolution through its Provincial Assembly and to give its Provincial
Capital as a gift to Pakistan and the Quid for being made the first official home of
the Quid and the Capital of Pakistan.
14. As soon as the first scene of drama was successfully enacted, the cat started
coming out of the bag. Even the need for keeping up appearance and some how
maintaining the facade of federation and respect for the rights of federated
provinces was brushed aside. They straightaway went for Indus and started, behind
the back of Sindh, the survey and planning for misappropriating its water.
“Soon after the Indians stopped the flow of canal waters. I asked West Punjab
engineers to survey sites for storage dams on the Jehium and Indus rivers. Of these sites
Mangla, on the Jehium, was the most promising. On the Indus River a site at Darband was
at first favored, but later studies showed Tarbela to be more suitable.” (“The Emergence of
Pakistan”, by Chaudhri Mohd. Ali, P: 325)
With the benefit of the hind-sight of the diabolic conspiratorial doings of our
criminalized political system and of the suicidal antics of its neo-colonial, autocratic and
oppressive state apparatus, it is no longer necessary to possess divine powers in order to
guess that the Pakistani West Punjab authorities of the time’ have taken a firm decision to
take the fullest possible advantage of the rare historic opportunity of the formation of a
brand new state expected to fall under the total hegemony of their dominant province and
the permanent elimination of those constant irritants, the continuous interventions by that
busy-body, the central government of British India and to:
(a) Treat and use the multi-people, federal, democratic and liberal state of Pakistan
envisaged by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as their conquered territory and make it
essentiality a unitary, autocratic and hegernonistic state of greater Punjab under a
euphemistic name-plate and to use and treat the nominal federal government and its
civilian and non-civilian forces and authorities as the servants and guardians of the
vested inter of the ruling class of Greater Punjab.
(b) Whenever necessary for protecting and advancing the above vested interests, to
ruthlessly resort to draconian laws dictatorial regimes and pure terror and armed
actions.
The first stage of the vision apparently was the economic conquest of the new
country of which the first and main item was water.

It appears that these adventurous elements conceived a very thorough and
comprehensive long-term multi dimensional and multi-stage plan along with an extremely
clever set of strategy, tactics and policies to achieve their object. The subsequent march of
events goes clearly to indicate that they planned to proceed step by step some—what along
the following lines:
1. Use the occasion of the post-partition division of water assets between India and
Pakistan to:
(1) Pretend and have it believed that the international laws of river water rights and
liabilities and the concepts of the upper and lower riparian and their rights and
liabilities do not exist or at least do not apply within Pakistan.
(2) Pretend that, as between India and Pakistan, the lower riparian is one and not
two, only Punjab and not Sindh.
(3) Treat the common waters of Pakistan, passing through Punjab and Sindh to
wards the sea, as the sole property of undivided Punjab to he divided between its
newly created Western and Eastern parts viz the new provinces of the East and West
Punjab.
(4) On the basis of these premises, through the instrumentality of their subservient
central authorities, to bestow the sole right and authority to negotiate with India for
the decision of the common water assets upon the representatives of the province of
West Punjab only, as the sole owner and master of these Pakistani waters.
2. Strike a secret deal with the authorities of the Indian province of East Punjab for dividing
the entire water resources of the Indus basin among themselves. Relying upon the fact that
the Western and Eastern portions of the united Punjab had existed as a single entity for
centuries and were, as that single entity, co accused in the complaints lodged by Sindh with
the government of India against united Punjab regarding illegal appropriation of common
waters. Their interests in the water dispute were thus to a very great extent, identical visa
vis Sindh, their common historical adversary. Despite the pangs and blood-letting of
partition, both sides appear to have realized that this was the easiest, and the most
profitable, and opportune thing for both to do, if they so desired and chose, to exploit to
the full, the rare favorable combination of circumstances provided by that very partition.
3. Under the terms of such a secret deal artificially to create a water dispute between the co-
conspirators, the eastern and western parts of the former, united Punjab, by Pakistani
western side fore-going the obtaining of the necessary stay order against stoppage of water
supply to Pakistani canals by India and the eastern side going along with the pre-arranged

stoppage of water of Pakistani canals. Indian Punjab assuming the pose of intransigence
and Pakistani Punjab assuming the pose of helpless and injured innocence.
4. Raise a vociferous hue and cry about the so-called fatal adverse effects of such pre-
arranged stoppage of water and under the pretext of a doomsday-like emergency situation;
sell away to India three common rivers of the Indus system for pea-nuts obviously as a part
performance of the secret deal with India.
5. Magnify the artificially created water-stoppage into a burning international dispute

threatening international peace and security.
6. Utilize the cold war world environment to involve the western countries and World
Bank in so-called negotiations for the so-called settlement, at the expenses of Sindh, of the
so-called burning international dispute.
7. Ultimately shut the mouth of Sindh by imposing one- unit through administrative terror,
thus eliminating the very existence of Sindh as an autonomous provincial entity which it
had achieved by decades-long valiant struggle under the leadership of the Quid-e-Azam,
as a litigant party and as a complainant in the historical water dispute with the former
province of united Punjab, now conspiratorially operating against their adversary as two
separate and antagonistic provinces of West and East Punjab.
8. Hiding behind administrative technicalities and in utter violation of the principles of

natural justice, illegally throw out Sindhi representatives from the negotiating team and act
as the sole master of the waters of Pakistan.
9. If necessary have a Martial law imposed as a tool to carry out the unholy work of the real
masters.
It is the firm conviction, contention and case of the Sindhi people that the series of
actions from the day in 1947, Sindh, the lower riparian and the co-sharer of the waters of
the Indus river system was wrongfully, maliciously and illegally excluded from the
Pakistan delegation which negotiated the settlement of the division of Indus rivers system
waters between India and Pakistan to the latest imposition of artificial water famine and
Greater Thai Canal and other devices to rob Sindh of the last drop of water, are parts of a
diabolic anti-Pakistan, anti-Sindh criminal conspiracy spread over the entire period of the
existence of Pakistan up to this day.
Needless to say, the above decision of the Federal Government was totally illegal,
without jurisdiction, without any legal effect and void abnitio i.e. as some thing, which
never had come into existence. All agreements and decisions, emanating from the entire

edifice founded upon the illegal and void foundation of this illegal and void decision of the
federal government excluding Sindh the lower riparian, not to mention the rest of the
provincial interested parties, from the process of negotiations and decisions were void and
of no legal effect in the eyes of the law of the land and the civilized world.
Of course there is no eyewitness to testify and support the above charges.

So how do you prove such charges without eyewitnesses?
The question is, “are crimes to go un-punished because no one can swear and say “1
saw this crime being committed?” As a full Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has
said in Fakku Mia’s case (1969 P.Cr.L.J 1193) “when murderers discuss a criminal plan in
home, they do not shout the conspiracy to outsiders to make them eaves-droppers (P:
1194).
It has been laid down by the Supreme Court of Pakistan that in cases where there is
no direct evidence to show in what manner the offence was committed, the courts must
examine the probabilities in the light of indirect evidence or circumstantial evidence,
which, once found to have been established, may well furnish a better basis of decision
than any other kind of evidence. [SCMR 1969 (2046)].
In the case of Amiruddin (PLD 1967 Lah .1190) the Lahore High Court has laid
down:
“The offence of conspiracy by its very nature is secretive and surreptitious, and if a
rule of evidence.., is laid down to the effect that an agreement (about conspiracy)... is to be
positively proved, the proof of conspiracy would become impossible”. In the case of Syed
Qaim Ali Shah (1992 P.Cr.L.J 242) the Sindh High Court has reiterated the above legal
position and added, “If several steps are taken by several persons, tending towards one
obvious purpose, it can be presumed that these persons had combined together to bring
that end which their conduct obviously appears to attain.”(P: 249-50).
In the case of Mukhtar Ahmed (2000 MLD 77) the Lahore High Court has held:
“Conspiracy is an intrigue or scheme which germinates in the dark alleys of sinister minds
and comes to light only when its external results are known it would be seen that happed
of an event or existence of state of affairs is one thing and proving at subsequent stage the
particular manner in which it had happened or had prevailed are altogether different
things. Non- proving of conspiracy through sufficient evidence of acceptable legal standard
would never mean that such an event had not taken place ... conspiracy is not easy to
prove”. (P: 80-81).
In the case of State V. Manzoor Ahmed (PLD 1966 SC 664) a full Bench of Supreme
Court of Pakistan consisting of M/S Justice A.R., Cornelius C.J Hamoodur Rehman and

Muhammad Yaqoob, all three former Chief Justices of Pakistan, laid the law regarding the
importance of indirect and circumstantial evidence as under:
“In case where there is no direct evidence.., it is not sufficient... To say that since
there is no direct evidence to connect any one with the felonious act, the guilt cannot be
fixed.”
In the case of Afzal Hussain (1991 P.Cr.LJ 113) the Lahore I-ugh Court has said, “The
law has always considered the circumstantial evidence as a lawful guide in the
administration of criminal justice and circumstances established beyond reasonable doubt
could furnish a basis for decision, better than any other kind of evidence……. If some
inculpatory circumstances were found to be incompatible with the total innocence of the
accused or were incapable of any explanation upon any reasonable hypothesis other then
his guilt, then such circumstances could form a valid foundation for the conviction of the
person accused of charge”.
In the light of above position, let us try to find out if the conduct of the concerned
authorities in the above matter is throughout normal and above board or not? And if not,
whether there is any plausible and reasonable explanation for these abnormalities. The
following are some of the important questions that arise from the way this matter has been
dealt with by the Punjab authorities:
1. Whether the above mentioned acts of omission and commission of West Punjab
authorities, individually and collectively were in accord with the usual and normal
procedure of transacting official state business and was the behavior and conduct of the
West Punjab authorities in accord with the normal and proper behavior and conduct of
similarly placed public and state authorities of a federation in similar circumstances?
2. Whether all these strange actions individually and/or collectively can be taken as merely
accidental, individual and isolated acts of several individuals acting thought-lessly and
haphazardly on their own without any common motive, object, concert and design?
3. Whether as soon as partition of India was decided upon and necessary preparations for
implementing it, including arrangements for dividing water assets among the two states,
were started, those in responsible positions on the Pakistan side really suffered a sudden
attack of amnesia and total loss of memory and whether, as a result they instantly forgot: -
(1) That Pakistan consisted at the time, of five provinces including Sindh and not
one only one viz West Punjab?

(2) That there are such things as Indian, Islamic and International laws of river
waters?
(3) That such laws have clearly laid down the rights and responsibilities of the
parties called riparian benefiting from the water of rivers known as upper riparian,
middle riparian and lower riparian?
(4) That East Punjab is/was the upper riparian of the eastern rivers of the Indus
river system?
(5) That West Punjab and Sindh are the two lower rip arian of the above river
system?
(6) That no decision can/could be validly taken in the absence of a concerned or
co-sharer party under any legal system of the whole civilized world?
(7) That participation in the process of the division of water assets between India
and Pakistan, therefore had not to be confined to East and West Punjab only but also
to be necessarily extended to Sindh the lower most riparian?
(8) That official talks negotiations and agreements are not to be confined to
whisperings in secret hideouts but recorded properly in official and legal language
not only for the use of those living but also for State and public record and for those
yet to be born in posterity?
(9) That the Indian authorities by whom they claim to have been suddenly
overawed into signing away the three tributary rivers after 1st April 1948 were not
total strangers to them and were the very same people whom their people and
leadership were dealing with for the last nine centuries including the two centuries
of British rule, up to that very date?
(10) That according ,to the entire world-historic practice of sensible and self-
respecting peoples and nations of the world, if some little area of your vast land is
not cultivated and some cattle suffer dearth of water due to hostile action all that
you can and should do, is not immediately to sell away your entire rivers and get a
little water for a while, to be stopped entirely after some time and not to provide
proof of the said sale as proper legal and complete, by paying money in token of
your surrender of your rivers and temporary purchase of a little water from them?
4. Whether the Pakistani West Punjab representatives appointed for settling water
distribution problem with India had been given the normal written instructions regarding
what they could and could not do?

5. If so, whether these instructions empowered them to enter into secret verbal agreements
with the authorities of East Punjab without reducing them into writing?
6. If so, whether under those instructions, the terms of such verbal agreements were to be
communicated to their principals i.e. the governments of West Punjab and other provinces
and of Pakistan?
7. If so, whether these terms were communicated in writing to those governments and were
available on the record of these governments for all these decades?
8. Whether these terms were ever made public during all these decades in order to
enable the people of Pakistan, to judge for themselves, whether these were just and fair to
all parties concerned, including Sindh, the lower riparian? If not whether any reasons were
ever given or can be given even now, to the people for keeping them secret for ever? Can
these be disclosed and published to day for public information?
9. Whether any competent higher authority took a proper decision practically to by-
pass the Arbitral Tribunal, decline the available vital stay order, thus endangering the
continued supply of water to the affected Pakistani Canals, and creating an international
crisis? If so, which was that authority and on what date was this fateful decision taken?
Whether that decision is available on the record? Can it be made available and published
for general public information?
10. Was the Attorney General of Pakistan concerned authorized not only not to obtain a
stay order but even to decline the express offer of Sir Patric Spense, the head of the
Tribunal about a stay order?
11. Whether, in case no such instruction was given to him and he acted in violation of
the letter and spirit of his instructions from the concerned governments or without
instructions, on his own, was any action taken against him for acting in the manner he had
acted, leading to such “disastrous consequences for Pakistan?”
12. Whether any proper instructions authorized the Central and West Punjab authorities
to agree to the Indian orders to them virtually to sell away the common eastern rivers and
pay seignior age money for the temporary resumption of supply of water?
13. Whether, in case none of such actions were covered by the instructions given, were
the perpetrators of such monstrous violations of their specific instructions stopped in their
tracks at the very first intimation of such violations?

14. Whether any explanations from the guilty authorities were called for and submitted
by them? If so where that record is and what exactly does it say?
15. Whether any disciplinary action was taken against those found responsible for what
has been judged by the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Chaudhry Mohd Ali as at least
“neglect of duty, complacence and lack of common prudence” which had caused
“disastrous consequences for Pakistan”?
16. The minimum punishment that could be given under the circumstances for acting
contrary to instructions, insubordination and disobedience in such a matter of life and
death of the nation, in the case of public servant, being dismissal, discharge or at least
transfer to some other duty, was any of these punishments given to those found
responsible for the above disastrous consequences for Pakistan?
17. Whether it is a fact that Khan Bahadur Hafiz Abdul Hamid was the main West
Punjab officer who played the star role in the above-mentioned shady secret deal with the
Indian Punjab authorities which “disastrous consequences for Pakistan”?
18. Whether this same worthy officer was again entrusted with a leading role on behalf
of Pakistan in the negotiations at the second stage viz those with the World Bank and other
countries of the World which culminated, so far as one of the main interested and affected
parties, Sindh, is concerned, in the exparte, one-sided, illegal and void abinitio as far as
Sindh is concerned, the Indus Basin Treaty of 1960?
19. Whether there was any special reason or justification for not only not taking any
action in the matter against anyone but continuing to employ the very same officers
who played such admitted havoc in the very first stage of the talks, in the next stage
of the talks also viz the stage of multi-national talks culminating in the Indus Waters
Treaty 1963?
Let any honest, sensible and prudent man look at and ponder over the above
mentioned acts and conducts of concerned West Punjab ministers and high officials, in the
light of the above and other relevant questions and decide for himself whether all the
above-mentioned acts and conducts of the West Punjab authorities could, by any stretch of
imagination, be taken as the above-board acts and conducts of honest and upright men and
conscientious and scrupulous high functionaries and leaders of a civilized state or on the
contrary, the secretive doings of conspiratorial groups of men silently hatching-up,
planning and perfecting in darkness, an elaborate fraud of Himalyan proportions, to stab in
the back an entire fraternal people, under the cloak of performing routine and normal
federal state functions and defrauding it of its very life-blood, its water, the source of the
life and sustenance of each and every one of the crores of its men, women and children?

It is the well considered contention and case of the Sindhi people that none of the
strange, abnormal, unnatural, illegal and high-handed acts of omission and commission of
the Pakistani Punjab authorities mentioned herein before and herein after can be believed
by any stretch of imagination, to be fortuitous, accidental, un-intentional or un-
premeditated. On proper examination and evaluation of all the relevant facts and
circumstances, it will be found that there can not be any reasonable, credible, lawful and
innocent explanation for them as a whole and that these are totally inconsistent with the
probability of the innocence of the above authorities. Consequently, apart from
technicalities which the Superior Courts of Pakistan, who “lean in favor of substantive
justice” [ Ali 1997 CLC 768 (773 E)] and who “have consistently ruled in favor of the
principle that adjudication of disputes should be premised on merits rather than
technicalities” [Afzal 1997 CLC 1080(1083)1, do not regard with much favor, applying the
ultimate test of the concept of proof [Qanun-e- Shahadat] if an honest, sensible and prudent
person were told the story which is related in these pages, of how the Punjab authorities
and the federal authorities of Pakistan have dealt with the question of the waters of the
Indus basin visa vis the rights and interests of Sindh, the lower riparian, since the days
Pakistan came into existence, he would be fully convinced, without any reasonable doubt,
that Sindh has been made the victim of one of the greatest and longest continuing criminal
conspiracies of world history, aimed at defrauding it and resulting in, misappropriation, of
the bulk of its lawful share as a lower riparian, in the common waters of the Indus river
basin.
Indo-Pak talks for resolving the “water dispute” started in March 1952 under the
auspices of the World Bank. Initially engineers from Sindh, N.W.F.P and Bahawalpur and
Khairpur States besides Punjab were included in the Pakistani team.
The engineers from Punjab reportedly behaved as if they owned all the waters of
Pakistan. Their objectives appeared to be (1) To keep the Indian side happy. (2) To stick to
their secret deal with Indian Punjab, and get its terms approved by hook or crook. (3) To
get a dam and link canals on Indus for plundering its water on the pretext of replacing the
“losses suffered by Punjab” due to having deliberately, unauthorized and illegally sold out
the common rivers Ravi, Bias and Sutlaj to India under the secret deal (4) To enlist
Bahawalpur state engineers against Sindh by offering the bribe of Indus water for
Bahawalpur State. (5) To deprive Sindh of its previous allocations of water. (6) To brow-
beat Sindhi engineers into acquiring to their above high-handed anti-Sindh, unpatriotic
projects. (7) To mis-represent, to their advantage, the facts and figures regarding the waters
and water-supply of Pakistan.
When the negotiation was taken up in Washington, Mr.: M.S. Qureshi, the member
from Sindh complained to the government of Sindh regarding the above negative attitude.

He wrote, “Provincial considerations were allowed to influence judgment and actions.
Indus link (i.e. a link canal on the Indus for siphoning away its waters to Punjab to the
detriment of Sindh rights-RBP) was at first recommended to government without even a
mention to any of the senior members of the delegation. Mr. Hameed went to the extent of
offering a bait to Mr. Hassan, representative of Bahawalpur that through such a link
Bahawalpur canals at Sullemanki would receive Rabi supplies from the Indus. Mr. Hassan
knew the position of supplies and as a matter of principle he refused to support him saying
that he was there to fight the case of Pakistan and not of a particular province or state.
Internal disputes were best left over to the future.
“In the same manner every attempt was made to throw out Sindh’s uses from the
western tributaries. Incorrect calculations were embodied in the Pakistan plan to the effect
that not only the allocations of the new barrages on the Indus would be met in April, May
but that there would be surplus left over for development. Both Mr. Hassan and my self
disagreed and Mr. Tiptons calculations supported our conclusion that in actuality in most
of the years there would be shortages...
“Mr. Hameed regarded Pakistan’s waters as though they were his personal
property. At first his secretary Mr. Khalilur Reehman who is supposed to be the custodian
of his inner feelings, started belittling allocations and saying that ultimately these rights
would be given up. I protested to Mr. Hameed against this loose talk and made it very
clear that not a single drop of allocated supplies will be parted with.
Later Mr. Hameed told Mr. Sarwar Jan Khan that for sake of an agreement he would
even give up allocations and the same day he told Mr. Hassan that he would even agree to
Marhu Tunnel if Pakistan was given control over that strip of land. It did not bother Mr.
Hameed whether this additional diversion of water by India did any damage to Pakistan.
“There was thus a difference in outlook which was not very conducive to good team
work
“….Mr. Naseer’s pleading with General Wheeler that they could not afford to go
back without an agreement only convinced the bank that Pakistan would accept anything
for the sake of agreement.
“Even this most detrimental proposal seemed most palatable to Mr. Hameed. His
secretary (Mr.Khalilur Rehmari) and he himself agreed with Mr. Sarwar Jan Khan (member
from N.W.F.P) on about the 1st April 1954 that no decision could be expected from a
government that was tottering.

“Decision might as well be taken in Washington and the responsibility would not be
that of Engineers but of someone else.”
It was obvious to the Punjab leadership and its followers from other
provinces/regions from the very beginning, that as long as the then prevalent political
system following, even though crudely, the British pattern, with its parliamentary rule,
Constitutional Assembly, the vexatious Bengali majority, the irksome federation and its
numerous provinces etc existed, they may not find it too easy to reach their political and
economic goals specially the goal of appropriating the entire waters of Pakistan for Punjab.
They seem to have concluded that much needed to be changed in the system of governance
before it could respond fully to their wishes. How these changes were effected and how
these chimed in with and thoroughly facilitated the Punjab authorities ruthless exertions
for grabbing all Pakistani waters is quite a dramatic and politically instructive story which
is not sufficiently known to many people in this our blessed and blissfully unaware land of
the pure.
Judging by Pakistan’s 56 years, chequered history, quite a few of Mr. Jinnah’s

followers and most of his successors, specially those from the warrior province of Punjab,
never had too much liking for Mr. Jinnah or his Pakistan as conceived by him. Their known
political instincts and mind-sets tended to place them rather closer t authoritarian worthies
of the past, like Timor, Nadir Shah, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Lawrence brothers and their
ideals of super-strength, natural right of conquest, ruthless subjugation of subjects and iron
rule,., than to modern, enlightened and sensitive people like Mohd Ali Jinnah and his
ideals of liberal democracy, rule of law, fair play, equal opportunities for all, strict,
impartial and equal treatment of all manners of people before the law, compassionate and
generous treatment of all kinds of minorities and other weaker and more disadvantaged
sections of the population etc.
Their entire efforts were concentrated upon lifting Pakistan from the inhibitions and
uncertainties of governance in the present to the autocratic and ruthless latitudes of ruling
in the past, where -in every whim and wish of the rulers would be treated as the ultimate
law of the land. They zealously hurried on upon their journey to that golden past of their
dreams. And over a period of time they achieved remarkable success.
By skillful maneuvering of the socio-economic and political time-machine and their

age-old loyal alliances and cozy ties with the mighty West, they landed Pakistan back in
the pre-British era so that in many respects it descended far behind the British times.
This rapid journey in time to the past, has much more to do with the radical evil turn
in the prospects of resolving fairly and justly, the centuries old Sindh-Punjab water dispute,
than many people in this country know or even care to know. Very few in the country

know that this backward journey had started from the very first days of coming into
existence of Pakistan.
Mountbatten once spitefully refereed to Mr. Jinnah as “the dying Muslim leader”.
The description was not very far from the truth, however. Along with his terminal disease,
the hostile schemes and actions of Indian authorities and Mountbatten, he was plagued by
the wily intrigues of his “loyal followers”. No nation on earth could have treated its
“Father” in a more brazenly shameless way than the way Mohd Ali Jinnah was treated by
some of the petty-minded, pygmies basking around him in the reflected glory of his
gigantic personality.
“The complex and intricate task (of setting up the new state of Pakistan) could only
be tackled by the Quid-e-Azam. The challenge was beyond the limited capacities and
mental horizons of the lieutenants who, while he lived, could only shine in his reflected
glory”. (‘Government and Politics in Pakistan’-Mushtaq Ahmad, P.20)
The 1953-54 coups of Governor General Ghulam Mohd against Prime Minister
Khuwaja Nazimudin and the Constitutional Assembly etc are commonly regarded as the
first series of coups against Qaid-e-Azam Pakistan. In fact those were the third and fourth
such coups. The first and second were against the founder of Pakistan and the father of the
nation, Qaid-e-Azam Mohd Ali Jinnah himself and his party, when he was virtually
“dismissed” from the leadership of Pakistan Muslim League and the league was high
jacked by his “loyal followers.
“The first meeting of the new Pakistan Muslim League was held in Karachi in
February, 1948 to consider the new constitution and the Rules, an amendment was
moved….that no Minister or other office holder in the Government should become an
office bearer in the League, exception being made in the case of the Qaid-e-Azam. The
amendment was passed in spite of his advice against it He declined to accept the exception
in his case and remain the President and left the meeting. Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman was
asked to organize the League and later he was elected its first President.”(Voyage through
History- vol: 2, by Masarrat Husain Zuberi, P.144).
Soon after Mohd Ali Jinnah’s death the amendment was duly deleted and the then
Prime Minister became the President of the Muslim League also! (Zuberi-vol :2 ibid, P.196)
The Qauid was kept in the dark even about such crucial life and death state matters
as the ill-fated tribal invasion of Kashmir. (See K.H. Khurshid “Memoirs of Jinnah”
PP.59,82)

“….The Punjab was Jinnah’s Achilles’ heel, time and again...” (Ayesha Jalal “The
Sole Spokesman”, P.14)
“Jinnah did not get his mandate. He left the Punjab swearing: ‘I shall never come to
the Punjab again; it is such a hopeless place.’(Ayesha Jalal, ibid P.22)
‘He called Mamdot and Governor Mudie to Karachi in May and told Mamdot... “He
was useless as a Prime Minister, which,” Mudie reported, “was only too true. He
[therefore, nominated Mian Mumtaz Daultana” to take control of the Punjab ministry, but
Daultana “refused...Jinnah was very angry and the meeting was adjourned…. I then asked
what his advice to me would be as a friend. He replied ‘Wash your hands of them, as Jam
going to do’. (Stanely Wolpert “Jinnah of Pakistan” P.360-361)
“Did not his Military Secretary, an Englishman, say that “when he left for Lahore he
looked sixty and he returned a very old looking man of eighty”. After his return a queer
apathy gripped him” (Zuberi-vol: 2 ibid, P.158)
Quide Azam’s following most meaningful introspective observation during his 11th
August 1947 speech in the Constitutional Assembly of Pakistan at Karachi clearly indicates
that though he was always full of hope and determination to succeed, he had absolutely no
illusions about the then existing state of affairs and was fully aware of the formidable
obstacles, pitfalls and deep-going uncertainties as embodied by internal rot and treachery
and foreign menace, around and ahead of him and Pakistan:
“It was almost as if he was thinking aloud, when affirming that partition was the
only solution to India’s constitutional problem, he, added, ‘May be that view is correct,
may be it is not, that remains to be seen.”(From Quide Azam’s speech in the Constitutional
Assembly of Pakistan at Karachi, on 11th August 1947, quoted in Iqbal Akhund “Memoirs
of a Bystander” P.24)
In February 1948, General Messervy the then British Commander-in Chief of the
Pakistan Army visited Delhi at the end of his service and br Mountbatten and Pandit
Nehru at a luncheon given by Mountbatten. Mountbatten says, “Prior to the P.M’s
(Nehru’s) arrival.... General Messervy said that Jinnah had become more and more
impossible and was afraid he was in an advanced stage of megalomania. It was generally
felt in Pakistan (and had even been expressed by Mr. Liaquat Ali khan) that Mr. Jinnah’s
usefulness had more than expired and that he was now an obstacle and positively a
menace, but nobody could see any way of getting rid of him”.(‘Mountbatten and
Independent India’ -Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, P.258)

On the last day of his life, the Government of Pakistan could not pare even a single
ambulance in working order for the return journey of the ailing founder of the country
from Ziarat:
“We had hardly gone four miles (from Mauripur Airport to Governor General’s
House) when the ambulance stopped..... there had been a breakdown.... The driver fiddled
with the engine for about twenty minutes and the ambulance could not start. Miss Fatima
Jinnah sent the Military Secretary to fetch another ambulance.... It was very oppressive in
the ambulance and the Quide-i-Azam was perspiring…...I kept on looking distractedly
towards the town but there was no sign of an ambulance. I felt utterly forlorn and hopeless.
After an excruciatingly prolonged interval, the ambulance appeared at last….. Nobody
knew that the Quide-i-Azam was being taken in critical condition through the streets of
Karachi.” (“With the Quide-i-Azam During his Last days” Lt. Col. Dr. Ilahi Bakhsh, ibid
P.47-48)
“Quaidi Azam fought his entire battles single handed. He suffered patiently and
alone...” (Miss. Fatima Jinnah preface to Lt. Col. Elahi Bakhsh’s “Quid-e- Azam during his
last days” P.3 2)
He died an utterly abandoned, betrayed and broken hearted man in pitiable and
mysterious circumstances.
Soon most of the Pakistan Muslim League stalwarts received their golden-hand-
shake.
Almost the entire working committee of the Pakistan Muslim League was ‘rewarded
for their services to the nation’ and got rid off, with Ambassadorships and governorships.
(Zuberi, ibid, P 197)….
“After the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan (in 1951) the effective and operational
power in Pakistan passed to the higher echelons of civil and military beaurocracies.”
(“Pakistan the Unstable state”-Hassan Gardezi and Jarnil Rashid, P.102)
These events culminated in the state governance further descending into an abysmal
pit of medieval intrigue, and plain criminality.
Lawlessness, despotism and tyranny became the order of the day, ever since these
early days of the state of Pakistan.
This was exactly the ideal negative Socio-Political and legal-ethical environment
required for the commission, with absolute immunity, of all kinds of acts of brigandage

and plunder, especially of the common national waters, by the ruling elites and self-
imposed authorities of Pakistan.
All theoretical obstacles and road-blocks in the country e.g. the concepts of the rule
of law, federalism, constitutionalism, division and balance of power etc in the path of neo-
colonial masters and their local satraps were be swiftly broken down and thrown to the
way side. Ruthlessness was to be the magic word for subjugating and keeping Jinnah’s
Pakistan in perpetual bondage of the neo colonialists and their native stooges, amid the
loud corus of the slogans of “Quide-Azam Zindabad”, “Pakistan Zindabad”, “Islam
Zindabad”. Things started moving, historically speaking, at a supersonic speed.
Governor General Ghulam Mohd dismissed the elected Bengali Prime Minister
Nazimuddin on 17.4.1953. Again the United Front government of Fazalul Haque in East
Pakistan which swept into power with an over whelming majority in the February 1954
elections was dismissed only 2 months after taking office, placing the province under
General Iskandar Mirza’s Governor’s rule. After five months, on 24.10.1954, Governor
General Ghulam Mohd dissolved the Constitutional Assembly, in a truly James Bond
setting:
“……The coterie.. .(Secretary General Chaudhry Mohd All, Governor General

Ghulam Mohd, Defense Secretary Iskandar Mirza and C-in-C, Army, Ayub Khan—RBP)
could be termed the “gang of four.”(Zuberi, ibid, P.222)
The (Bengali) Prime Minister Mohd Ali Bogra, Ayub Khan and Iskandar Mirza were
urgently summoned from USA and Britian.
“The Military Secretary met the V.I.P. arrivals at the airport and the Prime Minister,
accompanied by the two Generals, was whisked straight to the Governor General’s
House... Governor General roundly abused the Prime Minister and asked the two General’s
to take him away. Lahore dungeon with muscled jailors, torturing him with their jibes and
mocking smiles, crossed his mind.... After a long huddle between the two Generals and the
Governor-General, the Prime Minister was informed that the arrant Constituent Assembly
was being dissolved…… He would remain Prime Minister.”(Zuberi, ibid, P.223-224)
The act was ratified by the Federal Court of Pakistan headed by Mr. Justice Munir.
“Chief Justice Munir himself admitted ‘the mental anguish caused to the Judges by
these cases was beyond description and no-where else in the world had the Judges to pass
through what may be described as judicial torture.”(Justice Munir’s speech in the Lahore
high Court Bar Association April22, 1960 quoted by Mushtaq Ahmed in his “Government
and Politics in Pakistan” P.33)

“Thus ended with a bang….the Parliamentary System.”(Zuberi, II, P.146)
“As M. J. Akbar says in his book “India: The Siege Within, “…. It was open house for
schemers.. .After the coup from above, policies (in Pakistan-R.B.P) degenerated into
scramble for power in which the winner was to be backed.” (Burhanuddin Ahmed: “The
generals of Pakistan and Bangladesh” P.3)
Thus the way was cleared for destroying the federal foundation of Quide-Azam’s
Pakistan and for transforming the homelands of Pashtoons, Sindhis and Balochis which
had agreed to constitute Pakistan as a group of independent and sovereign fraternal states
as envisaged by the 1940 resolution and subsequently allowed themselves to be persuaded
to join and constitute Pakistan as a single fraternal federation of equal partners, into captive
pieces of conquered territory, their resources, chiefly water, land and jobs being ear-
marked for loot and plunder as a “war booty”. One-unit was to he imposed.
“Doultana had prepared his “Document” (for eliminating provincial autonomy) in

September 1954. General Mohd Ayub Khan had on 4th October 1954 sent his detailed
proposals…….. There was not much time left to loose.” (Zuberi vol: II P.222-223)
“Speed, if possible, supersonic speed, was needed.” cried Mohd Ali Bogra, the,
puppet Prime Minister. For the Punjab leaders turned historians, all history began with the
advent of Sikh State in Punjab.
“The Provinces in West Pakistan were of recent 20th century creation-N.W.F.P. was
separated from Punjab in 1901 only, Sindh became a separate province only in 1937 as a
result of the Muslim demand of common nationhood and in any case would have become
part of the Punjab had its conquest by the British not preceded final defeat of the Sikhs
Administrative boundaries depending on timing of alien conquest had no sanctity and the
Provinces as constituted in 1947, had no linguistic or ethnic unity.” of Punjab leader Nawab
Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani, in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan [Vol.1, Part 1 of 1955
(pp.784- 809) quoted in “Voyage through History”- Masarrat Husain Zuberi, Vol: 1, P.240].
“Barring the Punjab Muslims, over whom ruled Ranjit Singh and his European
Generals, like Avitabile, the Italian General at Peshawar (who used to hang six Pathans
outside his porch before breakfast and before receiving any visitors) if the British had not
come, Ranjit’s five European Generals, with their armies trained under them, would have
conquered Kabul as well as Sindh and Baluchistan. The arrival of the British saved the
Muslims of north-western India.” (“From Memory”, by Firoz Khan Noon, P: 9-10)

“There is no justification either politically or administratively for maintaining the
existing Provincial divisions in West Pakistan. They are not warranted by geographic,
ethnic, cultural or economic consideration…. both West and East Pakistan are placed on a
footing of equality promoting a feeling of partnership. These two units will then go
forward in an honorable, mutual, beneficial, complimentary and enduring partnership,
thus advancing the prosperity of the country as a one whole”, declared Mohd Ali Bogra.
(Zuberi, Vol. II, P.242-243)
A reign of terror was let loose on members of the Assemblies of the provinces
marked for elimination.
One-unit was imposed on 15.10.1955. The first thing that needed to be done was to
ensure unhindered criminal manipulation and misappropriation of the entire water of the
Indus River System “The team negotiating with India and World Bank regarding these
waters which included representatives of Sindh and N.W.F.P. was disbanded and a fresh
negotiating team constituted. All…..members from smaller provinces were dropped and
following members, all, without exception, from Punjab, included:- Mr. G. Mueenudin,
K.B.M. Abdul Hameed-C.E Punjab, Mr. Khalil-ur-Rehman, Mr. S. Kirmani, Mr. S. I.
Mehboob, Mr. S.M. Niaz, Mr. Altaf Hussan”. (“Kalabagh Dam”, by Abrar Kazi,P: 29-32).
It may be pointed out that there was no dearth of senior and competent engineers in
Sindh, Frontier, Balochistan or Bahawalpur to present the case of Pakistan. Among them
was Sindhi senior Engineer Mr. A.R.Kazi S.Q.A former Chief Engineering Advisor to the
government of Pakistan who was at that very time serving as Chief Engineer (water)
WAPDA. But he was not taken on the Pakistan negotiating team.
On 8th October 1958 President Iskandar Mirza imposed Martial law in league with
General Ayub Khan and provincial Cabinets and Central Cabinet were dismissed. After
about two weeks, “on the night of 27/28 October, Ayub Khan sent three Generals — Burki,
Azam and Shaikh to the President to ask him to resign…. Mirza first resisted. But General
Azam pulled out his pistol, upon which he signed the letter of resignation...” (Lt. General
Jahan Dad Khan “Pakistan Leadership challenges” P.38). Ayub Khan appointed himself the
President of Pakistan.
“The new regime won the approval of the West although it was the abnegation of
the values of the free world. As Charles Burton Marshall observed, the debacle was
presented “in terms of accomplishment, as if some thing fine and constructive had taken
place when the political institutions were overturned and thrown aside...” (“Generals of
Pakistan & Bangladesh”, Borhanuddin Ahrned, P.10)

At this stage one is tempted to ask “How come that, unlike their Hindu compatriots,
the Muslims of India, specially those of the Muslim majority provinces, instead of going
forward after achieving freedom from foreign yoke, and winning social, cultural, political
and economic progress in the world through unity, fair play, democracy, up-lifting the
masses, releasing their vast un-tapped energies and through nation building in all fields,
reverted to the blatantly reactionary, exploitive and oppressive ways of governance typical
of the darkest periods of their medieval history?” The answer is to be found in both the old
and recent past of the history of the Muslims of India.
(1) The vast majority of the Muslim masse in these areas were living since centuries
under the out-molded, reactionary, anti-people and oppressive tribal, feudal and
imperial systems in a state of abject poverty, illiteracy, superstition and
rightlessness.
(2) The British were mortally afraid of the of the masses of the Muslim world in view
of the past history of Arab conquests, six crusades, Ottoman Empire in Eastern
Europe, European conquests of the Muslim world and the fact that Muslim
territories were strategically spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans and it
was known that once they attained the capitalist socio-economic mode of life and
production, they were bound seriously to threaten the Western hegemony over the
world. Therefore the British wanted them to remain, away from enlightenment,
political consciousness and mass power in the same weak, back-ward, helpless and
wild state in which they were living in the grip of reactionary tyrannical and
oppressive social forces since many centuries.
“The provinces of Punjab, Frontier and Baluchistan, had also been isolated from the
political influences of the nationalist movements as a matter of deliberate imperial policy
due to the strategic significance of these areas and their value as a source of recruitment for
the army.” (‘PAKISTAN-A STUDY OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS-1947-97’, Hamid
Yousuf, P: 26)
“....the limited reforms of the 19th century….were not extended to the Muslim
majority areas of the West, the process remained the same. Till 1947 Baluchistan was
denied all the reforms of self Government introduced in other Provinces.”(‘Voyage through
History’- Masarrat Hussain Zuberi, P. 1 12)
“Britian’s administration of the (Muslim majority-RBP) north-west region of the

subcontinent had been different from that in the other parts of India. (‘THE
DESTRUCTION OF PAKISTAN’S DEMOCRACY’- Allen McGrath, P: 6-7)

(3) During the 700 years long Muslim rule over India, the role of Muslim ruling
elites was mostly that of privileged parasites that lived mostly by the sword,
monopolizing all wealth and power, without having to learn too many hard skills.
The common Hindus had to do the meaner jobs and learn all kinds of skills and
professions merely to survive. Their turn came after the advent of the British power
to employ those skills and professions to become the favorite subjects and junior
partners of the new rulers, whereas Muslims refused to awaken from the dreams of
the past.
“After the unsuccessful Indian Mutiny of 1857 against the British “the Muslims.....
could not….. find themselves willing to adapt themselves to the change They had been
rulers and soldiers and very few of them had taken to trade or professions.
As against this, the Hindus welcomed the change.. .The memory of 700 years rule by
Muslims was rankling in their heart The Hindu... has a remarkable capacity for
adaptability. . . They learned English avidly as they had learnt Persian so that they easily
found posts... in the new administrations... But the Muslims could not get over their
superiority complex…and the English language and Western Civilization continued to be
anathema to them. . . .they were looked down upon with contempt (by the British) their
position had become in fact pitiable.”(‘FROM JINNAH TO ZIA’- Muhammad Munir Chief
Justice of Pakistan (retd) P: 3-4)
“Hindus…..were the readier and more willing to take to western education and
learning, which brought into existence “a new integrated all-India class with a varied back
ground but a common foreground of knowledge, ideas and values.” From the political
aspirations of this class was born modern Indian nationalism.”(PAKJSTAN- A Study of
Political Developments 1947-97, Hamid Yousif, P: 2)
“...The traumatic turn of events made them (the Muslims) look inwards for religious
purification to meet the new challenge. The so-called Wahabi movements could not gather
political support...” (ibid, P: 9)
“….the opportunities made available during British rule for participation in

government had been refused out of fear, suspicion, or pride. Many religious leaders felt
they must remain uncontaminated by Western ideas for fear that the religious way of life of
the people would be subverted…. (‘The Destruction of Pakistan’s democracy’ - Allen
McGrath, P: 8)
“…..(The Muslims) despised the infiltration of western influence and culture,

including the language of the new rulers of India.”(Government and Politics in Pakistan’-
Mushtaq Ahmad, P: 1)

“They (Hidnus) adapted themselves more readily to the new order and took full
advantage of the economic opportunities in the field of industry and administration. The
result was that, generally speaking, they forged ahead of the Muslims who were smarting
under a sense of frustration and defeat...
“The Hindus not only prospered economically but also acquired a new
consciousness as a separate political entity....” (Ibid, P: 2)
(5) In the next phase, when thanks to-the heroic, pioneering, enlightening and
civilizing role of people like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Ameer Ali, Hassan Ali
Effandi and a few others. Muslim educated starta was created and the fairly well-
educated politically active Hindu starta having gained sufficient political skills and
self-confidence, advanced to the stage of demanding their rights with some force,
the British took alarm and started looking for fresh battalions of henchmen, a
number of Muslim feudal-elites and service-men took a U turn from their previous
aloofness and became ultra-loyalist and mercenary pillars of imperialist rule. They
were rewarded royally and semi-officially established as parasitic bullies over their
own poor people. They lived by white-collar and “gentlemanly” social, economic
and political lawlessness and crime. Toadyism, exploitation and oppression became
the semi-officially encouraged and socially tolerated and expected way of their life.
Many a politician and official who usurped and exploited political power in
Pakistan through lawlessness and political crimes belonged to the above category: -
“...a form of government was installed in the Punjab different from that in Bengal.
Government in the Punjab was to be by individuals rather than by regulations
“What need or room for written laws, politicians and assemblies, or haggling
lawyers? This tradition was part of the background of such British trained men as Ghulam
Mohad, Ayub khan, Iskandar Mirza, Chaudhri Mohd Ali, and Mohd Munir, who were to
play important roles in Pakistan in the years after independence. They were all from the
Punjab, and all were former members of the civil, military, and judicial bureaucracies
which administered the machinery of government under the British.”(‘The Destruction of
Pakistan’s Democracy’- Allen Mcgrath, P: 7)
“Resistance to usurpers is not part of our culture nor in accordance with the best
traditions of our society.”(‘Pakistan a Dream Gone Sour’- Roadad Khan, P: 42)
By a notification dated: 10th June1959, the military government of Ayub Khan

constituted a body named Indus Basin Advisory Board (IBAB) to evolve the best plan for

meeting the water shortage caused by the sale to India of Ravi, Bias and Sutlaj. No
representative from Sindh or any other region/province other than Punjab was taken on
this Board. Thus the IBAB plans, decisions and the International negotiations based on the
above plans and decisions were purely a Punjab affair.
At that time the Sindh engineer mentioned earlier, Mr. A. R. Kazi, S.Q.A (later Chief
Engineer Advisor to Government of Pakistan) who was the senior-most Civil Engineer
serving in Pakistan was Chief Engineer (water) WAPDA, but was not included in the IBAB,
although it was WAPDA which had to get the proposed works constructed.
The core issues involved in the negotiations leading to the 1960 Treaty were
intertwined with and over-lapped the core issues of the Sindh-Punjab Water Dispute 1857-
1960 (now 1857-2003). The treaty negotiations, though formally and apparently confined to
the points at issue between Pakistan on the one hand and India and the donor countries on
the other, provided an excellent and ideal opportunity and cover to the Punjab authorities,
suddenly to transform themselves from being accused for a century of excessive
appropriation of common waters, in the historical matter of Sindh-Punjab Indus Basin
water dispute, to becoming the virtual sole owners and disposers of the case property viz
the water resources of Pakistan. They forthwith set themselves up as the self appointed
judges in their own cause. The IBAB, waving the flag of an impartial federal national
planning body of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, under the garb of “planners” for the
greatest national good to the greatest number of the people of the whole of West Pakistan
including Sindh, simply dismissed, without taking any notice of, Sindh’s century-old case
against Punjab authorities by the simple, stratagem of “p1 it out of existence though a
“national plan” for negotiation where by the entire flow waters of Jehlum and Chenab,
stored water of Mangla Dam and the bulk of Tarbela dam on Indus were allotted to Punjab
under one or the other pretext.
All complaints, principles, previous decisions and arguments were quietly and
impliedly, thrown into the dustbin of history under the smokescreen of national planning
and international negotiations.
“...as One Unit Administration had come into being from October 14, 1955, the
Punjab found it expedient to push through its own proposals for the full development of
the Punjab through the proposed system of works (exclusively in Punjab-RBP) required
under the Treaty, and this it proceeded to do, by making the IBAB co-ordinate all planning
within the country on the one hand, and provide the sole link with the Treaty Delegation
and the Bank Consultants on the other.” (‘Indus Water Allocation-History of the Case’, G.
K. Soomro, P.139)

“The purpose of the IBAB proposals mainly was the obtaining of the maximum
amount of funds for enabling as big a system of works to be constructed (in Punjab-RBP) as
possible. In this objective they succeeded by getting, in addition to the fixed contribution of
India of $175 million, a free grant of $ 175 million from the Consortium Countries, and a
loan of $ 150 million. The Supplemental Agreement of April 1964 got Pakistan an
additional $ 315 million in foreign exchange for the Projects.
“The IBAB succeeded in doing, on the home front, what all previous Governments
in the Punjab could not do, simply by the device of providing the construction of Storages
and Links (in Punjab only), completely un-connected with the strict function of
replacement, a situation which could never have materialized, had the Sindh Government
been in existence, or had the interest of the peasantry of Sindh been kept in view. This
became possible for them by keeping Sindh’s representation out of IBAB, and by not
having any protest from any quarter interested in Sindh. The Irrigation Department of
West Pakistan was also headed, at that time, by an officer from the Punjab (Mr. Mahbub).
To prevent any individual from raising any issue, strict secret instructions were issued to
all to keep silent about all the decisions.” (ibid, P.140)
It may be emphasized once again that the order of the government of Pakistan
constituting such a Board without any representative of Sindh, along with all the proposals
and plans and all decisions made and agreements signed by this Board adversely affecting
the rights and interests of Sindh were under the circumstances to that extent, violative of
the binding principles of natural justice, illegal, of no legal effect and void from the very
beginning.
In order properly to under stand the callousness, chicanery and high handedness
employed by vested interests against the smaller provinces specially the people of Sindh in
the matter of fair allocation of water resources, it will be helpful to bear in mind the
following facts and circumstances:
(1) Being unrepresented in the 1948 Indo-Pak ostensible negotiations, much less, in
the surreptitious and secret Jullander deal, between West and East Punjab
authorities, regarding waters of Pakistan viz those of the Indus River System, the
smaller provinces were not and are not morally, politically or legally bound by the
decisions in the above dealings behind their back and to their disadvantage.
(2) These provinces, including Sindh, could not and cannot be held responsible for
the losses deliberately incurred by the province which sold such common rivers
behind the back of the other co-sharers.

(3) The said provinces including Sindh cannot be morally or legally punished and
burdened with any compensation to the affected Punjab canals for any losses caused
by the authorities of that province by their unilateral, conspiratorial and malafide
wrong doing.
(4) On the other hand, the water losses suffered by Pakistan were not confined to
one province viz Punjab. Other provinces, chiefly Sindh, also suffered considerable
water-loss due to the illegal sale of the three-tributary Rivers of the system. The
authorities of Punjab were and are morally and legally bound to compensate
adequately the deprived province, Sindh, to the extent of its actual loss of supply of
1.92 MAF in Rabi and 29.36 MAF in Kharif which it received at Panjnad. This is the
average of the 10 years prior to partition i.e. 1936-37 to 1945-46 from the illegally
sold rivers.
(5) The compensation obtained from India and the loans obtained from the World
Bank and from Canada, Germany, Australia etc were obtained for and were payable
by, not only Punjab region/Province but for the entire West Pakistan including
Sindh, N.W.F.P and Balochistan regions/Provinces and were payable by all of them
plus East Pakistan.
Under annexure D to the “Indus Basin Development Fund Agreement” 1960

prepared and got approved by IBAB itself, the “System of works to be constructed by
Pakistan” was for entire West Pakistan and not for Punjab alone and it had to,
(b) Provide substantial additional irrigation in West Pakistan.
(d) Make an important contribution to soil reclamation and drainage in West

Pakistan by lowering down water levels in water-logged and saline areas.
(e) Afford a measure of flood protection in West Pakistan.”

Hence these funds were required to be spent and works to be constructed in
other regions / provinces as per their entitlement as co-riparian and not just
in the one region / province, Punjab.
(6) Punjab has/had lots of under ground water, “The total ground water being used
only in tube-wells in the Punjab was, in 1971, many times more than the combined
total capacity of Mangla and Tarbela Dams.”(Abdul Wahab-”Sindh Water Case”
P.47). Its average annual rain water quantity is the highest in the former West
Pakistan / present Pakistan. In Sindh both these sources of water supply are
negligible.

(7) That fairness, justice and equity demanded that the term “waters of Pakistan”
should be held to include (a) flowing (b) storage (c) under ground and (d) rain
waters in the country and its provinces.
(8) In view of the agreement of Punjab authorities for their self-serving purposes, in
1948, to pay seignior age charges to India for the waters used by Pakistan after
partition, thus recognizing the right of India to cut off waters from the date of
partition, the Indus water Treaty 1960 gave the right to India to the three Eastern
Rivers from the date of partition, and not the date of signing the Treaty.
(9) Any level of uses higher than the one enjoyed up to the 15th of August, which
may have been developed subsequently, after the partition of the Sub-Continent,
could not be the level for the purpose of replacement under Article IV (I) of the
Treaty. Thus what were lost by Pakistan were the water supplies that this country
was getting from the Eastern Rivers up to the 15th of August, 1947 and the level of
uses which these particular canals had attained by 15.8.1947.
(10) While deciding the quantum of replacement supplies, it had to be determined

as to what was the dependable availability in the Eastern Rivers flowing down to
Pakistan on the cut off date. This availability had to be determined on the normal
basis viz 3 to 4 year basis. Thus when it was claimed by Punjab authorities that
supplies of 24 MAF were coming to Pakistan on the relevant date, the dependable
supplies on the 3 to 4 years basis came down to 17 MAF. Again there may be a
quantum of dependable availability, which may not be fully utilizable due to a
variety of reasons. Hence quantum of actual losses had to be calculated as per the
quantum of actual utilizability out of the total quantum of dependable availability.
(11) This level of utilizable supplies determined the top level exceeding which
would have meant exceeding the rational and equitable boundaries of proper
“replacement”.
(12) It would have been found that the justly due replacement supplies so far as
the affected Punjab canals were concerned, were 3.12 MAF during Rabi and 10.67
MAF during Kharif. Against this quantum of replacement supplies, Punjab was
demanding replacement supplies of the order of 21.12 MAF and even more at the
cost of N.W.F.P, Sindh, Baluchistan and East Pakistan. Thus without spending
anything Punjab was demanding development at the cost of other provinces of
Pakistan. (‘Wahab Shaikh’-Sindh Case, P.88)
(13) When Punjab authorities talked about replacement supplies, it should have
been understood that their demand over and above the real replacement demand

was for development of Punjab and not for replacement supplies to the old canals. It
was therefore necessary that a line of demarcation was drawn between the
replacement component and the development component as available from the total
system of works.
(14) If Punjab had to develop water potential, it had to spend huge sums of
money and that would have been borne by the Punjab and not by the other
provinces of Pakistan for the Punjab. Therefore the real question of true replacement
supplies had to be determined, keeping in view all the above aspects.(ibid, P.89)
(15) Since all the provinces of Pakistan had to bear the burden of replacement
supplies, it was necessary that limits of replacement were not exceeded and Punjab
should not have got more water for its own development at the cost of others on the
plea of replacement supplies. (P.90)
(16) The development supplies made available by carrying out of works under
system of works had to be equitably shared between all canals in West Pakistan
keeping in view the availability of ground water. (P.93)
It is the contention and the case of the people of Sindh that having set themselves up
as the sole owners, dealers and distributors of the waters of Pakistan, the Punjab
authorities, through IBAB, in violation of even the biased terms of the appointment of the
Board, purported to apportion these waters according to their sweet will:
(1) For this Board, Pakistan was the other name of Punjab. While talking about
Pakistan, it generally meant only the province of Punjab.
(2) It paraded Punjab authorities avaricious and never ending demands for more
and more water at the cost of other riparians specially Sindh, as “the essential needs
of Pakistan” in the working paper it prepared for Ayub Khan, the then President of
Pakistan on the eve of the World Bank Mission’s visit to Pakistan in May 1959. This
paper was included in the Pakistan Government Report on the negotiations with the
World Bank Group on 16th to 18th May 1959. Specifying “Pakistan’s essential
needs” the Board said “Pakistan’s essential needs are increased uses of the linked
canals (of Punjab R.B.P)”(Para 4(b) P: 15 of the Report). “On the Tributary Rivers (of
Punjab-R.B.P) alone 23 MAF is required for the eventual control of salinity and that
immediate requirement is 3.5 MAF.”
(3) It practiced jugglery with facts and figures .and invented its own concepts and
terminology e.g. Zoning, Indus Basin Settlement Plan and Indus Basin Project etc to
serve its partisan objects.

(4) It did the planning in such a way that in the case of Punjab instead of using the
allocations for the developed projects, it adopted their increased developed uses up
to 1956, where as in the case of Sindh projects, the proposed Provision was made
less than what was already allocated to them under the Sindh Punjab draft
agreement1945 which had been followed in practice long years after Punjab refused
to ratify it.
(5) The planned system of works had a lot of development components. These
substantial additional supplies were reserved for the Punjab canals for reclamation
requirements over and above their developed uses, leaving nothing for the other
provinces including Sindh where the salinity problem and reclamation requirements
are more serious.
(6) Whereas no reclamation supplies were provided for Sindh canals. As much as 5.5
MAF additional water, which is more than Mangla Dam capacity, was provided
only for the Punjab canals.
(7) The canal uses as conceived by the Board were much higher than their allocations
even in the case of developing projects. On the other hand, the concept of IBAB uses,
so far Sindh canals were concerned, was even less than their historic rights i.e.
allocations.
(8) The un-usable flood flows of Chenab and Jehlum were added to the Indus flows,
there by creating artificial shortage in the Tributary zone and justifying the transfer
of Trimmu, Punjab and Islam to the Indus.
Commenting on the high-handed, insatiable and limitless demands of Punjab

authorities over the common waters, Sindh’s representative before the Fazal Akbar Indus
Water Committee, Mr. A. W. Shaikh said 32 years ago in 1971:-
“The demand of water by the Punjab has no limit. It is not the allocations or the
existing higher uses for which the Punjab is demanding water but they also demand that
further development component should also be added. If such demands are accepted then
the level of uses of the Punjab Canals will become almost double the previous allocations
and hardly anything will be left from the existing flow waters, storages or future storages
to pass down to Sindh as these Punjab requirements will first have to be met.
If all that water goes to the Punjab canals, the ruination of Sindh Agriculture is
certain. The signs of increase in the salinity already started showing up in Sindh due to

shortage of canal water.”(”Presentation of Sindh Case Before The Indus Water Committee”
P: 10).
After unilaterally selling away 3 out of its 5 rivers, Punjab authorities still had
Chenab and Jehium, plus abundant rain water as well as ground water, the quantum of
which is under stood to be far in excess of the combined total water of Mangla and Tarbela
dams. During the Indus treaty negotiations, Punjab authorities demanded further water
works as part of replacement supplies, through foreign aid, at the cost of all the provinces
of Pakistan including East Pakistan The World Bank, which had to arrange the loan, at last
agreed.
“The Bank has provided two storages, Mangla 4.75 MAF and Rohtas 2.1 MAE They
claim that these two storages apart from complete replacement will provide at least 2.0
MAF for reclamation and development...” (Report on the negotiations with the World
Bank, P.17, Para 13)
Thus the authorities of Punjab, the upper riparian, managed thoroughly to exploit
their unique, although illegal position, as the sole representatives of Pakistan, to the
exclusion of the other affected provinces, to do whatever they - liked to the detriment of
their century-long co-sharers and adversaries in the over-a-century long water-dispute.
They were going to get not only more than required replacement supplies in the shape of
flow water of Jehlum and Chenab and stored water of M dam but further very substantial
development supply in the shape of Rohtas dam.
But they were not satisfied with mere replacement. On the pretext of having been
forcibly deprived of 3 of their rivers and consequently being in dire need of replacement
supplies, they wanted to capture the mighty Indus, stage by stage and to steal and plunder
the last drop of its waters, even if it resulted in turning the lower and weakest lower
riparian virtually into a desert. So they demanded Tarbela dam on Indus.
“Tarbela should be included in the plan even if it means excluding Rohtas for the
present Rohtas is an easy storage to build and Pakistan can take it in hand later….(ibid Para
17 Expecting resistance from the donors for such an extravagant demand, Ayub Khan
suggested, that, even if the World Bank and other donor countries do not agree to give aid
for construction of Tarbela on Indus at that time, Tarbela should be kept on the demand list
for construction at some later time.
“...the President told the Bank that if it does not agree with Tarbela, the Bank should
at least take note of it and recognize the necessity of Tarbela being built at an early stage.”
(Mr. Wahab, ibid, P.6 1)

It was the policy of the Pakistan side regarding the negotiations with World Bank,
India and other international donor countries, that in the process of international
negotiations, the opportunity for getting maximum benefits for Pakistan in the form of
maximum amount of foreign aid and maximum number of replacement and development
works, should not be lost merely because no immediate internal agreement was in
existence or easily achievable, as to which works for which precise purpose should be
constructed where:
It was given to understand that it was immaterial what precise reasons and
particulars were given in justification for obtaining foreign aid for a particular project, so
long as these yielded maximum amount of such aid for constructing maximum projects, for
not only replacement purposes but also for development purposes. The idea was that not
only the actual losses due to sale of 3 rivers should be covered but irrigation water should
be made available for cultivating new lands in West Pakistan.
Consequently as guaranteed by the central government, through the Secretary of

Industries, Government of Pakistan D.O letter NO Secy (md) 8735/54 dated 6th Nov 1954,
addressed to all Provincial Governments, extract given below, all plans and schemes
prepared and positions taken by the central government in connection with the
negotiations with India and other foreign powers were to be, so to say, for foreign
consumption, without prejudice and not to be binding, as between the co-sharer parties, in
the Indus Basin viz Sindh, Punjab etc:
“To facilitate the negotiations on the Indus Basin Water Dispute and position as
among various units of West Pakistan, I would like to confirm that all material supplied to
the Central Govt. by the various units and all arguments advanced, material prepared or
positions taken by the Central Govt. in it’s negotiations with India are completely without
prejudice as to the legal rights of any of the units. It is essential in the national interest to
present a unified point of view for Pakistan as a whole. Any point of dispute between the
Units in Pakistan will be resolved in a fair and equitable manner if necessary by the
appointment of an impartial commission by the Central Government’.”
This solemn legal guarantee was repeated and reiterated from time to time by the
highest authorities of the country.
“…. It would be pertinent to mention that a presentation on the Zoning Concept was
made by the Sindh Representative in the proceedings of the Commission for
Apportionment of Indus Waters during its session held from 20th to 30th April 1980, and
the Chairman of the Commission, Justice Anwar ul-Haq was pleased to remark:

‘Whatever may have been adopted in negotiations with India, it is quite obvious that
it is not to prejudice the rights of the provinces. That would be my understanding of the
whole thing. For negotiations with India you can take various positions.’ (Abrar Qazi “Kala
Bagh Dam” P: 72-73)
“...the fact is that we were given assurance that whatever is being put in the Plan is
for external consumption and that we need not worry. This assurance was again repeated
and discussed in the West Pakistan Government Cabinet meeting held on 13. 11. 55 of
which the copy of the Minutes has not so far been supplied to us in spite of our best efforts.
The fact remains that we were always told that Tarbela Dam is for Sindh. (Wahab Shaikh-
’Sindh Case’ P.17)
Hence the terminology and conceptual frame-work unilaterally adopted by Punjab

engineers in IBAB and elsewhere, during international negotiations e.g. the terms zoning
system, Indus Basin Settlement Plan, Indus Basin Project etc were not legally binding for a
number of reasons and could not be imposed upon Sindh to its detriment.
Once decision was taken to get massive structures constructed through foreign help
and assistance, Pakistan had to justify the construction of huge dams like Tarbela Dam on
Indus. If any replacement burden was shown to be put on Indus in the IBAB plan and
consequently in other papers, it was purely for justifying the construction of Tarbela Dam
and not for legally and practically binding Sindh to aquise in Indus’s actually shouldering
the unjust burden.
Mangla was to be the replacement dam for the canals affected by the sold three
rivers, not any other.
In the 1960 Indus Water Treaty it was stipulated that the construction of the works
for replacement supplies would be completed by Pakistan expeditiously. If within a
transition period of up to 31St March 1970, the same were not completed, Pakistan would
have had to obtain extension of 3 years more for the completion of the same on the
payment of a specified sum. Pakistan however completed all the works for replacement
supplies including Mangla dam 2 years before the specified time limit.
Hence it did not ask for any extension, permitted by the Treaty for any non-
completion of the replacement part of the System of Works, clearly establishing that all
replacement in the Tributary Zone could now be met without Tarbela.
Hence Engineer Mr. Kirmani’s observations, at page 14 in I.B.P 265, which was
published on the completion of Mangla Darn by the end of 1968:

“Thus by March 1968, two years ahead of the deadline specified in the Treaty,
replacement works east of Jehium costing 1107 million dollars, were completed enabling
Pakistan to stand on its own, without the fear of any action by India on the Eastern Rivers.”
(P.113-114)
When the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Firoze Khan Noon visited the site
of the Mangla Dam when this replacement work was still in progress, he glad that “with
this replacement, Pakistan is going ahead in securing herself more independence”, but he
was sad that it was not a development dam but merely a replacement dam i.e., a dam for
making good the loss of three rivers by feeding the affected canals including Trimu, Islam
and Panjnad. He observed “the sad part today is when one visits the site of Mangla dam
and sees this mighty engineering feat in progress, when one has to remind him self that all
the money is being spent not on the development but merely on replacement. (Sir Feroze
Khan Noon “From Memory” P.264)
Thus Mangla being a replacement dam was constructed at top priority. It was not a
development dam and irrigating new lands was basically not its job. Its main job was to
feed canals including Islam, Trimu and Panjnad previously fed by the three illegally sold
rivers. When the construction of all the replacement works including Mangla replacement
dam were completed around 1968, the Tarbela dam was non-existent. It was not a dam
meant for top priority construction like replacement works, which had to be completed
within the stipulated transitional period as required by the Treaty, as stated above.
This reflected the fact that there was no hurry for another dam, other than Mangla,
as what were urgently needed were the replacement supplies for the effected canals which
were to be provided in full by flow waters of Chenab and Jehium plus a portion only of the
stored water from the Mangla dam.
As stated earlier, Panjab authorities, through their subservient central government,

invoking national interests and sentiments of patriotism, called upon all concerned parties
including Sindh, not to be unduly, perturbed if any argument, arrangement, plan, project
or other bargaining tactic or strategy which was formulated and presented during the
negotiations with foreign authorities, appeared to conflict with their specific positions and
interests. It was a national necessity they declared in effect, to prepare and present for
foreign consumption only, of course, apparently appropriate and convincing details,
particulars and arguments to the international donor community, in order to provide to
them necessary justification for getting maximum possible foreign aid sanctioned for
Pakistan. They planned all kinds of projects for providing replacement supplies, specifying
all kinds of supply burdens from here and there, making them appear logical, rational,
fully justified by ground realities and what not and as absolutely indispensable for the
progress and prosperity, nay, the very existence of the whole of Pakistan.

As evidenced by the government of Pakistan letter No: Secy (md) 8735/54 dt:
6.11.1954 referred to above, all this was supposed to be meant for foreign consumption
only, without any prejudice to and not binding any of the affected parties including Sindh.
But as soon as the negotiations were over and the foreigners went home, the Punjab
authorities and their subservient central government mouth- pieces, staged a 180 degrees
turn, and declared that every word of all their plans, positions, pronouncements,
classifications and schemes which originally were solemnly declared to be only for foreign
consumption, were now, after the completion of the Punjab versus the foreign countries
and institutions negotiations to the total advantage of Punjab and total disadvantage of
other provinces specially that of Sindh, to be binding on all concerned, including Sindh.
One item of their pride of “impartial national planning” performance was the
creation of two illogical and artificial water zones in Pakistan, the Indus zone and the
tributary zone separated by the Chinese wall of opposite and contradictory functions. The
functions the Indus zone was assigned were to get not even a single drop of its share from
the common waters in the other zone but give away every thing it had to the other zone
even, if necessary, at the cost of starving the, big family of its own canals solely dependent
upon its life-giving waters for the very lives of the crores of people of the concerned areas.
On the contrary, the functions assigned to the other, the so-called tributary zone was not
only not to part with a single drop of the so-called Indus zone’s share of common waters
within it but to obtain the bulk of waters from the other zone through leech-like robber
canals including Chashma-Jahlum and Tarbela-Panjnad link canals. So one so-called zone
was to be a solely giver zone and the other was to be solely the taker zone. Sindh was
placed in the solely giver zone and the Panjab in the solely taker zone.
The stand of the Sindhi people is that the ex-parte proceedings of negotiations
regarding the artificially created Pak-India water dispute in furtherance of the Jullunder
conspiracy between the representatives of both the post- Partition parts of the former
undivided Punjab, the subsequent appointment of IBAB and all its plans, schemes and final
decisions adversely affecting the fundamental legal and constitutional rights and interests
of the lower riparian Sindh, were and are ex-parte, illegal, in utter violation of the
universally recognized natural rights, without jurisdiction, of no legal effect and void
abinitio.
This totally arbitrary, malafide, self-serving, transparently fraudulent zone system
which, incidentally, is not mentioned in any of the three international documents
concerning the 1960 Industrial Treaty, imposed ex-parte and maliciously by IBAB to
defraud Sindh of its vital rights and interests, is totally unacceptable, illegal, of no legal
effect as against the historic life and death interests of the people of Sindh.

It has been regretfully observed by the people of the smaller and weaker provinces,
that since, in view of the undeclared but practical unitary instead of federal, form of
government in Operation in Pakistan from the very beginning, any ruler from provinces
other than the Panjab, like Liaqat Ali Khan, Hussain Shaheed Suhrwardi, Iskandar Mirza,
Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto etc, publicly paraded on the national and
international stage as iron men, dictators, great leaders, Generals and field Martials and
what not, could remain in power and some times even alive, only while they slavishly
served the anti-democratic, anti-people anti national and hegemonic vested interests of the
Punjab elites and authorities.
Ayub Khan was no exception. So far as slavishly serving the above hegemonic
vested interests was concerned, he allowed himself to be led by the nose, there by laying
down the foundation of Bangladesh debacle etc.
He abjectly abandoned all pretense of ruling as an impartial President of all

Pakistanis with fairness and equity and allowed himself to be lorded over by the Punjab
authorities, not caring a hoot for the long term interests of justice, national unity and
solidarity. He became a willing tool in the hands of the Punjab engineers surrounding him.
He allowed Punjab authorities to pocket all the foreign aid billions obtained on the pretext
of replacement and development for all of West Pakistan. He hands over virtually all the
waters of Pakistan, to save its share of which, Sindh had struggled during much of the
twentieth century, to the dominant province. He went to the adventurous extent of
threatening a war with India if foreign aid for constructing the Tarbela dam for siphoning
off and plundering the Indus waters in their entirety, was not furnished.
“The sharing of the waters of the Indus system had been a matter of dispute for
many years. Before Partition, there were water claims continuously in dispute between the
Sindh and Punjab provinces of undivided India. Partition drew the border between India
and Pakistan right across the Indus system. Pakistan became the downstream riparian and
the headwork of two of the main irrigation canals in Pakistan were left on the Indian side
of the border... I knew very little about the problem, so I asked for elucidation. The West
Pakistan government sent two engineers (Both belonging to Punjab- RBP) who explained
the case in great detail to me.
“...The World Bank conceded our demand for the construction of a system of
replacement works... The World Bank team, headed by its President, Eugene Black, offered
us the Mangla Dam plus certain headwork and the diversionary and link canals. They also
offered a dam at Rohtas near Jehium...
“….before I write of the negotiations with Eugene Black, I should like to describe the
confrontation I had with our own technical experts and administrators.(A1l belonging to

Punjab- RI3P) I sensed that they did not fully realize the gravity of the situation and were
asking for the moon They were.... trying to dictate policy and were taking up extreme
positions. Some thirty or forty of them was assembled in Government House, Lahore.
“….they were firmly of the view that in addition to a dam on the river Jehluin at
Mangla, we should need a dam at Tarbela to store the surplus flow of the Indus River The
difference in cost was of the order of about 200 million dollars. This was a staggering
figure, and I knew that when Eugene heard it he would hit the roof. And so he did. But I
told him, and I quote the words as I recall using them: ‘I have been around these areas
which are going to be affected by the withdrawal of waters by India. People have told me
very plainly that if they have to die through thirst and hunger the would prefer to die in
battle and they expected me to give them that chance. Our Jawans and the rest of the
people feel the same way. So this country is on the point of blowing up if you don’t lend a
helping hand.”(Ayub Khan “Friends not Masters” P. 108-110)
It may be noted that only the “Surplus flow” of Indus was to be stored at Tarbela.
Needless to reiterate that under the sub-continental, international and Indo-Pakistan

law before sanctioning such a potentially controversial gigantic project like the Tarbela, the
rights and interests of all the concerned co-sharers specially Sindh had to be taken into
consideration properly in advance just as it was done in days of the British Raj.
“One of the terms of reference of the Anderson Committee appointed in 1935, was
“the possibility of finding such supplies, without detriment to the parties interested in the
waters of the Indus and its Tributaries and the effect upon the existing rights of these
parties, of any fresh withdrawal the authorization of which, the committee may
recommend.”
“The Rau Commission, specifically recognized the damage to Sindh Canals by the
construction by the Punjab of the Dam at Bhakra on Beas and not only provided that two
new projects in Sindh be constructed to give an assured supply of water to its Canals but
that a portion of the cost of these works amounting to Rs.2 crores be borne by the Punjab
for that purpose. (Wahab Shaikh ‘Sindh Case’, P.15)
But for usurper generals and dictators like Ayub Khan, the country they succeed in
getting into their clutches with its resources, becomes their personal Jagir and property, its
population their slaves and their sweet will the supreme law of that unfortunate land.
There is a lot of money for the rulers, in fact billions, in the business of constructing
national dams etc. Every body including the present rulers, know that Ayub Khan did not

become any poorer through such building activity. They, in fact, want to gain from his
experience.
“Ayub needed a guarantee against personal degradation which was given to him by
me personally. Ayub had made a lot of money and he genuinely wanted time to enjoy it.
No one knows better than me why Ayub had quit.” (Excerpt from General Yahya’s written
statement before Hamood Rahman Inquiry Commission, quoted in “The Breaking of
Pakistan” by A. Basit, P.120)
As for the Panjab authorities who during the course of Pakistan’s chequered history
of repression of the deprived sectors and weaker entities and peoples, usurpation of state
authority and its autocratic willful, and reckless exercise, had learnt from experience that
they were -the real masters of Pakistan and owners of all its resources and sources of life
and livelihood, had no use for fair apportionment, equity and justice. After completing the
lawless misappropriation of all the waters of all the five Punjab rivers, the Indus tributaries,
they straight-away proceeded to loot and plunder the waters of the Indus the last
remaining source of the life of the lower riparian Sindh, through the link canals ostensibly
constructed for conveying only surplus waters of Indus to Punjab canals known in Sindh as
robber canals, on all kinds of phony pretexts, thereby intensifying the desertification of
Sindh which has now reached alarming proportions.
“The perception of the people of Sindh about the modus operandi of WAPDA and
the Government of Punjab works out as under:
i. Allow the civil works or the canal system to be constructed as projects of

national survival
ii. Request for surplus water for staunching, leak testing, saving the link from
choking or whatever.
iii. Run the surplus water for a few years to establish precedent and to
develop water users who will then apply tremendous pressure to keep the
water supply running.
iv. Force the lower riparian (or don’t even ask) to accept the fait accomplice
and keep the water supply running since the tap is always in the hands of
the upper riparian. (Abrar Qazi, ‘Kala Bagh Dam’, P:80)
As soon as the “robber” canal, the Chashma-Jehlum link canal was completed in
1973,

Punjab authorities came out with their pretext for getting it opened for plunder.
In a “summary” for the Chief Minister, Mr.A.W.Shaikh, S.K secretary for Irrigation
and power, Government of Sindh, wrote, under the subject “Opening of Chashma link.
During Kharif 1973”:
“A proposal for opening Chashma-Jehium Link for the current Kharif, has been
received under WAPDA’s NO CE/WMC-49/259 dated 18.6.1973 (Flag A) with the objects
of:
i. Meeting the operating needs of the safety of banks against sloughing.
ii. To save the link from choking in the lower part due to wind blown sand
and,
iii. To monitor the seepage losses from the link at various discharges required
to draw anti-water logging schemes along the link canals.
In this connection it ma.0y be pointed out that a similar request to run the Chashma-
Jehlum Link during Kharif 1972 was received last year which was not accepted by the
government of Sindh...
As regards the fresh arguments nos. (I) and (ii) the same are not valid as the link has
been constructed mostly in, cutting and whenever it is in embankment, it has been
constructed on international standards Moreover the link has been fully tested for 134 days
(from 26.5.71 to 6.10.71) and 83 days (from 5.7.72 to 25.9.72) which is by no means a short
duration (P: 76)
As regards argument no. (iii) In asking for opening of the link to monitor the
seepage losses to draw anti-water logging schemes, both the WAPDA and Punjab
Government have asked the Central Government to finance this project terming it as
consequential work to the Indus Basin Project. In case of the Taunsa-Punjnad Link, the
Punjab Irrigation department has succeeded in creating artificial water-logging on both
sides of the Link by running it at full capacity even when not a drop of water is required
for transference to Punjab Canals (presently over 130,000 cusecs are escaping below
Punjnad and yet the Taunsa-Punjnad Link running at a discharge of 5000 cusecs). Likewise,
the Punjab Irrigation Department desires to flow the Chashma-Jehium Link, as without it’s
flowing, it will be difficult for them to justify the anti-water logging project.
It is evident that they want to open it (the C. J Link) on ad-hoc basis now and then
continue to run it by emphasis “status quo” later on. The Sindh canals have already

experienced great damage to the sustenance of their agriculture by unilateral operation of
Taunsa-Punjnad Link, both in Kharif and Rabi, even at times of acute shortage of supplies
in Indus, although this Link was only opened for staunching and testing purposes for
meeting the contractual obligations purely as an ad-hoc arrangement.”
The Secretary Irrigation Government of Sindh was apprehensive, as far back as 1973,
that C.J link canal would, much like the T.P J canal earlier, be requested to be opened for
technical reasons which would set a precedent. After a few years it will be kept
permanently open as a matter of right.
Following is the reproduction of the Interim Accord between Sindh and Punjab,
signed on 3rd July 1973:
INTERIM ACCORD
OPENING OF THE CHASHMA-JEHLUM LINK
DURING THE 1972
Pending a final decision by the president of Pakistan on apportionment of waters of

the Indus System which inter alia would also ascertain the operational criteria of Indus
links, a joint meeting of Sindh and Punjab Irrigation Ministers convened by Control
Minister for Provincial Co-ordination, Mr. Abdul Hafees Pirzada, reached interim accord in
Lahore today.
Governor Punjab; Central Minister for finance; Central Minister for Information and
Chief Minister Sindh were present.
In the month of July, there is more water available in the Indus system than the
requirements of its Canals. In fact there are escapades to the sea, both from the Indus Main
and the Tributary Rivers and therefore there is no need to transfer Indus surplus water
through the Chashma-Jehium Link.
Nevertheless it has been decided to allow a flow of water in the Chashma-Jehlum

Link. This meets the request of the Punjab Government whose object is to keep the lower
section of the Link alive. It has also been agreed that this flow will be on a purely ad-hoc
basis and will not create any right for subsequent flowing.
In the event of a request made by the Chief Minister Sindh on the erratic behavior of
the River Indus, the WAPDA shall immediately close the Chashma-Jehlum Link.
MINISTRY OF PROVINCIAL COORDINATION

GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN
LAHORE

July 3, 1973
Sd/-
(ABDUL HAFEEZ PIRZADA)
Minister for Provincial Co-ordination.
Sd/
(GHULAM MUSTAFA KHAR)
Governor Punjab
Sd/
(MUMTAZ ALT BHUTTO)
Chief Minister Sindh.
The points to note this Accord are:
i. The plea of Punjab to open the C-J Link was “to keep the lower section of
the link alive”.
ii. It was agreed that the flow of July, 72 will be on a purely ad-hoc basis and
will not create any right for subsequent flowing.
iii. In the event of erratic behavior of river Indus, on the request of Chief
Minister Sindh, WAPDA shall immediately close the C-J Link.
But only three months after this solemn accord, by October 1973, the position had
drastically changed and Mr.Ghulam Mustafa Khar, then Governor Punjab, wrote to the
Governor Sindh, vide letter No.GS/B/173, dated Oct 16, 1973:
“It has been stated that this link (Chashma-Jehium link canal) was a pipeline to
operate intermittently for transfer of surplus water under certain conditions. I regret to
point out that this is not the correct position. The link has been constructed for continuous
operation, like all other canals, to meet the requirement of the Haveli canals and Lower
Sutlej Valley Canals. It will have to be so operated on the completion of Tarbela Dam. Of
course I know that the government of Sindh has somewhat different view on the subject. I
am confident that these differences will be soon resolved.”(P.71)
The Punjab authorities were at their old game of signing accords when needed and
tearing them off, at the earliest available opportunity, when no longer advantageous.
Still the permission of Sindh Government kept on being sought every year till 1985,
an acute year of water shortage, when the total flow in the Indus River System was a

subnormal 118 MAF. That year General Ghulam Jilani, Governor of Punjab and Safdar
Butt, Chairman WAPDA, especially flew out to Chashma and got the C-J link canal
opened. Since then even the façade of asking the Chief Minister of Sindh was dropped and
the T-P and C-J link canals continue to operate at maximum capacity, even in times of sever
shortage in Sindh. Throughout the history of Pakistan, the policies of the Pakistan
establishment, dominated by Punjab elites and authorities, has all along been to impose its
peculiar hegemonic demands and decisions through autocratic means. Whenever it finds
that it cannot get its way under a “normal democratic rule”, such as it is ordained by the
world powers that be, in the neo-colonies of the third world, it resorts to draconian laws,
mutilation and destruction of state and government institutions and structures such as
dismissal of governments, dissolution of legislatures and subversion and manipulation of
political, electoral, administrative and judicial processes, civil and military dictatorships,
military actions etc.
As per the central government assurances in the fifties, mentioned above, that the
respective claims and interests of the provinces / units would not be allowed to be
adversely affected by the policies and positions adopted by Pakistan for external
consumption, during the international negotiations about the Indo-Pak water dispute, but
would be adjudicated by special commissions appointed for the purpose, one Committee
viz Akhtar Hussain Committee (in 1968) and three Commissions viz Fazal Akbar (in 1970),
Anwarul Haque (in 1981) and Haleem (in 1983) Commissions were appointed for the
purpose but Punjab authorities refused to budge an inch and continued to retain all the
huge illegal, immoral gains they had obtained through illegal and void abinitio decisions of
the central government including those under the cover of the undemocratic and repressive
One-unit and Martial law regimes.
In an attempt to close for all times, the door for any further proper and just
adjudication of all the injustices done to Sindh in the matter of its share of Pakistani waters,
during so many decades, they resorted to a very simple and crude new stratagem.
In 1991, a PPP feudal Quizling, Jam Sadique Ali, who was earlier involved in
political murder cases, was imposed as the Chief Minister of Sindh through a reign of
terror reminiscent of the terror resorted to for imposing One-unit in the fifties, and made to
sign a brief paper purporting to decide the over-a-century long Sindh-Punjab water dispute
which seven Indo-Pak Committees and Commissions with their voluminous deliberations,
lengthy reports and awards had failed to resolve. It was very simple. All the loot and
plunder from Sindh’s share of Indus System-water during the 1859- 1991 Sindh-Punjab
water dispute, were simply ignored. Seven more MAFs equal to about half the combined
capacity (14.6 MAF) of both Mangla (5.3 MAF) and Tarbela (9.3 MAF) were given to Punjab
over and above the 1945 allocations with nothing more for Sindh.

This was the much-heralded 1991 accord. After three years a forgery in the minutes
of a ministerial meeting reduced even that allocation of Sindh. This was the notorious 1994
ministerial meeting “accord”. To sum up: The present illegal and void abinitio position of
the apportionment of Pakistani waters of the Indus river system is built on the illegal,
foundations of the following illegal acts:
1. The decision of the central Government of Pakistan in, 1947 at the time of the
partition appointing a negotiating body solely comprising the officials of one only of the
several Pakistani riparian of the rivers of the Indus System viz the then West Punjab, for
settling the matter of the apportioning of the Indus River System waters between India and
Pakistan.
2. The 1948 illegal secret and yet to be officially disclosed, settlement Agreement
arrived at with the Indian side at Jullander by the authorities of that one of the Pakistan
riparian, behind the back of the others including the over-a-century long aggrieved riparian
Sindh.
3. The illegal, unilateral and exparte sale of the three common Pakistani rivers Ravi,
Bias and Sutlej to India and payment of signiorage money to it, to make the deal fool-proof
by West Punjab, behind the back of Sindh, apparently in pursuance of the Jullander secret
deal.
4. The undeclared boycott of the Arbitral Tribunal by both sides apparently in

pursuance of the Jullunder agreement, facilitating the stoppage of water by the Indian side
to the dependent Pakistani canals at the expiry of the interim period.
5. The matter being manipulated by both sides as per Jullander agreement and
artificially blown up as an International crisis.
6. The Constitutional Assembly was dissolved, East Pakistan was deprived of

representative government, provincial and autonomous, status of Sindh, N.W.F.P.,
Baluchistan and Bahawalpur was done away with and Martial Law was imposed thereby
creating for all practical purposes a state of total lawlessness, ultimately dominated by the
unholy alliance of foreign powers and the elites and authorities of the dominating province
and its nominee rulers for the time being, including military and civil strong men from
provinces/regions outside Punjab.
7. Indo negotiations for settling the artificially created dispute was illegally held
behind the back of the lower riparian No.3, Sindh and others.

8. Ayub Khan illegally and immorally created a planning body named IBAB, as the
virtual sole owner and distributor of all Pakistan waters of the Indus river system to the
exclusion of other co-riparian, co-sharers and co- including Sindh.
9. The illegal malafide and immoral plan of the IBAB was prepared and illegally and
immorally approved by Ayub Khan government whereby, by false and bogus figures the
loss of water suffered by West Punjab due to its own authorities illegal, unilateral and
conspiratorial sale of the three common Pakistani rivers to India was inflated and that by
Sindh was reduced, thus illegally and wrongfully allotting Punjab almost double the
quantum it deserved to be allotted and Sindh almost none.
10. Billions of dollars were obtained from India, World Bank and other western
countries on account of whole of Pakistan for the construction of works for the replacement
of the above mentioned self-created losses and further development of the whole of West
Pakistan but not a penny of it was spent on any other province/region of Pakistan except
Punjab and not a single work or project of any kind was constructed or commenced in any
province / region other than Punjab though every penny of the loan was to be paid by all
the provinces / regions of Pakistan including East Pakistan and not by Punjab alone.
11. That the Pakistan government by its letter mentioned above, expressly made a
decision to have a plan (and all that goes with such plans viz schemes, classifications,
systems, terminological and conceptual frame work etc) for external consumption, i.e. a
plan only to satisfy the foreign donors that their aid was well-justified and they were
granting/lending feasible projects for specified purposes, without binding any Pakistani
interested parties viz riparian. But when the above purpose was served and the required
money was assured and such agreements finalized, the Punjab authorities turned back and
insisted that the “plan” of IBAB was to be implemented as a legally binding document
arising from and intrinsic to the 1960 Indus Water Treaty entered into by the Punjab
authorities and the central government behind the backs of the smaller provinces I regions.
The Pakistan government authorities acted accordingly, thus defrauding the smaller
provinces including Sindh of great quantities of water of their share.
12. Sindh was all along told by the central authorities that Tarbella was being
constructed to make-up for its water losses due to the sale of three common rivers and for
development of lands of Sindh and that the provision in the so-called plan of IBAB that
Tarbela would also feed Trimu, Panjnad and Islam canals which were formerly supplied by
the illegally sold-out eastern rivers was merely a make-believe formality to satisfy the
requirements of the satisfaction of the donor countries, that each work constructed with
their money would satisfy specific basic needs of the recipient country.

13. The world Bank had determined after proper evaluation of the situation, that all
that was needed for the Punjab Canals including Trimu, Pat and Islam, affected by the
illegal and conspiratorial sale of three common Pakistani rivers by Punjab authorities,
besides the supply to them of the flow water of Chenab and Jehium, would be a portion of
the waters of the darn specifically built for the purpose viz Mangla on Jehlum with a
capacity of 5.3 MAF which incidentally fulfilled the requirements of expeditious and
economy demanded by the 1960 Treaty in as much as it was a 100 miles nearer to the
affected canals than, say, the proposed Tarbela dam and hence was liable to suffer a far less
quaritum of system losses than the other proposed darn viz the Tarbela which of course
was not in existence at the relevant time i.e. the time of the expiry of the period stipulated
in the Treaty for the completion of all works for providing replacement supplies to the
affected canals of Punjab.
14. Mangla dam was accordingly constructed quite some time before the expiry of
the period given in the 1960 Treaty for the expeditious and economical completion of all
works for providing replacement supplies including Mangla dam.
15. In fact even the other dam proposed by the World Bank viz Rohtas d was not
needed for the replacement supplies proper as it was specifically stated by the World Bank
that these two dams would provide 2 MAF for development viz for irrigating new lands in
the whole of Pakistan.
16. But under the pressure of Punjab authorities exerted on Ayub Khan and his
consequent threats to the World Bank at the very last moments of the last meeting that if a
bigger dam like Tarbela was not constructed with the aid of World Bank and others,
Pakistan would he compelled to resort to war with India so as to die fighting rather then
starving for lack of water, the World Bank, an institution known to be under the influence
of U.S.A and intrinsically connected with its global interests, in view of the close American-
Pakistan ties at the time felt obliged to agree.
17. That under the circumstances involving Tarhela on Indus by Punjab authorities
in replacement supplies for the eastern canals Trimmu, Panjnad and Islam on the pretext of
their self-invented zoning system, in any manner whatsoever was absolutely unjust,
improper and malafide. This high-handed act of virtual brigandage neither had then nor
has now, therefore, any legal sanctity or effect.
Inflating the figures of water availability in the Indus System has been the
traditional favorite pastime of the Engineers of the upper riparian of the Indus System.
They fix an imaginary figure of availability by playing statistical games and say “this much
will be taken by us. The rest will be for the rest of you, the other riparian.” Most of the time,

what remains for the rest, after they have taken their lion’s share, turns out to be merely a
fraction of what was very generously allotted to them.
This was done by IBAB and is being followed by WAPDA, a federal body in name
and an extension of the Punjab Irrigation Department in practice. On proper investigation
it would be found that the 1991 accord, the Kalabagh dam project and almost all projects of
the Wapda are based on this permanent, never decreasing miraculously high availability of
water in the Indus System, which some how vanishes, as soon as the Indus enters Sindh
and almost dries up ruining its agriculture. Today lower Sindh stands totally ruined by
continuous acute water-famine since many years.
General Mushraf’s military government does not feel obliged to respect the law of
the land regarding the respective rights of the riparian. All generals were and are, of
course, more wise, more power full and more patriotic than other mortals, by definition
and by virtue of their uniform. General Mushraf seems, however, bent upon proving that
he is wiser more powerful and more patriotic than his entire predecessor Generals. He is
constructing the Greater Thai Canal day and night for his generals and colonels. He also
wants to build the Kalabagh dam, and several other dams and canals to prove to the people
of Punjab that he can do for Punjab’s vested interests what Punjabi leaders like Nawaz
Sharif and other popular leaders like Bhutto and Benazir did not wish to do or could not
dare to do.
There are, of course, the little matters, of there being no spare water in the Indus
System for any darn building and canal constructing and there being a raging water-famine
in the province at the tail, the Sindh province. Then there are a few other slightly in-
convenient facts e.g. that there are people in the three smaller provinces in Pakistan who do
not see all those enormous quantities of water in the Indus System which General Mushraf
has been shown by the Wapda general-on- extension, General Zulfiqar, through the
statistical mirages specially created by WAPDA for the purpose. They are coming on the
streets to protest against what they regard as a planned genocide of crores of Pakistani
citizens.
Gengiz Khan of the Gobi desert did not like cities. He ordered the conquered cities
to be vacated, plowed and turned into grasslands for his horses and the citizens to be
beheaded and buried in graves dug by them.
Hitler did not much like Russia, the Russians and Russians society as it existed in
the forties of the last century.
So he ordered a few changes, to be made in the Russian socio economic and cultural
system, if and when they were conquered by the Germans in the Second World War. The

Russians were to have no colleges and universities, no industries and no cities. He ordered
the re-making of Russia once again into a primitive pastoral and agricultural society
producing and providing food and raw materials for Germany.
General Mushraf appears to want to change a few things about the geography and
economy of Pakistan. He wants a beautiful desert on the Seacoast, on the southern side of
Pakistan, in Sindh. In this Sindh desert, he wants the people to return to the idyllic pastoral
life of their distant fore fathers, rear cattle and other livestock and produce healthy milk,
butter and meat for cities. In the Thal desert, he wants to build a dream-land of an oasis for
the generals, who, he hopes will soon become billionaire land lords of the famous Prussian
Junker type, and will rule Pakistan for and ever and make it a World Power.
General Mushraf is, indeed, not an ordinary general. He is a General of

Commandos. And a Commando general is a Commando general and orders are orders. He
seems to believe that since he has announced his orders about building more dams and
canals, there is nothing for the people of Pakistan but to obey.
There is not to reason why,

There is but to do and die,
Into the valley of death;
Rode the six hundred.
(Alfred Lord Tennyson)
But the matter is not so simple. If wars are too serious matters to be left to the
discretion of Generals, fair and equitable distribution of national water among the
provinces being a thousand times more complicated and sensitive matter than any war,
even a war like Iraq war, cannot be settled by the orders of even a Commando general. For,
Iraq war’s destruction will remain for a decade or two. Man can some how survive for
some tune without peace but never without water. Judging by the past history, the locking
up of Indus at Kalabagh will turn Sindh into a desert and destroy the lives of crores of
people in Sindh and many more in NWFP. -Sindhis and Pashtoons will have no where to
go, except to fight for their existence. This is going to have consequences for the whole of
Pakistan which could go far beyond the longest possible rule of the present rulers and may
prove to be worse than those of the East Pakistan debacle. This cancer situation has to be
stopped from developing at all costs. Pakistan has already suffered enough from the
adventures of Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Ziaul Haques. It cannot afford any more
adventures.
Each and every sensible man and woman, throughout Pakistan must so all they can
to stop this.

The era of tyranny of rulers and forcibly imposed decisions has gone on for too long.
A new era of real democracy, genuine federalism, equality, fair play and consensus
building is long over-due.
The bulk of Sindh’s share of waters had already been illegally plundered, especially
after the establishment of Pakistan and long before the 1991 accord, as stated above.
Mangla dam, built at the expense of all Pakistanis, as the replacement dam for the
illegally sold rivers, has been totally misappropriated and transformed from a replacement
to a basically development dam for irrigating new lands of Punjab. Tarbela, the
development dam declared to be meant for “...development and feeding of Sindh canals”
has been forcibly captured by Punjab authorities who are using it as their exclusive
property. As the first charge upon it has been imposed the providing of replacement and
development supply of Punjab, no matter whether the minimum requirements of the Sindh
barrages are satisfied or not. This is internal colonial high handedness, exploitation and
terrorism in its most naked, blatant and cruel form.
Every further drop or cusec of water, that is being taken now or will be taken
hereafter, from the Indus System, for any canal or dam, will to that extent, reduce the flow
of Indus System Water towards the province at the tail viz Sindh and intensify its ruin and
desertification.
Justice demands that the above enormous injustices to Sindh from the first days of
the establishment of Pakistan be rectified before any further cynical loose talk about further
dams and canals. The alleged wrong doers in this respect include Prime Ministers,
Presidents, generals and field marshals and federal and provincial governments of the
country. The alleged wrong-doing involved in this matter, appears to attract both the
criminal and civil jurisdictions at the highest level. What appears to be needed for
satisfying the cardinal golden principle of administration of justice that justice should not
only be done but should also be seen to be done, is an impartial and powerful, international
judicial forum of the UN, OIC or SARC level, to decide both the above aspects of the
matter. Justice delayed is Justice denied.
***************************************************

Bibliography
(1) Choudhry, Muhammad Ali, ‘The Emergence of Pakistan, Research Society of

Pakistan, University of Punjab, Lahore, 1989.
(2) Hayat, Sirdar Shoukat, The Nation That lost its Soul, Jung Publisher, Lahore,
1995.
(3) Noon, Firoz Khan, ‘From Memory’, Printed in Pakistan, 1969.
(4) Ahmed, Mushtaq, ‘Government and Policies in Pakistan’, Royal Book

Company, Saddar Karachi, 1988.
(5) Zuberi, Musarrat Hussain, ‘Voyage Through History Hamdard Foundation

Press, Pakistan, 1987.
(6) Khurshid, K.H, ‘Memoirs of Jinnah’, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1990.
(7) Jalal, Ayesha, ‘The Sole Spokesman’, Sang-E-Meel Publication, Lahore, 1995.
(8) Wolpert, Stanley, ‘Jinnah of Pakistan’, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1988.
(9) Akhund, lqbal, ‘Memoirs of a Bystander’, Oxford University Press, Karachi,

1997.
(10) Collins. Larry and Lapierr, Dominique, ‘Mountbatten and Independent

India’, Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, Delhi, 1995.
(11) Bakhsh, Ilahi, ‘With the Quaid-i-Azam During his Last Days’, Quid 1-Azam
Academy, Karachi, 1978.
(12) Ahmed, Borhanuddin, ‘The Generals of Pakistan and Bangladesh’, Academic

Publishers, India, 1993.
(13) Kazi Abrar, ‘Kala Bagh Dam’, Creative Communications, Hyderabad, 1998.
(14) Khan, Jahandad, Ltd. Gen, ‘Pakistan-Leadership Challenges’, Oxford

University Press, Karachi, 1999.

(15) Yousif, Hamid, ‘Pakistan-A Study of Political Developments- 1947- 97’, Sang-
E-Mel Publications, Lahore, 1999.
(16) Mc Grath, Allen, ‘The Destruction of Pakistan’s Democracy’, Oxford

University Press, Karachi, 1996.
(17) Muhammad Munir. Chief Justice (Retd), ‘From Jinnah to Zia’, Vanguard
Books Ltd, Lahore, 1980.
(18) Khan, Roedad, ‘Pakistan a Dream Gone Sour’, Oxford University Press,
Karachi, 1998.
(19) Khan, Mohammad Ayub, ‘Friends not Masters’, Oxford University Press,
Karachi, 1967.
(20) Basit. A, ‘The Breaking of Pakistan’, Intikhab-e-Jadeed Press, Lahore,
(21) Gardezi, Hassan and Rashid, Jamil, ‘Pakistan the Unstable State’,
(22) Shaikh, A.W.F, Chief Engineer Irrigation, Presentation of Sindh Case before
the Indus Water Committee’, Karachi, 17th to 22nd May, 1971, Lahore, on
27th and 3 1st May to 1St June, 1971.
(23) Soomro, G.K, ‘Indus Water Allocation’, 1980.
(24) Indus Water Committee - The Punjab Brief, January, 1971.
(25) Monthly Law Journals, Published at 35-Nabha Road, Lahore:
(i) Supreme Court Monthly Review, 1994, P.2232, ibid, Lahore.

(ii) Pakistan Legal Decisions, 1990, Supreme Court of Pakistan, P.666, ibid,
Lahore.
(iii) Pakistan Legal Decisions, 1994, Lahore High Court, P.353, ibid, Lahore.
(iv) Pakistan Legal Decisions, 1995, Peshawar High Court, P.22, ibid.
Lahore.
(v) Supreme Court Monthly Review, 2000, P.1969, ibid. Lahore.
(vi) Pakistan Criminal Law Journal, 1969, P.1193, ibid, Lahore.
(vii) Pakistan Legal Decisions, 1967, Lahore High Court, P. 1190, ibid,
Lahore.
(viii) Pakistan Criminal Law Journal, 1992, P.242, ibid, Lahore.

(ix) Monthly Law Digest 2000, P.77, ibid, Lahore.
(x) Pakistan Legal Decisions, 1966, Supreme Court of Pakistan, P.664, ibid,
Lahore.
(xi) Pakistan Criminal Law Journal, 199 l P.113, ibid, Lahore.
(xii) Civil Law Cases, 1997, P.768, ibid Lahore.
(xiii) Civil Law Cases. 1997, P.1083, ibid, Lahore.
(xix) Qanune-Shahadat Prder. 1984, ibid, Lahore.
(26) (Article) Ali, Imran, The Punjab under Imperialism: 1885-1947 (review by
Karamatullah K. Ghori, Daily Dawn, November 2, 2003).

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SINDH-PUNJAB

By: RASUL BUX PALIJO

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 2

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 3

(RASUL RUX PALIJO)

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 4

RASUL BUX PALLJO

Thanks to the enormous development and more or less effective implementation of

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 5

The government of British India constituted in 1901, India Irrigation Commission

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 6

Commenting on the principle of “equitable apportionment” of the river waters, laid

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Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 9

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 10

To establish some sort of claim on Indus Waters Government of the undivided

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“(One of) the terms of reference of Anderson Committee (was)....“The possibility of

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Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 13

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I am to confirm that the tentative agreement reached by the engineer representatives

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 15

No life-processes can proceed in an absolute vacuum. Besides the Sindh-Punjab

For the preponderant majority of the Third World Countries, independence,

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 16

Consequently in the historic, founding document of Pakistan, the 1940 Lahore

As it happened, the elected Muslim representatives of India after their elections in

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To allay the well-founded grave apprehensions of the four provinces and

The Punjab authority’s non-challantly dismissed their historical U turn in a couple of

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Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 20

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 21

Like, the dew on the mountain,

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Choudhry Mohammad All observes in his above- mentioned book:

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 23

(Incidentally the existing situation in Sindh created by the artificial water-famine

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Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 26

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Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 28

7. In order to provide a fig-leaf cover for their conspiratorial, anti-Sindh, Anti

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Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 31

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5. Magnify the artificially created water-stoppage into a burning international dispute

8. Hiding behind administrative technicalities and in utter violation of the principles of

Sindh – Punjab Water Dispute – 1859- 200, Copyright © www.panhwar.com 33

Of course there is no eyewitness to testify and support the above charges.

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