Rivers run through it

As the breadbaskets of India and Pakistan dry up, the blows they trade over Kashmir will have more to do with water than land
The Himalayan state of Kashmir is the divided heart of the subcontinent, with ventricles beating in both India and Pakistan. Both sides feel incomplete without the other. Cut in the aftermath of partition, Kashmir continues to bleed, though more slowly than when war between India and Pakistan appeared close. Those dark times may soon return, according to a study by the Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight Group entitled The Final Settlement.

This time, whether Kashmir, as a Muslim-majority state, rightfully belongs to the Islamic republic of Pakistan or validates the secularism of India is not the reason to return to battle. Instead, the study concludes that north-western India and the neighbouring Pakistani region, the breadbaskets of both countries, are drying out - unless the two nations act soon, they will trade blows over water, not land.

The six rivers of the Indus water basin flow through Kashmir's mountains and valleys from Tibet and water the plains below. In 1960, the World Bank brokered a deal where India would get the three eastern rivers, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, while Pakistan was awarded the three western flows of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.

Skirmishes over water are becoming a regular feature in both areas. In India, two lower riparian states, Punjab and Haryana, with nearly 20m acres of cultivable land, face a crunch over water in the next five to 10 years. Indian Punjab last year uni laterally annulled all water treaties with neighbouring states and has refused to build key canals to share resources. The scene is set for ever-bigger punch-ups.

In Pakistan, the situation is worse. The flow of river water is dropping precipitately, at nearly 7% a year. The country's vast irrigation network is silting up and agricultural output will reach a crisis by 2010, the report says, with two key commodities - food grain and cotton - badly hit. This is bad news for a country where empty hands can be easily filled with guns, and hearts won over by the message of jihad.

Like its Indian counterpart, Pakistani Punjab swallows much of the water that tumbles from Kashmir. Its smaller but industrially vibrant southern neighbour Sindh regularly complains that its share of water is being diverted upstream to feed large farms owned by influential Pakistani Punjabi families. Tensions between provinces threaten national cohesion.

Building dams and reservoirs in Kashmir could help irrigate Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan. The trouble is that the territory required for such construction lies in Indian Kashmir.

Both countries have reached the same conclusion: that the meandering route of the Chenab river on the Indian side of Kashmir is becoming a determining factor in any settlement. Although most of the river lies in Pakistan, its headwaters lie in India's portion of Kashmir.

All Pakistan's parries and thrusts since 1999 involve, explicitly or implicitly, a new settlement of the Kashmiri issue by carving up the state again - but placing the rushing torrents of upstream Chenab under Pakistani control. India is unlikely to agree to a fresh partition of the state. It, too, has designs on the Chenab. New Delhi has identified nine sites on the river for hydroelectric projects. Earlier this year, India's proposal to build the 450MW Baglihar dam on the Chenab so incensed Pakistan that it broke off negotiations and took the dispute to the World Bank.

The Indus water treaty, which looked forward to the two sides coming together, is proving an obstacle to warmer relations and has angered the Kashmiri population. First, it says water cannot be tied to resolution of the Kashmiri issue. Second, the treaty awarded the rivers to India and Pakistan, with India's Jammu and Kashmir the biggest loser.

The result is that in Indian Kashmir, only 40% of the cultivatable land can be irrigated and just 10% of the hydroelectric potential harnessed. Put out of bounds is the ability to store, divert and regulate water - a pressing concern in a state overflowing with river resources.

For peace, both sides need to accept that water must never become a weapon of war. Yet New Delhi contemplated turning off the taps after it blamed Pakistani militants for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

A looming water war was foreseen by a "bright and ambitious" Pakistani brigadier on a year-long course in 1990 at London's Royal College of Defence Studies. In his paper, the officer said that the distribution of Indus rivers contained the "germs of a future conflict". After a decade and a military coup, that soldier became the leader of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf.

The water bomb needs to be defused. No nation should deprive another of a shared resource which, thanks to geographic design, collects in a basin within its borders. The Final Settlement calls for a cross-border body that will oversee the Indus water basin and treat water as a commodity to be shared equitably.

Could such trust be built up between bickering rivals? The answer may lie with another resource: gas. India and Pakistan are edging closer to agreeing a deal where hydrocarbons would be transported from Iran via Pakistan to India. New Delhi would pay Islamabad transit fees and Pakistan would guarantee India's energy security.

From pipe dream to pipeline is years away, but it signals that both sides are prepared to escape from the prison of the past. Whether they continue to do so will determine whether a nuclear war will be fought over water.

· Randeep Ramesh is the Guardian's south Asia correspondent