Newspapers are full of letters, columns, articles and editorials on the water war that India is waging on Pakistan. Some are even prepared to go to war on the basis of half baked information. Today’s Nation carries a half page article by Engr Suleiman Najib Khan, ‘India water aggression or genocidal war’, and also Nation editorial, ‘India's water terrorism’. No facts or figures are being made available to the public. Instead of a knowledge-based approach, an ignorance-based approach is being adopted. Merely saying that India has built so many dams on our rivers or is trying to change the course of our rivers is neither here nor there. We have a full fledged Indus Water Commissioner. Has any columnist or editor bothered to ask him whether he has taken up these issues with his Indian counterpart, and what, if anything, he has been told?
Is it the international conspiracies which have turned the whole of Sindh and half of Punjab against Kalabagh dam. Have the assembly members been bribed into passing resolutions against the dam. Or is it the politicisation of the issue which is the root cause of our water problem. Talking only of international conspiracies will let off the hook the political leaders, past and present, who are the real architects of our misery.
Let competent authority handle external matters, certainly keep baying at them, but our job is to put our own house in order. A faulty diagnosis will not cure, it will only visit hunger and poverty on 18 crore people.
ENGR KHURSHID ANWER,
Lahore, March 10.