Water Security In South Asia

                   Water, studied by hydrologists came out of the domain of natural sciences & became a source of enquiry by the social scientists. The non-renewable resources such as coal, oil and gas were studied within the realm of demand and supply, distribution pattern, availability & so on, whereas the renewable resources such as water, wind, solar were not critical of depletion. The search for new resources of energy brought in attention towards non-renewable. Also the essentiality of water for life could not be negated. If oil gets depleted some other source of fuel would be looked at but without water life would be depleted. Scholarly attention on this resource needed not just conceptual brain game but sympathetic enquiry towards needs of the people from political, cultural, religious and scientific approach. Water as a resource got attention of the conflict studies as it was shared between people, within a state and between states. The impact of water scarcity, conflict or depletion brought tensions at times leading to conflicts. Water entered the domain of security studies when it reached a threshold that was seen as impact on the lives of the people, political security of the country or beckoning conflicts between the countries at the altar of peace and stability, thereby affecting social, economic, political & environmental security of a country. Most of the studies on water were empirical using case study approach to prove the potency of water in creating conflict. Literature on Israel-Palestine conflict has been viewed by water analysts as a resultant of water conflict. Israel got the control of water resources after occupying West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights in 1967 & the southern Lebanon in 1982. Ralph H.Salmi (1997) brings in co-relations between the political and water crises and proposes that unless the political conflict is resolved water crises would continue to exist.

                     Scholars from South Asia mostly viewed water either bilaterally between India and its neighbours or as basin development approach. Mahendra P. Lama (1997) argues that problems related to water resource management arises not only from unequal distribution but also by the politics of the region which is often influenced by nationalistic tendencies. Size of the population, economic development, accessibility of sufficient domestic water and involvement of social organizations often influence the politics on water disputes. Sandeep Wasleker (2005) in his book on The Final Settlement: Restructuring India-Pakistan Relations predicted that the next War would be on water. Since water heads of the rivers flowing to Pakistan are in India, the logical interest in claiming territory is to control the river head waters. Water has entered the foreign policy domain of countries. Water security has entered in the government’s policy of India as well. During the independence speech Prime Minister Manmohan Singh listed water as one of the seven pillars for development. He described it as a national resource that was scarce and needed to be distributed equally.