Pakistan is debating a new constitutional order as if water will adjust afterwards. It will not. In 1947, the Radcliffe Line was drawn across Punjab with little consideration for the region’s interconnected water system. Within months, supplies to canals flowing into Pakistan from headworks that now lay on the Indian side were interrupted. The lesson was clear: a political boundary could turn hydraulic dependence into strategic leverage.

It took a decade of negotiation, World Bank mediation and financing to turn that emergency into the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. The treaty assigned the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej to India, and the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan. But the settlement did not leave Pakistan’s canal economy as it was. Bahawalpur’s Sutlej Valley works had depended on the Sulemanki, Islam and Panjnad headworks, while the Ravi irrigated a vast stretch of central Punjab down to Khanewal. With the eastern rivers no longer available as before, Pakistan had to sustain these historically developed commands through a planned system of replacement storage, link canals and remodelled works.

That history should make us humble. The last time a political boundary was drawn across this basin before its water arrangements were settled, Pakistan needed mediation, replacement storage and a generation of works. Today we are debating more units, federal territories and a stronger centre, as if the river will adapt.

I declare an interest. I have served three terms in the Punjab Assembly representing a South Punjab constituency, including one term as Punjab’s irrigation minister, and I want South Punjab to have its own province. But I also know the cost of drawing the map first and discussing water later. No final draft has settled the question, which is why the water question must be asked now.

Article 239 is often quoted as a barrier. It is better understood as leverage. A constitutional amendment needs two-thirds of the total membership of each House. A bill altering provincial limits also requires the affected assembly to approve it by two-thirds of its total membership. Article 239 can determine the constitutional procedure for changing a boundary; it does not, by itself, settle the hydraulic consequences of that boundary. Consent given before entitlement, rotation, telemetry, Kotri and shared headworks are settled is consent given blindly.

Telemetry must define the point of measurement, the audit trail and the public data standard before new boundaries multiply the points of suspicion.

Telemetry must define the point of measurement, the audit trail and the public data standard before new boundaries multiply the points of suspicion.

The divisional template is tempting because the districts and offices already exist. But administrative geography and hydraulic geography are........

© The Friday Times