DeansMusings

  Water Wars II: India finally acts In my earlier blogpost on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), written in 2023, referencing my paper on Pakistan of 2016, I argued that India did not need to abrogate the treaty to put pressure on Pakistan. It first needed to fully utilise the rights that the treaty already gave it. The points made were: 2023 Blogpost on the IWT -India is not utilizing even its (20%) share of river water. -India is not utilizing the power and irrigation capacity on the Western (Pakistan’s) rivers  that is entitled to. Consequently J&K, where the rivers flow through, has a power and w ater shortage. - India has taken no steps to divert any water from Pakistan’s rivers – in fact, we should have  actively helped Afghanistan negotiate an equitable water sharing treaty for rivers rising in Afghanistan and flowing into Pak.  The reality since 2025. We cannot simply `turn off' water to Pak. If all the current and planned projects  are completed on sc...

The movie `Border' brought the 1971 India-Pakistan war – more specifically the Battle of Longewala, into popular imagination. While movies, particularly those by Bollywood which have traditionally taken liberties with historical accuracy, are allowed some license in portraying events, I think the reality of the Battle of Longewala brings out more of the ethos of the Indian army than the movie shows.  Nor is the revisionist claim that there was no real ground battle and the IAF did everything, correct.  There is also a larger strategic picture that is missed when talking of the heroic stand of 120 men at Longewala. What the battle achieved strategically has been little understood. Information on the battle, of the kind that will interest a serious student of military history is scarce. After trawling through them, this piece attempts to show what really happened, why the reality was more impressive than the movie and how it affected the larger picture.     What...