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Muhammad Fahad Azam
UČO: 555895
Course:
Anthropocene: Violence in Places, Worlds and Earth
Final Paper Title:
Water Conflicts in the Anthropocene: The India-Pakistan Water Dispute
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Table of Contents
Abstract...................................................................................................................3
Introduction.............................................................................................................3
The Geography of Water Conflict and Indus Water Treaty............................................4
Modalities of Amanda Kearney’s Place-Related violence ...........................................4
(STS), Colonial Infrastructure and Epistemic Violence .................................................. 5
Epistemological Alternatives and Indigenous Ontologies ...........................................6
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................7
References ..............................................................................................................8
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Abstract
In the domain of Anthropocene, the water conflict is not only linked with geopolitical
tensions, butitis closelyassociatedwith environmentaland technologicalaspects intrigued
with the colonial legacies. This precise academic paper will shortly explore the IndiaPakistan
water dispute through the relevant frameworks of Science and Technology (STS)
and Amanada Kearney’s theorization of place related violence that include ecological decay,
physical destruction and delignification. By encompassing the principles of ecological
anthropology, indigenous epistemologies and STS, the analysis will try to ascertain how the
geographical flow of the Indus River system exacerbates and reflects the ontological
disruptions, inter-state tensions and colonial infrastructure legacies. The study also
highlights the social, cultural and epistemic preconditions of water-based violence and
considers kincentric worldviews and re-centering of dwelling as alternate epistemic
approaches to sustainability and peace, foregrounding the decolonial environmental
futures.
Introduction
Water is classified as a symbol of life and purity and unfortunately, in the political reality of
the Anthropocene, it has become a site of contestation and violence. Undoubtedly the
Anthropocene has exposed the increasing fragility of transboundary ecosystems,
particularly rivers as they have become strong sites of conflict, dispute, control and
cooperation as well. Elsewhere in South Asia, it is not more evident than India-Pakistan
waterconflict that continue todispute the fates andflow ofIndus River Basinthat was signed
in 1960, known as the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) that allocated and divided the water usage
between the two states increasing political tensions, climate change and developmental
water storage ambitions have made this treaty an overlying transboundary water conflict.
(ALAM, 2002). In recent years the changing geological environmental patterns, manipulation
of water flows by dams building, hydropower projects and diversions have escalated geopolitical
tensions, suspicions and inflamed nationalist rhetoric. The paper incorporates and
applies Amanda's Kearney work on place-related violence that shows how artificial control
over water not only creates and contributes to Ecological and physical violence but also
epistemic violence that includes indigenous water ontologies and relations. It also includes
the insights of Science and Technology (STS) which interrogates the co-production of
knowledge and power that offers critical tools for evaluating and understanding the layered
violence. (Kearney, 2018).
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The Geography of Water Conflict and Indus Water Treaty
The Indus water basin is regarded as one of the biggest in the world that stretches over 3,180
kilometers that support the livelihoods ofover 300 million people. The Indus watertreatywas
contracted in 1960 between Pakistan and India by World Bank that divides the Indus Basin’s
waters between India and Pakistan and allocated three western rivers (Jhelum, Chenab and
Indus) to Pakistan and three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) to India and permitted both
countries do not use rivalry side waters for hydropower or agriculture. (Shaukat Ali, 2015)
Irrespective of being regarded as a rare success in international water diplomacy, the Indus
Water Treaty (IWT) is under pressure due to factors like climate change, disruption in water
flows, nationalist politics and Infrastructure developments like hydropower plants on rivalry
side rivers. The hydropower projects and construction of dams like Baglihar dam and
Kishanganga dams by India have sparked tensions between India and Pakistan as it violates
the treaty provisions by India being an upper riparian country and it becomes even more
problematic during the times of droughts and floods that affect and becomes a proxy tool
for control, sovereignty and survival in both regions. (Newton, 2007)
In terms of Science and Technology (STS) the sharing of Indus River Basin between Pakistan
and India is a socio-technical conglomeration and dynamic field point where scientific,
technological and political discourses shape the physical material realities. The hydropolitics
of the Indus Water Basin is a classic example of pertinent “hydro-social” relations,
where water is contested and governed through natural and social intertwined processes.
(Sultana, 2013)
Modalities of Amanda Kearney’s Place-Related violence
There are three interrelated forms of place-related violence that are introduced by Amanda
Kearney, termed as: ecological decay, physical destruction and delignification. These
following concepts are vital to understand and analyze how large-scale water control in the
Indus Basin by India and Pakistan enact overall violence. (Kearney, Cultural Wounding,
Healing, and Emerging Ethnicities, 2014)
A. Ecological Decay
The term ecological decay is termed as degradation of riverine ecosystems. It is the
depletion in downstream flows that has affected the Indus delta’s biodiversity which are
particularly called as fish stocks and mangroves that undermine both food security and
ecological integrity in southern Pakistan. (Amjad, 2007)
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B. Physical Destruction
It revolves around the mass-displacement of communities due to dam construction such as
Kishanganga and Baglihar dams in India. The loss of agrarian land, submergence of villages
and militarization of infrastructure directly destroys the traditional relationship to place.
(Newton, 2007)
C. Delignification
Delignification is the stripping of cultural meaning from water and land as it usually occurs
when the rivers are limited to hydrological or legal entities that devoid identity, ritual and
memory. The on-ground implementation of the Indus Water Treaty disregarded the
metaphysical and historical significance of rivers to communities such as Kashmiris and
Sindhis.
The Amanda’s Kearney lens of place-related violence exemplifies how the pre-dominant
violence in the Pakistan-India water dispute is not only creating scarcity of water for regional
communities by artificially controlling the water but also spreading ruptures in ecological
and social relationships. The paradigm of colonial and post-colonial water management
treats rivers as hydraulic machines as it underpins the mega infrastructure projects which
are aimed to control the predictability of water by replacing the indigenous knowledge
system with technocratic rationality. Moreover, according to Amanda Kearney, epistemic
violence is the core foundation to place-related erasure and trauma. (Kearney, Cultural
Wounding, Healing, and Emerging Ethnicities, 2014)
Science and Technology (STS), Colonial Infrastructure and Epistemic Violence
The colonial cartography and Infrastructure rationality is an undeniable legacy of the Indus
River Basin. The British engineers beginning in the 19th Century introduced irrigation
systems and canal colonies to transform Punjab into the“breadbasket”of the British empire
in the subcontinent. The systematic interventions redesigned water relations and aided
fundamental hydrological knowledge into colonial goals. (Gilmartin, 1994). STS scholars
frame these remodeling as epistemic shifts in which hydrological knowledge, scientific
expertise and infrastructure coalesce into authoritative regimes of control and knowledge.
The India-Pakistan water dispute resonates with settler-colonial epistemologies,
particularly in which the natural resource of water is decontextualized from its cultural
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ecologies, and it converted into an object of geopolitical calculation. The Science and
Technology (STS) theories that are particularly those involving co-production help
materialize how hydrological knowledge and political order are both reinforcing. The Indus
Water Treaty (IWT) symbolizes this by co-producing a hydraulic boundary and geo-political
order between Pakistan and India. This profound abstraction of water intro treaties and
models directly eliminates from the current lived experiences of those communities that are
heavily affected. (Jasanoff, 2004)
This epistemic violence is profound in India and Pakistan’s rural communities in which those
who are exclusively tied to the rivers are excluded from the river shift or water remodeling
and treaty negotiations including technical knowledge of water flow rates and experiential
knowledge of rivers as it identified by STS scholars as socio-technical imaginaries, in which
the progress that is encoded in scientific technologies and institutions only prioritize the
state interest over local realities. (Jasanoff, 2004)
Epistemological Alternatives and Indigenous Ontologies
The kincentric and indigenous ontologies conceive water as a relative and not just a
resource. Kinetic ecology recognizes water bodies as sentient and interconnected beings of
reciprocity and protection. In indigenous South Asian traditions, the rivers are pronounced
as Sindhu Mata (Mother Indus) and deeply embedded in cosmologies, community ethics
and everyday rituals. (Salmon, 2000).
The philosophy of Amanda Kearney nudges a return to emplacement and dwelling that
refers to ways of prioritizing lived, embodied and emotional engagement with place. In case
of Water Conflicts, it refers to resisting the abstraction of rivers into lines on a map or cubic
meters in a reservoir. It further proceeds to alternate governance models that may prioritize
the needs of riverine communities and honor indigenous knowledge systems and
materialize the non-western ontologies of flow, balance and care. (Kearney, Violence in
Place, Cultural and Environmental Wounding, 2016). In contrast, the Indus Water Treaty
(IWT) focuses on distributive justice which refers to (who gets how much water) while the
kincentric framework interrogate the elation justice, that how regional communities in
Pakistan and India relate to water, to what extent rivers are cared for, and how water
sustainability is considered.
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Conclusion: Promoting Decolonial Water Governance for Sustainable Future
The India-Pakistan water dispute illustrates deeper layered violence of the Anthropocene as
it a unique combination conflict of epistemic, ecological, colonial and political dimensions
and place-based destruction. To frame this conflict, the modalities of violence by Amand
Kearney and STS approach provides us with a strong foundation to configure beyond statecentric
narratives by examining the limitations of colonial infrastructure, ontological
dislocation and technoscientific dominance and it provides us the required tools to
interrogate the relevant knowledge systems and therefore sustain this violence.
Undoubtedly the indigenous ontologies and kincentric frameworks offers suitable pathways
for improved water governance for future generations not by treaties alone but through
cultural restoration, reciprocity and kinship and sustainability and it synthesize further
possibility of reimagining the Indus River as a shared lifeworld not as a contested border. The
conflicting relations can be cured by replacing domination with dwelling and control with
care on both sides, that can be a breakthrough both for India and Pakistan towards healing
both rivers and relations.
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References
ALAM, U. Z. (2002). Questioning the water wars rationale:a case study of the Indus Waters
Treaty. The Geographical Journal,, 341–353.
Amjad, A. S. (2007). Degradation of Indus Delta Mangroves in Pakistan. INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY, Issue 3, Vol.
Gilmartin, D. (1994). Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation
Technology in the Indus Basin. The Journal of Asian Studies, 1127-1149.
Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and the Social
Order. Routledge.
Kearney, A. (2014). Cultural Wounding, Healing, and Emerging Ethnicities. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Kearney, A. (2016). Violence in Place, Cultural and Environmental Wounding. Routledge.
Kearney, A. (2018). Violence in Place: Reading Violence through Kincentric Ecology .
International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 1-5.
Newton, A. T. (2007). Case Study of Transboundary Dispute Resolution: the Indus Water
Treaty. Oregon State University Program in Water Conflict Management.
Salmon, E. (2000). Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous Perceptions of the HumanNature
Relationship. Ecological Applications, 1327-1332.
Shaukat Ali, D. L. (2015). Twenty first century climatic and hydrological changes over Upper
Indus Basin of Himalayan region of Pakistan. Enviromental Research Letters.
Sultana, J. B. (2013). Exploring Political Ecologies of Water and Development. Environment
and Planning D Society and Space, 275-279.