The hydropolitical Cold War: The Indus Waters Treaty and state formation in Pakistan

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.12.002

Political Geography

Volume 46, May 2015, Pages 65-75

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.12.002 Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper develops the framework of the “developmentalist passive revolution” to analyze the politics of water development during the Cold War. This framework is developed by drawing on Marxist geopolitics and critical water geography, and is offered as a way to facilitate comparative analysis of engineering and nationalism in the context of Cold War hydropolitics. The concrete historical engagements of the paper relate to the signing of The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 between Pakistan and India and the associated Indus Basin Plan to transform the Pakistani waterscape. What historical and geopolitical-economic conditions enabled the signing of the IWT? What legacies did the IWT have for state formation in Pakistan? Drawing on the negotiation records of the IWT, archival materials relating to Pakistani river development during the 1960s, and fieldwork conducted in Pakistan in 2012, this paper argues that Cold War hydropolitics are best analyzed through the cultural and economic interactions of asymmetrically empowered developmentalist state elites at multiple scales.

Section snippets

Developmentalist passive revolutions

Elites from decolonizing states engaged with development models, ideologies, and capital from industrialized capitalist states during the hydropolitical Cold War. Approaching the complexity of this situation requires an analytic framework that integrates the geopolitical analysis of global capitalism with the politics of river development. This section develops such a framework, the developmentalist passive revolution, by drawing on critical water geography and Marxist geopolitics. The

The Cold War context of the IWT negotiations

We don't want the damned job of running the world, or any part of it. This leadership is being thrust upon us, by reason of our great ability to produce (i.e., our wealth of food, fiber, machinery, and munitions) … We in America have proved that we can do things no one in Asia can do – we can produce.
Lilienthal, 1966, p. 79, 88

The early Cold War (c. 1950–1975) was characterized by relatively stable patterns of geopolitical, geo-economic, and ideological dominance and subordination. These

The Indus Basin Plan and the developmentalist passive revolution

The story of the Indus Project is, truly, the story of a young nation's struggle to survive and of the determination of its people to succeed under the most trying circumstances.
Kirmani, 1968

Dynamic core regions of the capitalist world economy, like the U.S. was for much of the 20th century, can heavily impact the economy of peripheral regions and the formation of peripheral state elites. While geopolitical and geoeconomic structures shaped the terrain on which the hydropolitical Cold War

Engineers and passive revolution

The hydropolitical Cold War articulated with the developmentalist passive revolution in Pakistan to produce complex cultural, political, and economic effects on state formation. Despite rapid economic growth in the 1960s, Ayub's military regime ultimately could not cultivate a legitimate image as the agent of Pakistani developmental nationalism. The bulk of the lucrative IBP contracts went to firms in the U.S. and Europe. The lost opportunity to foster an indigenous construction and engineering

Conclusion

Instead of asking if or why the IWT is a “success”, my analysis focused on the historical-geopolitical conditions and effects of the IWT and its associated constructed program. Whereas the early internationalization of the Pakistani state via the mechanisms of Cold War military and foreign aid has been well studied (Jalal, 1990, McMahon, 1994, Toor, 2011), this paper has focused on the internationalization of the Pakistani state through the IWT and the IBDF. Although this is a major part of

Conflict of interest

I am not aware of any conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to friends and colleagues at the University of Arizona and Indiana University for helping me shape and refine the arguments of this paper over the past several years. Thanks also to three anonymous reviewers who provided excellent critiques of earlier drafts. This research would not have been possible without the cooperation of the staff of the World Bank Archives and the central WAPDA library, as well as the dozens of engineers and experts whom I interviewed in Lahore. Portions of this

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The hydropolitical Cold War: The Indus Waters Treaty and state formation in Pakistan

Abstract

Section snippets

Developmentalist passive revolutions

The Cold War context of the IWT negotiations

The Indus Basin Plan and the developmentalist passive revolution

Engineers and passive revolution

Conclusion

Conflict of interest

Acknowledgments

Political Geography

Endeavour

Political Geography

Geoforum

Political Geography

Wapda's role in war and peace

Dominance by design: Technological imperatives and America's civilizing mission

Fascism and national culture: reading Gramsci in the days of Hindutva

Social Scientist

Questioning the water wars rationale: a case study of the Indus Water Treaty

The Geographical Journal

Hydro-imaginaries and the construction of the political geography of the Jordan River: The Johnston Mission, 1953–1956

Class and state

A programme for Pakistan

The uneven and combined development of the Meiji Restoration: a passive revolutionary road to capitalist modernity

Capital & Class

Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the twenty-first century

Large-scale spending by Wapda – Some economic aspects

Geopolitics and the Cold War developmental state in Asia: from the culture of national development to the development of national culture in independent India

Geopolitics

Letter to prime ministers of India and Pakistan

Letter to William Iliff

Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru and Ayub Khan

Nationalist thought and the colonial world: A derivative discourse

The eco-scalar fix: rescaling environmental governance and the politics of ecological boundaries in Alberta, Canada

Environment and Planning D

Governing water: Contentious transnational politics and global institution building

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Introduction: nationalisms and their understandings in historical perspective

Third World Quarterly

Geopolitical economy: After US hegemony, globalization and empire

An American woman in Pakistan: Memories of Mangla Dam

Water in British India: the making of a ‘colonial hydrology’

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The power of water: developing dialogues between Foucault and Gramsci

Environment and Planning D

The social and geopolitical origins of state transformation: the case of South Korea

New Political Economy

(Inter)Nationalist rivers?: Cooperative development in David Lilienthal's plan for the Indus Basin, 1951

Water History

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Decade of water and power development

Secret telegram to Finance Minister Shoaib

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Review of International Studies

From Kaghan to Karachi

Rupees and results