Backlash on Kalabagh Dam

Kalabagh Dam (KBD) cannot be built on the order of a court. The decision to build this controversial yet important dam can only be made through consensus and on a political platform, said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in an interview to a local television channel. Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Kaira has pointed out that the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and not the court is the right forum to decide on a political issue such as KBD. The backlash against the Lahore High Court’s (LHC’s) verdict in favor of building KBD has unsurprisingly provoked a storm. Now the question is whether the LHC had the mandate to give any judgment on an issue like KBD. The Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA) has passed a resolution against this very notion and has sought an answer on this from the lawyers’ fraternity. Even the Supreme Court is invoked by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government to take suo motu notice of the judgment of the LHC so that the matter of KBD does not further become a cause of friction and is finally buried then and there. And if for any reason there is room for legal contention then no other forum other than the SC could give any ruling on it. The uproar following the decision of the LHC in asking the federal government to comply with the CCI’s 1991 and 1998 decisions to build the KBD, has once again proved the complexities of the issue, lying not so much in resolving the energy crisis but resolving the conflicting ethnic and provincial concerns of the disagreeing forces. Another equally disturbing question is why would the LHC pass a judgment on such a sensitive issue on the eve of the general elections, when the political atmosphere is heated with issues of alliances and allegiances among the political parties for a future political setup. In this precarious time, especially when in Pakistan for the first time in its history we would see the completion by an elected government of its tenure, any division between the federating units on provincial lines could be detrimental to the success of democracy. The resolution of the PHCBA has already marked the LHC’s verdict as tilted heavily toward Punjab. It has even raised the issue of alienating other provinces by not seeking their point of view before passing the judgment. Such observations would only reopen old wounds that had not been healed but ignored in the spirit to move ahead for the sake of democracy. Even if the dam is renamed as suggested by the LHC, which reinforces the court’s tunnel vision vis-à-vis KBD, the simmering debate of one province taking the lead over the others and the fight of my water versus yours would not go away. It is the mindset, and not the dam per say, that has been further darkened owing to the literal desertification of Sindh in the last twenty or so years since the CCI has last given its decision over the development of KBD. Things have changed; a lot of water has flowed down the rivers since 1998. Let this change be reflected in our deliberations. The courts are best advised to leave the arena of political wisdom for the political parties to contest.