Desperate Pakistan

Before the 9/11 incident occurred, if some one had written a fairy story about terrorists hijacking an aircraft and ramming it into a tall building in the USA, it would not have been bought. If the piece of fiction mentioned that a few lowly CIA agents filed a report about the impending disaster, but the report got filed to gather dust, no publisher would have touched it with a barge pole. Similarly, 26/11 was unthinkable before it occurred. However, in the late sixties, during the height of the cold war, a plausible story was put out which vied with the best sellers of that time. The story painted a scenario where the wheat crop in the former USSR was stricken by fungus. The satellite pictures of the USA was correctly analyzed by the experts in the USA, who predicted food shortages in the USSR, however the top brass of the USA brushed aside alarmist views about the possibility of the USSR resorting to preemptive strikes. The Russians got desperate and salivated at the idea of seizing the mountains of butter in Western Europe. The USSR hoped that the USA will not retaliate with a nuclear strike. According to the tale, when the USSR launched a conventional attack, the NATO was caught with its pants down.

Pakistan is facing a drought situation threatening the Rabi crop. Since last June, El-Nino conditions have reduced monsoon rainfall by 40 %. The Metrological drought is now being followed by Hydrological drought where river flow has reduced. The third and final stage of agricultural drought is now fast emerging.

Pakistan depends on hydel power for 30 % of its power generation, and this is down leading to power outages crippling industries. Pakistan is on an IMF administered drip. Spending on Defence in the war against the Al Queda and the Taliban in the NWFP and FATA is going through the roof. Internal security spending is scaling new heights because of terrorist attacks in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. Gas supplies from Balochistan is dwindling. Recession in the West and confidence in Pakistan on a downward spiral, Pakistan's textile exports are shrinking, which constitutes 60 % of its export earnings. There is no shortage of woes for Pakistan.

The last time Pakistan faced drought was in 2002. Since then the two reservoirs at Tarbela and Mangla have been receiving every year more than 300 million tons of silt. Delhi's annual water consumption is approximately 300 million tons. The silt deposition in the Tarbela reservoir has resulted in formation of a silt delta which is threatening to over whelm the off take pipes. To reduce the advancement of the silt delta, the dead level to which the reservoir is allowed to deplete to, was continually being raised since 1980. It has been raised by 19 feet since 1980. This results in water getting locked in every time dead level is raised. This year the dead level has been raised by an unprecedented 11 feet. This means that compared to 2002, there is very little water left for a rainy day.

Every year the politicians of Sindh have been crying over Punjab usurping Sindh's share of the Indus waters. This time when the situation will get desperate, the upper riparian province is bound to cheat. Sindh will shrivel leading to riots in Karachi and the major port getting closed. The Pakistan army's economic base, the Fauji Foundation, will get hit.

How will the future unfold? With the army stretched in the NWFP and FATA, a preemptive strike against India will invite certain death. A hole in the dams across the rivers in the Punjab of India will be a boon for Pakistan. A 26/11 style of storming the dams is a possibility. With foggy conditions to mask their move, the terrorists could swarm in on gliders or micro-lights. Hijacking a plane and flying it into the dams could be tried. Alternatively, micro-lights packed with explosives could take off from Pakistan to do a kamikaze on dams in India.

An Urdu translation, Tarbela ko Urao, Pakistan ko Jhukao, of the author's novel, Tarbela Damned--Pakistan Tamed, is available in Pakistan.