Water politics

Caste and religious politics have become threadbare and thus are likely to become Impotent rallying point for political parties. Water as a scarce natural resources has the potential to setoff all the inadequacies that the caste and religion paradigm have incurred in these recent years. Water as a basic necessity is the prime compound needed for survival of not only living beings but also primary and secondary industrial sectors of the country. It is the fundamental right of a person to get potable and uninterrupted water supply under article 21, and any deprival of that inalienable and inviolable right tantamounts to human rights violation.
The revamp of our water utilities under the auspices/aegis of international agencies like world bank and others have engendered a political qualm of whether to go for privatization or not. Private efficiency or Govt. beauracracy in the water utility is the choice of the day. Drought in the countryside has virtually become a blessing in disguise for the political parties. The more the distress and adversity ,the more the opportunity for political parties to declare populist sops and criticize each other. Displacement and rehabilitation of marginalized section settled near rivers has been a subject of political interest, due to which the flagship programme of interlinking of rivers nation wide could not take off. MNCs using ground water and other polluting industries often have to take the patronages of major political parties to setup their plants without any hiccups. Sardar sarovar project on Narmada has also been a festering sore which has long been pending untreated. Inter-state water dispute settlement mechanism as envisioned under article 262 are not being able to work properly because of political chauvinism , regionalism and linguistic brinkmanship. Often the verdicts of the river authority are flouted or challenged in the appellate court by the losing party.
Going to international dimension , India has serious difference with Pakistan on the implementation of the Indus water treaty of 1960 .Though the Raymond laffite committee gave a clean cheat to India on baghliar hydro project , pakistan has again challenged it before world bank. India’s preoccupation with Bangladesh on east flowing rivers is also a case in point. “THE next world war will be over water," remarked the former Vice-President of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin, some years ago.

Reincarnation of cold war

The collapse of berlin wall in1990 came as a relieve to non aligned countries who were on the cross road and maintained a neutral relations with both the U.S and U.S.S.R. Mikhai Gorbachev put in his paper following the psychological and diplomatic subjugation from the U.S. The American hegemony intensified without facing any counter-force . The U.S predominance was witnessed by our unipollar world for a period of a decade. Russia and it’s erstwhile states after a 6 year span of animosity, came together to ameliorate their intra-regional military conflicts and thus founded the Shanghai Five in 1996 . After the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members of the shanghai five renamed the organization as Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) envisioned as an international security organization founded by the leaders of China ,Russia ,Kazaksthan ,Kyrgystan , tazakistan and Uzbekistan .
The sacrosanct American imperialism at its heyday inflicted its pre-emptive foreign policy on Iraq, Afghanistan, lebanon, middle east, south america, etc. On the other hand buoyed by the common sentiments of the members of SCO ,Russia started the CSTO (COLLETIVE SECURITY TREATY ORGANISATION) as a military wing of the SCO ,which is touted as the warsaw (2) of the post-cold war era, to counter the NATO fiestily. Apart from showing military teeth to each other ,both sides have also involved themselves in diplomatic, oil, and gas war. The attempt of Russia to hold Europe on ransom by leveraging its Gas Utility ,Gazzprom, has sounded an alarm across Europe. U.S. on its part has been into serious negotiation with eastern european countries bordering Russia , to install missile defence system on the pretext and predicate of shielding it self from Iran’s missiles which is bound to be launch from across the caspian sea. Kosovo province is another case of “tug of war” between both the pollars.Colour revolutions like rose in Georgia , orange revolution in Ukrain ,etc, were the ramifications of the machination pursued by both sides fervently to set-up governments kowtowing the respective sides.
This development cutting across the world has once again resusciate the paradigm of “non-allingned”. India on hand is trying to be in the good grace of U.S. by participating in military manouevres with U.S airforce in kalaikonda ,and trying hard to hammer the nuclear deal despite unequivocal and vociferous left protest. On the other hand India is also keeping the orientalist block in good humour by engaging with them in military exercise and improving trade relations.The time tested neutral foreign policy of india needs to be further fortified since the neo cold war is very obfuscating with each country has its own vested interest irrespective of which side it owe allegience to. Finally India should remember that that in international politics there is no permanent friends but only permanent interests.