As India and Pakistan prepare for a new round of their military jumping and jumping, which some say that it could be more serious this time before, Noam Chomsky’s words have focused on their prescience.
“There are two problems for the survival of our species: nuclear conflict and end of the environmental game,” Chomsky warned in his 2013 book Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe.
The nuclear dimension of the threat is well known, but the reference to the environmental catastrophe is less widely captured. However, it has a great relevance to southern Asia, where rivers face the combined adverse consequences of urbanization, the large dams that stop the flow and snow in the high mountain chains that lose coverage with global warming. India and Pakistan face the growing twin challenge of floods and drought. A dispute to share the water would represent a deadly crisis for one or both.
In addition, Kashmira, claimed by three and not only two countries, has been increasingly the place for devastating floods, whose season is not far away. Pahalgam’s tragedy is heartbreaking, but it cannot be repaired with the war battery, arm with water or spread hate.
The broader world is dealing with a potentially devastating fight between Israel and Iran, in which both parties claim to be prepared to inflict and absorb indescribable damage. Between the two, the Achilles heel of Iran may not be the overwhelming fire power of the United States and Israel alliance.
Analysts say Iran has military media to seriously damage Israel with conventional weapons. Iran’s less discussed challenge is in a paralyzing water crisis at home. In the event that peace won the day in the ongoing conversations with the United States, Iranian rulers would quickly fight an even more intractable situation that could become a political plague for the rulers. A dispute on the Helmand River with Afghanistan stalks in the background. Water scarcity has led to internal migration to the provinces and cities of northern Tehran.
Pahalgam’s tragedy is heartbreaking, but it cannot be repaired with the war battery.
In the 1980s, an Indian diplomat of Persian origin was traveling from Tehran to Delhi when he coined a picturesque description of Dubai, where he was working with a newspaper: “What are you doing in this economy of desalted water?”
The Comment of Medias Akbar Khalili flowed from the history of civilization of Iran and its neighborhood with the Babylonian civilization. Civilizations are formed around water. The two have fought for bitter wars for their statements about Shatt al-Arab. Israel took care of its water needs in 1967 by defeating Arab armies and subsequently expanding its reach to Golan Heights of Syria, a region rich in water that allows Israel to blatantly export its popular brand of ‘Kosher wine’. Egypt, precipitating another great civilization, is locked in tense fair with Sudan and Ethiopia for claims in the Nile.
“While a nuclear attack would require action, the environmental catastrophe is partially defined by intentional inaction in response to humans induced climate change,” Chomsky said in his book. “The denial of the facts is only half of the equation. Other contributing factors include extreme techniques for the extraction of remaining carbon deposits, the elimination of agricultural lands for bio-combustible, the construction of dams and the destruction of forests that are crucial for carbon kidnapping.” India and Pakistan mark all the boxes.
“As if the crisis in the cryiosfera was not enough, now we have to deal with the weapons of the water and the violation of an international treaty that will further destabilize the region. We need to address the problems of survival together and find solutions instead of creating new problems,” observed the main environmentalist of Pakistan, Aisha Khan. I was commenting on X on the India Indo Water Treaty with the implicit intention of diverting water from the rivers to Pakistan.
Fortunately, the plan, if that is what it is, would not be fruitful in the short term. Pakistan has responded by warning of India that any detour from its part of the water, if it really happens, would be considered an act of war. India’s options, merciously, remain theoretical until material conditions are obtained, which imply prohibitive costs and a delivery time of at least two decades, to carry out the threat. Meanwhile, he has left the door open to pleasant possibilities, which can only be helped by a resumption of conversations. A parallel view expressed in The wire Postulate that Pakistan could challenge the suspension of the Treaty in the International Court of Justice.
A disturbing feature of the current confrontation of India-Pakistan is the intensive use of the religious language to prop up rivalries. Here they share similarities with two other theaters of war: one furious and the other shaped. The Ukraine-Russian conflict has witnessed the rupture of a historically common church. Ukraine approved a law in August last year to prohibit religious groups linked to Moscow to a measure directed to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which the Government accused of complicity in the invasion of Ukraine in Russia of Ukraine.
In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling cohorts have summoned biblical references for the Palestinians such as ‘Amaleks’, a biblical insult for Israel’s enemies who deserved to be killed. Netanyahu then offered little convincing explanations for hate comments.
The Indian clamor for revenge for the crazy murder of 26 tourists, mainly Hindus, in Pahalgama for terrorists who believe they are Muslims, has been addressed to Indians Muslims and Pakistan practically indistinctly. Jammu and Kashmir’s assembly had to pass a resolution to condemn the media, mainly abusive television channels. The RSS Chief of Mohan Bhagwat joined the religious fray. He quoted Ramayana to suggest that it was the King’s duty to protect his people from an evil rival.
In addition to the mixture, there was the claim in Pakistan of a permanent incompatibility between Hindus and Muslims to live together. If that had been so, the quaid would not have been vehemently opposed to the Bengal and Punjab partition, whose non -Muslim population that imagined as equal citizens of Pakistan of their vision.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Posted in Dawn, April 29, 2025
