Mehbooba Mufti again speaks like a Pakistani, gets triggered and threatens war over Omar Abdullah’s mention of reviving the Tulbul Navigation Barrage
Former Jammu and Kashmir CM and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, whose party suffered a massive loss in the assembly elections in the Union Territory, has again spoken like a politician of Pakistan, not India. Keeping up with her habit of appeasing Islamists across the border who want to further Pakistan’s agenda and keep Jammu and Kashmir deprived of economic development, she got triggered over CM Omar Abdullah’s post on X, which talked about the possibility of reviving the Tulbul Navigation Project.
CM Abdullah had posted a video of the Wular lake in North Kashmir. Highlighting the incomplete civil works on one side of the lake, he wrote, “The Wular lake in North Kashmir. The civil works you see in the video is the Tulbul Navigation Barrage. It was started in the early 1980s but had to be abandoned under pressure from Pakistan citing the Indus Water Treaty. Now that the IWT has been “temporarily suspended” I wonder if we will be able to resume the project. It will give us the advantage of allowing us to use the Jhelum for navigation. It will also improve the power generation of downstream power projects, especially in winter.”
Mehbooba Mufti, however, got triggered by the statement and started behaving as a spokesperson of Pakistan all over again. Accusing Omar Abdullah of trying to trigger a war with Pakistan again, and hinting subtly that reviving the project would be enough justification for Pakistan to start attacking India again, Mufti reacted, “J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s call to revive the Tulbul Navigation Project amid ongoing tensions between India & Pakistan is deeply unfortunate. At a time when both countries have just stepped back from the brink of a full-fledged war—with Jammu and Kashmir bearing the brunt through the loss of innocent lives, widespread destruction and immense suffering such statements are not only irresponsible but also dangerously provocative.”
Nobody knows why a sitting CM’s post about reviving an abandoned infrastructure project in his own state, one that would mean better water management, and open up river navigation routes in a region that desperately needs economic development would be “provocative”. Maybe mehbooba Mufti thinks Jammu and Kashmir should remain undeveloped and lagging just to appease Pakistan, so that the poor people of the UT remain poor and become easy recruits for Pakistan’s terror factories.
Mufti further accused Omar Abdullah of war-mongering and provoking Pakistan, adding, “Our people deserve peace as much as anyone else in the country. Weaponising something as essential and life-giving as water is not only inhumane but also risks internationalising what should remain a bilateral matter.”
It is notable here that Omar Abdullah neither spoke about attacking Pakistan nor did any sort of act of aggression towards the Pakistani people. He was merely suggesting the revival of a navigation project that would better utilise the waters of Jhelum and open up navigation routes, besides bringing development for the people of north Kashmir. The Wular lake belongs to India, and the section of the Jhelum river he was referring to also belongs to India.
Omar Abdullah soon shot back, asking why Mufti is advocating for Pakistan and trying to peddle a narrative that reviving the Tulbul navigation project is the same as provoking Pakistan for war.
“Actually what is unfortunate is that with your blind lust to try to score cheap publicity points & please some people sitting across the border, you refuse to acknowledge that the IWT has been one of the biggest historic betrayals of the interests of the people of J&K. I have always opposed this treaty & I will continue to do so. Opposing a blatantly unfair treaty is in no way, shape, size or form warmongering, it’s about correcting a historic injustice that denied the people of J&K the right to use our water for ourselves,” he posted.
Clearly, Mehbooba Mufti wants to propagate an idea that India, and Jammu and Kashmir, should remain under perpetual fear of Pakistan, and behave exactly as Pakistan wants, for Pakistan’s benefit, even if it means depriving the people of Jammu and Kashmir of the right to utilised their own resources.
What is the Tulbul Navigation Barrage, and how Pakistan got it halted
The Wular lake is in the Sopore area of Baramulla district, on the Jhelum river. The navigation project, initiated in the 1980s, was conceptualised with the aim of keeping the Wular, and Jhelum navigable even during the lean winter months, with the minimum of at least 4.5 feet of water. The proposed barrage, not a dam or reservoir, was planned to hold a maximum of 300,000 acre feet of water, so that the roughly 22 km stretch of Anantnag, Baramulla to Srinagar remains navigable by boats by controlled release of water.
Wular Lake, image via EJ Atlas
Usually in winter months, this stretch becomes non-navigable, as glacial freezing in the upstream Himalayan areas reduces water depth to under 2.5 feet.
If completed, the Tulbul Navigation Project with its barrage 439 feet long and 40 feet wide barrage holding and releasing water as required, would have maintained the minimum navigable water depth required throughout the year between Khanabal (Anantnag) and Khadanyar (Baramulla). Thus facilitating the transport of fruits, timber, and essential goods easily by boats, also bringing tourism and other facilities to this area.
The barrage was proposed to be designed as a holding and regulating structure, not as a storage facility, so that the downstream water volume is not reduced. However, Pakistan still opposed it, claiming that India was trying to hold more water in Jhelum than specified in the Indus Water Treaty.
Not just year-round navigation, helping the locals, the project would have also ensured enough water throughout the year for downstream run of the river hydropower projects in Uri.
India had stated to Pakistan that the barrage would ensure water flow to Mangla Dam, thus helping Pakistan’s irrigation canals downstream, but Pakistan threatened arbitrations in the International Court. India’s assurance that the barrage is for merely a control structure to ensure navigation, not a storage for consumptive use, failed to convince Pakistan, which wanted to halt the project at any cost. Multiple rounds of talks yielded no results.
Finally, in 1987, the Rajiv Gandhi government abandoned the project. Around 30% of the construction was done since 1984.
Pakistan was so against the Tulbul Navigation Project that it had sent terrorists to attack the structure. In the last few years, Marine Commandos have been deployed around the lake area and its islands, trying to flush out terrorists hiding in the region.
Tulbul Navigation Project: Another example of former governments giving in to Pakistan’s threat of violence?
Pakistan has been desperate to keep Jammu and Kashmir undeveloped, so its nefarious agenda of spreading Islamic terrorism and bleeding India by thousand cuts becomes successful. For decades, by sheltering, facilitating and sponsoring Islamic terroists on its soil to spread violence and chaos in Jammu and Kashmir, it has been successful in doing so. The subsequent governments in the Centre and Jammu and Kashmir both, also have submitted before the blackmail, allowing Pakistan to dictate terms and make Indian leaders behave as it want therm to.
Mehbooba Mufti arguing for Pakistan and trying to justify and validate its threat of violence for a water management project is a glaring example of how far Pakistan has been successful in making some politicians dance to its tunes.
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