Sadly, however, that reminder has incited virtually a rebellion by the coalition members. Addressing the media, three ANP Senators went to the extent of saying that the court had exceeded its limits, and had [acquired] "the tone of Takht-i-Lahore". One of them advised LHC to avoid 'controversial' decisions saying "We respect courts, but courts should also behave, for which the people respect them." Federal Information Minister said that "court interference in the KBD issue had damaged the parliament's mandate."
In July 2010, Yousuf Raza Gilani, the then Prime Minister, had said that the flood tragedy could have been averted had the KBD been built, but fearing a backlash from such rational statements, made construction of the KBD conditional upon "political consensus". In spite thereof, he was blasted the very next day. "If the Kalabagh Dam had been built, the whole KPK would have been destroyed," said the Sindh Culture Minister. Exposing her technical competence, she said no new dam or canal was acceptable to Sindh, and the flood situation could only be handled through an improved irrigation system.
No one questioned her competence, or her exaggerated claim that building KBD could destroy the entire KPK. On the contrary, the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly warned that building KBD could create rifts between the provinces.
Political expediency prevailed over rationality then and latest reaction of the ANP and self-styled 'nationalists' in Sindh may ensure that yet again. The one person who knows the truth about KBD is Sham-ul-Mulk (one-time head of Wapda), who continues to support KBD. Beginning the 1980, climatic changes and natural disasters mandated better weather forecasting to afford timely upgrade of protective structures and disaster relief mechanisms. But we remained focused on the Afghan conflict. The anti-KBD lot is again shifting that focus.
This lot can't see that, besides widespread misery every monsoon, crop losses caused by floods, largely due to lack of water storage capacity (ie dams), force importing agricultural produce, which adds to Pakistan's already killing external debt. This reflects on the blindness of this lot.
This lot still can't see that lack of electric power has caused an all-round economic decline because, after the oil price hike, generating electricity using imported fossil fuels is beyond the reach of a progressively more poverty-stricken and precariously indebted Pakistan.
According to the anti-KBD lot, Naushera would have been destroyed had KBD been built - an argument that places Naushera above Pakistan. What didn't occur to them was shifting Naushera to a nearby location so that Pakistan as a whole didn't have to pay the price it is paying.
Behind the politicians hide those 'experts' who opposed the construction of KBD because not building that dam was a blunder that left Pakistan chronically short of water, which is dragging down its agricultural output, and the power shortages that are crippling its industrial sector.
In today's world, the powerful don't need the traditional altar to sacrifice the electorate; politics has taken its place. Even building KBD must be preceded by some sacrifices - shady bargains in this case - as per the "kuch lo aur kuch do" mantra of the politicians. An inkling of the "kuch lo aur kuch do" mantra in this case is provided by the accusation ANP parliamentarians have made about Punjab using the water share of Sindh and KPK, and pocketing Abyana worth Rs 60 billion since 1991, without paying any compensation to KPK.
While politicians have been faulting the KBD project since its inception, Khwaja Tariq Rahim of the Ministry of Water and Power told the LHC that during the term of President Farooq Leghari, technicalities of the project had been finalised but construction work could not commence.
He also confirmed before the LHC that KBD was a viable project, but that the federal government had been 'struggling' to evolve consensus on the issue. Impliedly, the federal government was crippled by the "know alls" who, in reality, know very little. Haji Adeel of the ANP - one of the "know alls" - said that KBD "is dead, and we don't want to revive it... three provinces have passed resolutions against it while rejecting the idea of constructing this much-politicised dam," blatantly denying the CCI consensus on building the KBD.
According to press reports, to everyone's surprise he labelled construction of the KBD "undoable" in the light of the ruling of the CCI. Thereafter, by saying that KBD was a 'political and technical' issue, he went on to re-define the ambit of the courts' authority.
In this backdrop, it wasn't surprising to hear him say that his party "won't go to court because the matter doesn't fall in the court's purview". Qamar Zaman Kaira too said that LHC would be criticised if it interfered in political matters (the KBD sort), which would be decided by the parliament and the CCI. This milieu of statements by politicians contains two clear contradictions. First, ANP's stand that KBD project is "undoable in the light of the ruling of CCI" is incorrect; ICC didn't call the project "undoable". On the contrary, CCI approved the construction of KBD.
Second, nothing is beyond judicial purview; any controversial issue must be decided by courts on its merits, and within the peripheries defined by the law. Since the anti-KBD lot believes that KBD is a "much-politicised" dam, its fate must also be decided by the superior judiciary. Besides, parliamentarians are not the "know alls", which is proved by their track record. Year-after-year, Pakistan suffers wholly disastrous tragedies caused by floods, or draughts, manifesting its grossly inadequate water storage arrangements ie dams.
Pakistan's economy is in a pathetic state because, over time, steadily escalating power load-shedding crippled it, while politicians did nothing to either build more dams to generate (the cheapest) hydro-electricity, or discover and deliver new reserves of fossil fuels to energise the economy.
The fact that Pakistan has now become the seventh most corrupt and ill-administered state exposes the calibre of Pakistan's politicians and its bureaucracy, and undeniably establishes that they lack the expertise for deciding any issue, much less construction of dams. The only forum fit to pass a judgement on KBD is a panel of engineering and irrigation experts, whose proceedings should be supervised by the superior judiciary. It is time the "know alls" fiddling with this issue.