The Geopolitics of Infrastructure: Development, Expertise, and Nation on the Indus Rivers Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Akhter, Majed Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 02/10/2021 22:58:03 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/311357 1 THE GEOPOLITICS OF INFRASTRUCTURE: DEVELOPMENT, EXPERTISE, AND NATION ON THE INDUS RIVERS by Majed Akhter ____________________________ Copyright © Majed Akhter 2013 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF GEOGRAPHY AND DEVELOPMENT In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2013 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Majed Akhter, titled The Geopolitics of Infrastructure: Development, Expertise, and Nation on the Indus Rivers and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: May 17, 2013 Paul Robbins _______________________________________________________________________ Date: May 17, 2013 Carl J. Bauer _______________________________________________________________________ Date: May 17, 2013 Elizabeth Oglesby _______________________________________________________________________ Date: May 17, 2013 Richard Eaton Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: May 17, 2013 Dissertation Director: Paul Robbins 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Majed Akhter 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my parents, Mohammad Saeed Akhter and Talat Parveen, for supporting my choice to wander paths less-trodden, despite their better instincts. My siblings, Aamer Akhter, Saqeb Akhter, and Mariam Iqbal, and their families, have also encouraged and supported me throughout my dissertation research. The University of Arizona (UA) provided an excellent intellectual environment. The scholars and students there that influenced my thought and writing are too many to list comprehensively. My dissertation advisor, Paul Robbins, and my committee members, Carl Bauer, Richard Eaton, and Elizabeth Oglesby, guided this project from inception to completion. Fabio Lanza and Marvin Waterstone, although not officially on my committee, greatly influenced my understanding of historiography and Marxism. I learned the most from my fellow graduate students at the School of Geography and Development at UA. I have had brilliant, generous, passionate and fun people to read, think, talk, write and party with. A more conducive environment for my intellectual development is hard to imagine. I especially want to thank the undocumented and untraceable cells at UA that I had the privilege of reading with: the Infrastructure Cell, the Marx Study Circle, the Articulation Sub- Cell, and the Law, Geography and Society Cell. Thanks to Lily House-Peters, Paula Decker, Jamie McEvoy and Jacob Miller for reading drafts of selected chapters of the dissertation. Special thanks to Claude Peloquin, Kerri-Jean Ormerod and Jessie Speer for reading the whole thing and providing excellent comments. This dissertation has been directly shaped by scholars I have been fortunate to collaborate with; Daanish Mustafa, Natalie Nasrallah, Kerri-Jean Ormerod, Christopher Scott and Ian Shaw. I occasionally draw on co-authored working papers I wrote with these fine people in this dissertation, and I thank them for their engagement. Many people offered support, encouragement, and stimulation during my fieldwork in Lahore. Beaconhouse National University, and particularly Shehzad Amjad, offered a way for me to keep in touch with students and to engage “Pakistan Studies”. Ammar Jan and the Café Bol reading circle provided another avenue for me to discuss the politics and history of Pakistan with a group of brilliant and passionate progressives. Scholars in Pakistan that offered me much- needed advice, guidance, and/or encouragement include: Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Fahd Ali, Ali Cheema, Asad Farooq, Mushtaaq Gaadi, Haris Gazdar, Mubbashir Rizvi and Shahnaz Rouse. This project would have been much less interesting if many engineers and bureaucrats did not agree to take out time to speak with me about the geopolitics of water in Pakistan. I thank them for making time for me. Bertha Wilson at the World Bank Archives in Washington, D.C., was also extremely helpful. Finally I would like to acknowledge my debt to Jessie Speer. Over the past three years, conversations with Jessie have challenged me on several levels simultaneously; intellectual, political, emotional, and moral. My understanding of the world, and my place in it, is inextricable from my relationship with Jessie. As such, she shaped every page of the dissertation. 5 DEDICATION For all those who are planning, informing, discussing, and implementing the project of a progressive Pakistan. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................7 LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................8 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1: WATER SCARCITY AND SECURITY ...........................................................33 CHAPTER 2: NEGOTIATING TECHNOCRATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF THE INDUS .....................................................................................................................................................58 CHAPTER 3: COLD WAR DEVELOPMENT: CAPITAL, TERRITORY, AND THE INDUS RIVERS .....................................................................................................................................86 CHAPTER 4: UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT AND STATE FORMATION IN PAKISTAN .114 CHAPTER 5: INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE FORMATION OF REGIONS ....................148 CHAPTER 6: LEGAL GEOPOLITICS OF THE INDUS RIVER, 2005-2013 .......................176 CHAPTER 7: LAW AND HISTORICAL RECORDS: THE KISHENGANGA DECISION.192 CHAPTER 8: THE POLITICS OF MEASURMENT: TELEMETRY AND TRUST ...................................................................................................................................................217 CHAPTER 9: ENGINEERING NATIOANLISM ...................................................................238 CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................................258 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................261 7 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: The Western Rivers and the Eastern Rivers ............................................................10 FIGURE 2: The dialectics of the geopolitics of infrastructure ..................................................13 FIGURE 3: Covers of The Economist ........................................................................................33 FIGURE 4: The Indus River .......................................................................................................38 FIGURE 5: Seasonal flows of the Western Rivers .....................................................................40 FIGURE 6: Annual flows of the Western Rivers .......................................................................41 FIGURE 7: Seasonal flows of the Eastern Rivers ......................................................................42 FIGURE 8: Annual flows of the Eastern Rivers .........................................................................43 FIGURE 9: Upper Indus Basin streamflow reconstruction ........................................................45 FIGURE 10: Indian map of Sutlej River ....................................................................................59 FIGURE 11: Size of farms in Sindh and Punjab, 1950-1955 ...................................................157 FIGURE 12: Ownership structure of farms in Sindh and Punjab, 1960 ...................................158 FIGURE 13: Profile of the crest of the Baglihar structure .......................................................182 FIGURE 14: General Wheeler makes a lasting edit .................................................................186