PM: Tell masses how Nehru 'betrayed' India with IWT

NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for a mass campaign to highlight that Jawaharlal Nehru , India's first PM, had compromised the interests of the country and its farmers to make big concessions to Pakistan over Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), without taking either his Cabinet or Parliament into confidence, only to "burnish his image".

At the NDA parliamentary party meeting for the felicitation of the alliance's VP candidate, CP Radhakrishnan, the PM told MPs to awaken the masses about the "betrayal" of India's interests by Nehru and how his govt had kept the treaty in abeyance.

Modi, according to sources, said that India's first PM had allowed over 80% of the river's waters to be used by Pakistan, betraying the interests of Indian farmers, and it was only later that he admitted his mistake in agreeing to terms that brought no benefit to India.

"Nehru partitioned the country once, and then again. Under Indus Waters Treaty, 80% of the water was given to Pakistan. Later, through his secretary, Nehru admitted his mistake, saying that it brought no benefit," sources quoted PM as saying at the NDA meeting.

This was in contrast to Nehru's earlier defence of IWT, when he had responded to the criticism of the treaty in a parliamentary debate by, among others, BJP veteran Atal Behari Vajpayee, by saying that so much hue and cry was being raised over a few "buckets" of water", Modi said, recalling that it was on a par with how the first PM laughed off the annexation of Aksai Chin by China with his remark that "not a blade of grass grows there".

Nehru later admitted to his colleague that he had believed Indus Waters Treaty would help resolve other issues with Pakistan, but that did not happen, Modi is said to have noted at the meeting.

On Aug 14, India rejected the recent award issued by the Hague-based Court of Arbitration under IWT, citing the court's lack of jurisdiction, legitimacy, and competence.

Following the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, in which 26 people were killed, India had, in an exercise of its rights as a sovereign nation under international law, placed IWT in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.

IWT was signed in 1960, following nine years of negotiations between India and Pakistan, with assistance of World Bank, which was also a signatory. The treaty allocated the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan and the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India.