Colonial law, contemporary water issues in Pakistan

The paper undertakes a legal geographical analysis of a key piece of legislation, the Canal and Drainage Act (1873), governing water resources management in the Indus basin of Pakistan from a critical legal perspective. The historical context of the Act is discussed to demonstrate the overlap between the Act and the colonial state that framed it. Textual analyses of the Act are undertaken to unpack the ideology and the functionality of the Act. Critical legal analyses of the Act reveal that the balance of legal rights enshrined in the Act is heavily in favor of the state as opposed to the water users. The overall tenor of the Act is that of a colonial document meant to facilitate control over a population than a legislation meant to facilitate efficient and equitable provision of a public service to the public. An analysis of the enforcement data about the Act demonstrate that the Canal and Drainage Act indeed lends itself to differential enforcement because of its insensitivity to issues of social power and geographical variations in the physical and social environment in the basin. The paper concludes that equity in water resources management in the Indus basin is contingent upon engagement with the issues of legal rights and geographical implications of a colonial legislation like the Canal and Drainage Act (1873). The analyses in the paper contribute to a growing literature on legal geography and engage the discourses on legal rights and issues of access to resources.