How 3 engineers forced India’s Indus Water win: Historian revisits Pakistan’s 1947 shock

In the chaos of 1947, while politicians negotiated borders, three Indian civil engineers quietly reshaped the destiny of the nation’s waters.

Historian Siddharth Guru recounts the little-known story of how engineers A.N. Khosla, Sarup Singh, and Kanwar Sen gave India a crucial upper hand in controlling Punjab’s rivers—an edge that would eventually lay the foundation for the Indus Water Treaty.

As partition talks intensified, Sir Cyril Radcliffe arrived in India to draw the new boundary line. Among the Indian officials on the ground, Khosla and Singh, both employed in Punjab’s irrigation works, noticed a looming crisis: the Ferozepur region, home to vital headworks controlling three major canals, was set to fall into Pakistan’s map.

Recognizing the grave implications, Sarup Singh secretly alerted his colleague Kanwar Sen, who was then with the Bikaner state’s water department. Kanwar Sen immediately grasped the threat: if Ferozepur Headworks went to Pakistan, Bikaner’s lifeline—the Gang Canal—would be severed.

Acting swiftly, Kanwar Sen explained the situation to Bikaner's Prime Minister, Pannikar. Together, they convinced Maharaja Sadul Singh to personally intervene. Leveraging his close relationship with Lord Mountbatten, the Maharaja warned that if the headworks were lost, Bikaner might be forced to merge with Pakistan for survival—a political nightmare the Congress leadership could not afford.

Word reached Jawaharlal Nehru, who, already aware of Bikaner's resistance to the Muslim League’s overtures, personally pushed Mountbatten to reconsider. Meanwhile, Sardar Patel and V.P. Menon, who had deep networks inside the Boundary Commission, also lobbied to protect India's interests.

Their combined pressure worked. Ferozepur Headworks, along with the Ferozepur, Zira, and Fazilka tehsils, were awarded to India—leaving Pakistan stunned.

Control over these headworks gave India leverage over canals flowing into Pakistan, leading to rising tensions—and ultimately the need to formalize the Indus Water Treaty.

Later, Kanwar Sen went on to conceptualize the Rajasthan Canal Project, today known as the Indira Gandhi Canal, and was honored with the Padma Bhushan for his service.

As Siddharth Guru notes, these engineers remain unsung heroes of India's water history.