OPED by Imran Khurshid, PhD
India maintains that the Indus Waters Treaty, though a product of 1960, no longer reflects contemporary hydrological, technological, and security realities. Growing climate stress and regional instability have strengthened the case for its review and modernization.
Pakistan has been accusing India of weaponizing water, but is there any substance to this claim?
Pakistan recently organized an international seminar at the Jinnah Convention Center in Islamabad, titled “Indus Waters Treaty: An Instrument of Peace and Regional Stability.”
The title of this seminar was strategically framed to present the issue as a grave regional security challenge requiring immediate international intervention. This is similar to how Pakistan has long portrayed Kashmir as a “nuclear flashpoint” by linking its resolution to peace and security in South Asia. It has now attempted to employ the same strategy with the Indus Waters Treaty.
An Unequal Framework for India
At the same time, Pakistan’s political and military leadership has recently made highly provocative statements against India. Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Climate Change, Dr. Musadik Malik, stated that “we will chop off their hands,” former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari declared that “either blood will flow or water,” while Pakistan’s Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR), Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said that “we will stop their breath if they stop water,” a remark that closely echoed an earlier statement by Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, who had declared, “If you stop the water, God willing, we will stop your breath, and then blood shall flow in these rivers.” These highly provocative statements have only served to escalate tensions and reinforce Pakistan’s confrontational rhetoric.
The Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 and brokered by the World Bank, has, in fact, been highly unfair to India. Despite being the upper riparian state, India was allocated only a small share of the waters under the treaty.
As per this treaty, the rivers of the Indus system were divided between the two countries, with India receiving exclusive rights over the eastern rivers—Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—while Pakistan was allocated the western rivers—the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab.
Although the treaty did not expressly allocate water in percentage terms, the rivers’ average annual flows effectively meant that Pakistan received nearly 80.52 percent of the waters of the six-river Indus system, while India received only 19.48 percent. Moreover, on the western rivers, India is permitted only limited domestic, agricultural, and non-consumptive uses and can construct only run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects, subject to stringent design and operational restrictions.
These restrictions have significantly constrained the developmental potential of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, particularly in terms of hydropower generation, water storage, irrigation, and broader economic development.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has described the Indus Waters Treaty as “the most unfair document to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.” He has repeatedly argued that the people of the region were never consulted before the treaty was signed and that it deprived them of the opportunity to fully utilize their own water resources. Many projects could have completely transformed the destiny of these regions had this unequal treaty not existed.
In Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, adequate water storage and the full utilization of the western rivers have been severely constrained by the treaty, adversely affecting agriculture and several other sectors of the economy. Water transport, which once served as the lifeline of the Jhelum River, has also suffered because of these restrictions.
The Tulbul Navigation Project, conceived in the early 1980s, initiated in 1984, and suspended in 1987 following Pakistan’s objections under the Indus Waters Treaty, could have transformed inland navigation, improved water management, enhanced downstream hydropower generation, and contributed to flood management.
Hydropower projects have been restricted to run-of-the-river schemes, resulting in lower electricity generation during the winter months and increasing the region’s dependence on costly power imports. Electricity would have been significantly cheaper had these constraints not existed. Thus, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have been among the worst affected regions under the treaty.
Revisiting the Indus Waters Treaty
Moreover, whenever India initiates a project permitted under the treaty, Pakistan unnecessarily creates hurdles by raising objections, pursuing legal challenges through the treaty’s dispute resolution mechanisms, and repeatedly attempting to internationalize these issues.
Article IX of the treaty provides a three-tier dispute resolution mechanism under which issues are first taken up by the Indus Commissioners of both countries, then referred to a World Bank-appointed Neutral Expert, and finally to the Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
For a long time, Pakistan has repeatedly invoked Article IX to delay India’s dams and hydroelectric projects by misusing the treaty’s dispute resolution mechanism to stall projects that are otherwise permitted under the treaty. As a result, projects are delayed or stalled for years.
Furthermore, India did not abruptly place the treaty in abeyance. In January 2023, India issued a formal notice to Pakistan seeking “modification” of the Indus Waters Treaty, and in September 2024, it again sent a diplomatic notice requesting review and modification under Article XII(3), citing “fundamental and unforeseen changes in circumstances.”
These notices, as reflected in official reporting, referred to climate change and environmental stress, population and demographic pressures, the need for clean energy and hydropower expansion, and technological and hydrological changes since 1960.
India’s Goodwill and Pakistan’s Conduct
Pakistan often cites the treaty as a perfect example of successful transboundary river cooperation between the two countries and frequently boasts about it. However, it should be remembered that the Indus Waters Treaty has survived since 1960 largely because India, as the upper riparian state, has exercised goodwill and generosity.
Now imagine if Pakistan had been the upper riparian state. It is difficult to believe that it would not have leveraged its upstream position from the very beginning and used the treaty as an instrument of pressure against India.
When the treaty was signed in 1960, it was based on the expectation of cooperation and good neighborly conduct from Pakistan. Jawaharlal Nehru himself described it as the “price of peace” for Pakistan. But what happened after the treaty was signed?
Pakistan repeatedly violated the very spirit in which the agreement was concluded by imposing wars on India in 1965, 1971, and during the Kargil conflict in 1999, while continuously perpetrating cross-border terrorism, including the Mumbai terrorist attacks (November 2008), the Parliament attack (December 2001), the Pulwama attack (February 2019), numerous other terrorist attacks, and most recently the Pahalgam terrorist attack in April 2025. Following the Pahalgam attack, the Government of India placed the treaty in abeyance.
India has now explicitly linked the future of the Indus Waters Treaty to Pakistan ending cross-border terrorism, making any future cooperation contingent upon Pakistan’s actions in this regard.
Moreover, when the Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960, Pakistan received substantial financial assistance under a broader international financing arrangement, including contributions from India (approximately £62 million) and other donor countries, to construct replacement works such as dams, barrages, canals, and water storage facilities. Despite receiving significant financial support, Pakistan has failed to build adequate storage infrastructure and has instead continued to blame India for its water problems.
Real Drivers of Pakistan’s Water Crisis
Furthermore, Pakistan has one of the most inefficient irrigation systems in the region, with substantial losses due to seepage and leakage. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) country assessments (2024–2026 updates) note that around 95 percent of Pakistan’s freshwater is used for agriculture, while approximately 60 percent of irrigation water is lost due to inefficiencies in canals and field systems.
World Bank reports, including Pakistan’s Scarce Water Can Bring More Value to People and Economy (2019), also highlight that irrigation systems are highly inefficient and that poor water management remains a structural problem rather than merely a scarcity issue.
Further World Bank irrigation infrastructure assessments (2020s) indicate that around 40 to 50 percent of water is lost in irrigation watercourses due to seepage, spillage, and leakage, with canal delivery efficiency in some areas falling to 35–40 percent at field level. These losses represent an enormous waste of a scarce resource.
Yet Pakistan has failed to address this leakage crisis. Today, as cities such as Lahore and other parts of Punjab face worsening water shortages, Pakistan continues to blame India rather than address its own structural failures. Excessive groundwater extraction has further aggravated the country’s water crisis.
Finally, climate change is an undeniable reality. Even if India had not placed the treaty in abeyance, climate-induced changes would still have affected river flows. The ICIMOD Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment Report (2019) and IPCC AR6 (2021–2022) conclude that glaciers in the Hindu Kush–Himalaya region are retreating rapidly and that glacier mass loss has accelerated significantly since the 1990s, with long-term implications for water availability in river basins such as the Indus.
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The Journal of Hydrology (2014) further shows that Indus River flows are highly sensitive to snow and glacier melt dynamics, meaning that rising temperatures directly alter seasonal discharge patterns.
Many rivers across the world are already experiencing declining flows due to these changes. Pakistan therefore needs to invest in improving its water infrastructure, expand its storage capacity, modernize its irrigation system, reduce water losses, and prepare for the increasing unpredictability of river flows, rather than relying solely on allegations against India.
- This is an Opinion Article. Views Personal of the Author
- Imran Khurshid, PhD, is an Associate Research Fellow at the International Center for Peace Studies (ICPS), New Delhi. He specializes in India-US relations, Indo-Pacific studies, and South Asian security issues.
