Sant Kumar Sharma
After the decision to keep Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance was announced, Pakistan’s Power Minister Sardar Awais Leghari said India had suspended it “in haste and without regard for its consequences amounts to water warfare”. Mr Leghari said: “India’s reckless suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) is an act of water warfare; a cowardly, illegal move. Every drop is ours by right and we will defend it with full force – legally, politically and globally”.
On April 23, 2025, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India decided to keep the Treaty in abeyance. The possibilities opening up with India’s announcement is what worries Pakistan. The very first impact it had was Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif conceding defeat before Bilawal Zardari Bhutto on April 29, by announcing stoppage of all work on six new canals on Indus. This was a stinging slap for Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir who had inaugurated this project along with Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on February 15, 2025.
Pakistan’s Arguments
Be it Sherry Rehman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) or someone like Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar of Pakistan Muslim League-N, their argument against the Indian action makes interesting reading. Both of them, and some other prominent Pakistani leaders, have said that the IWT has no provision for “unilateral suspension”. Indeed, in all the 12 Articles and appendices, the Treaty doesn’t have a provision for unilateral suspension. However, we also need to see what is there in the Treaty.
According to Article XII, called Final Provisions, the Treaty can be modified from “time to time”. This Article XII was invoked by India, for the first time ever, on January 25, 2023, and Pakistan did not respond. It refused to start fresh negotiations for modification of the Treaty, under this provision.
Does it not amount to Pakistan’s “unilateral” nullifying Article XII of the Treaty?
Knock-out punch
The Indian government under Atal Behari Vajpayee talked of the possibility of scrapping the Treaty after December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament. On April 23, 2025, almost 65 years later, PM Modi has done to IWT after the Pahalgam terror killings what earlier wars could not do. Keeping IWT in abeyance was the first of five major punitive steps that the Modi government has initiated against Pakistan to go after it.
Keeping the IWT in abeyance is a real knock-out punch that Modi has delivered to our western adversary. Incidentally, it has been Modi’s consistent policy to use IWT as a cornerstone of his government’s diplomatic policy for mounting pressure on Pakistan. It needs to be mentioned here that this was Modi’s punch on IWT delivered to an adversary when least expected.
Weaponising Water
Just as Pakistan has been consistent in engineering terror attacks, Modi had started flirting with IWT soon after the Uri attack in September 2016. It was perhaps then that Modi toyed with the idea of using water as a tool for coercive diplomacy. A statement attributed to him then was: Blood and water can’t flow together.
Just as the Pahalgam terror attack was the handiwork of Lashkar e Toiba (LeT), the attack on Mumbai during November 2008 was directed and choreographed by Hafiz Saeed and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in tandem. The difference being that despite the death of 166 people in an orgy of death perpetrated by Ajmal Kasab & Co in 2008, IWT was not even discussed then. It has gone into abeyance with immediate effect this time, sowing the seeds of its modification in the long term.
Data Deficiency
On April 23 itself, once the decision regarding keeping IWT in abeyance had been taken, India stopped providing different types of data relating to all six rivers to Pakistan. These data sets pertained to river flows recorded on the Indian side which indicated both low and high flows. This data was given to Pakistan on real time basis and was also broadcast on specific channels of the All India Radio (AIR). It was immensely helpful for our adversary as it would aid in scheduling of water releases from their dams like Mangla (on Jhelum), Tarbela (on Indus) and Marala headworks (on Chenab) downstream of Akhnoor town of Jammu district.
The data also helped in predicting high flows and thereby aid in mitigating the impact of floods by asking the people living near the banks of rivers to move out to higher areas. The data, of low flows, on the other hand, helped in mitigating drought like conditions, deploying tankers to supply drinking water to population and such other measures. In summing up the impact of data deficiency on Pakistan, we can say that it will become very challenging for it to plan its crops which depend on periodic releases from the dams.
Wullar Dredging
Putting the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance immediately effectively means it is being mothballed and put in cold store. The weaponisation of water has just got real and before long Pakistan will feel the heat.
It needs to be mentioned here that under the Treaty, Pakistan gets 135.6 MAF of waters of the three Western Rivers (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab). On the other hand, India got only 32.7 MAF of waters of three Eastern Rivers (Ravi, Beas and Sutlej). It means Pakistan gets over 80 per cent share and India just 20 per cent share of waters under the IWT. This Treaty is truly 80: 20, with Pakistan getting bulk of the waters available in the Indus system.
For Tulbul Navigation Project, the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), functioning under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, has established a new office in Srinagar as part of efforts to boost inland water transport infrastructure in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The IWAI office will oversee the works related to water transport in the Jhelum as also other rivers. The office of this ministry was opened on May 13 officially in at Srinagar’s Transport Bhawan.
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