As the war of words has reached its zenith, India and Pakistan, following the terrorist attack at the Anantnag area of Pehelgam the other day, tend to focus on the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) and other measures to damage their ties to the maximum. Extreme steps taken by the two sides following deliberations of the Indian Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) and Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC) will also hurt their people, while the weaker side will have minimum options to cope with threats emanating from the suspension of IWT.
It is not for the first time in the last two decades or so that India has threatened to undo with IWT, a landmark water agreement mediated by the World Bank and signed in 1960 by India and Pakistan to sort out the issues emanating from water conflicts. In December 2001, following an attack on the Indian parliament, New Delhi threatened to withdraw from IWT. Terrorist attacks in Uri in 2016 and Pulwama in 2019 led to Indian threats to revoke IWT. But in 2025, after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India took the practical measure of suspending IWT and reportedly started taking steps to reduce the supply of water from the Jhelum and Chenab Rivers into Pakistan. Pakistan’s NSC in its meeting held on April 24, termed any step to suspend or revoke IWT as an act of war. Steps like imposing an air embargo on Indian flights using Pakistani airspace, stopping visa issuance, blocking Wagah and Attari immigration posts, suspending trade, and further downgrading staff of their diplomatic missions in New Delhi and in Islamabad are nothing new and have happened in the past. What is alarming is the suspension of IWT by India and Pakistan’s threats to keep in abeyance the Shimla pact and other bilateral agreements with New Delhi.
Pakistan is already facing an enormous water shortage and the suspension of IWT by India will further augment its predicament. Technically, neither India nor Pakistan can unilaterally modify, suspend or revoke IWT. Pakistan can certainly challenge the Indian act before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and, the United Nations and approach the World Bank to take notice of New Delhi’s violation of IWT. The sooner Pakistan approaches such international bodies against Indian suspension of IWT the better it will be for Islamabad to expose New Delhi that under a false pretext of terrorist attack in Pelelgham it suspended IWT and started reducing the flow of Chenab and Jhelum rivers.
Overconfidence, arrogance, and illusions about its power are luring the Modi regime to a precarious situation having a point of no return
Will India and Pakistan reverse their recent steps against each other or will continue with their standoff? How the international community will respond to the surge of tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbors? How water is a double-edged sword in South Asia and why the Modi regime is so confident in what it calls punishing Pakistan for its alleged involvement in the Pelelgham terrorist attack? How the Modi regime is being exposed by Congress and other opposition parties of India to security lapses in preventing the terrorist attack that killed 26 tourists in Kashmir? Is Pakistan’s economy and political schism capable of sustaining long-term conflicts with India? These are the questions that are raised by analysts in the backdrop of recent events surging Indo-Pak tension and augmenting the water war between the two neighbors.
Blaming and accusing Pakistan of its involvement in the Pahalgam terrorist attack without any clear and solid evidence the Modi regime wants to exploit the situation for political consumption. Unfortunately, a large segment of Indian media and civil society instead of behaving in a responsible manner joined the bandwagon and wanted to augment the hype against Pakistan assuming that the international community would support New Delhi and India’s status as the fifth largest economy would put itself in an advantageous position, unlike Pakistan which is economically at the bottom and has serious unresolved political and governance issues. Instead of coming under the Indian trap or getting provoked, Pakistan needs to act tactfully and focus on its domestic matters particularly bettering its economy and political reconciliation. Yet, alarmists in Pakistan argue that the country cannot ignore India’s grand design of killing two birds with one stone: targeting Pakistan’s military and its rapport with China. How far will Beijing stand behind Pakistan if there is an escalation in Indo-Pak ties, and how will the United States render support to India in case of a sustained standoff in Islamabad-New Delhi ties?
Water is certainly a double-edged sword in the context of the recent Indo-Pak schism for three main reasons. First, today India has suspended Indus Water Treaty and curtailed the flow of the Chenab and Jhelum rivers which according to IWT are exclusively for the use of Pakistan but tomorrow it will be China when its mega dam on Brahmaputra River (also known as the Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet) in the Great Bend region of Medog county in Tibet will be completed depriving India and Bangladesh of water from that river. Although the dam, which will be the world’s largest hydropower dam, is for the generation of electricity, its storage water can be diverted for irrigation in parts of China. Therefore, if today India is trying to blackmail Pakistan, threatening to scrap the Indus Water Treaty, tomorrow it will face a worse situation from China. As an upper riparian country, China controls rivers flowing to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand.
The proposed dam which is close to the Indian border will in coming years control the flow of Brahmaputra River vital for the agriculture of India and Bangladesh. How India will deal with that situation at the moment there is no Sino-Indian water treaty like the IWT ensuring the smooth flow of rivers from upper riparian which is China to lower riparian which is India. Second, even if India wants to stop the flow of three western rivers, the Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum to Pakistan, it lacks the capability to take such steps in this regard. One can expect floods in the vicinity of the three rivers in India if it tries to stop the flow of three western rivers exclusively for the use of Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty.
Finally, water can be a source of cooperation and conflict. The history of several river water conflicts throughout the world proves that for the lower riparian state, the supply of water is its lifeline, and any hurdle in this regard is termed an act of war. When Ethiopia and Sudan as upper riparian states on the Nile River tried to reduce the supply of water to that river by constructing dams, Egypt threatened that it would go to war if water on the Nile River was reduced. Egypt is 100% dependent on the water from the Nile River for irrigation and power generation and is very sensitive in case there is any reduction in the supply of water to its end. By following international law and different world treaties, countries that are now in water conflict can take steps to de-escalate tension with their neighbors over water issues.
By violating IWT and threatening Pakistan to stop the supply of water, India is certainly playing a dangerous game. Overconfidence, arrogance, and illusions about its power are luring the Modi regime to a precarious situation having a point of no return.
Pakistan also needs to play its cards well instead of getting provoked by the escalating measures of the Modi regime. It is high time that intra-state water issues, particularly between the provinces of Sindh and Punjab are resolved in a just and fair manner. Furthermore, the conservation of water and the construction of new water storage sites will also help Pakistan in dealing with the prevailing water crisis. Reforestation and taking steps to effectively deal with climate change and global warming leading to the melting of glaciers should be a priority for the state and society of Pakistan.
