Why did India suspend the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan? 

It’s a warning shot to force Pakistan to give up cross-border terrorism

 By Abhijit Roy   

Colombo, April 25 – India on Wednesday suspended the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan that had been holding since September 1960. It was the strongest retaliatory action taken by India against Pakistan for carrying out a deadly terror strike against Indian tourists in Kashmir on Tuesday.

India has also announced a number of punitive steps after a Pakistan-based terror group killed 26 Hindus and disappeared into the thick jungles of Pahalgam in Kashmir. India stopped trade, closed the border crossing at Attari, cancelled visas and expelled the three military attaches in the Pakistan High Commission. Pakistan stopped over flights.

However, the most telling blow was the “suspension” of the IWT.

Nevertheless, experts say that India is unlikely to opt out of the treaty altogether given the international implications and also because of water problems stoppage will create.

Be that as it may, even a temporary suspension of the IWT could badly disrupt agriculture and power generation in Pakistan, a country already reeling under economic stress. Millions of Pakistanis depend on Indus waters every single day. Pakistan has one of the largest irrigation systems in the world and a third of its electricity comes from hydropower, generated by water flowing through Tarbela, Mangla dams and other reservoirs.

The Treaty

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), was entered into in 1960 by the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President Gen.Ayub Khan, with the World Bank acting as a mediator.

The IWT divided the six rivers of the Indus Basin between the two countries. India received the three Eastern rivers (namely the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) and Pakistan received the three Western rivers (the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab).  

Pakistan got almost 80% of the Indus Basin’s water

India retained the right to use the Western rivers for non-consumptive purposes like hydropower, and for limited irrigation. It was “not” allowed to store or divert the waters in ways that could affect downstream access.

The IWT also provided predictability to enable Pakistan to build an entire irrigation and water management system. The treaty also provided a standing mechanism for cooperation and conflict resolution. A Permanent Indus Commission was created. Disagreements are resolved using a tiered process: technical questions would go first to the commission.

Unresolved differences were referred to a neutral expert. Legal disputes could be sent to an international Court of Arbitration, with the World Bank playing a role in both forums.

No Provision for Suspension

The treaty had no expiry date and included no provision for suspension. Article XII made it clear that it could be modified only by mutual agreement.

Impossible to Stop the Water 

Even though India has suspended the IWT, it cannot stop the water flow into Pakistan, point out experts from the Pakistan side. The Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab are enormous rivers. Between May and September, as snow melts in the upper reaches, these rivers carry tens of billions of cubic meters of water. If the flow is stopped, it would only result in flooding on the Indian side.

Though India has the Baglihar and Kishanganga dams, those are not designed to hold back such big volumes. India can only slightly shift the timing of flows into Pakistan.

However, during the dry season, flows would be thinner and storage could increase. That is when adherence to the IWT is critical. In the dry season India could build more dams and increase storage capacity. But these would cost money. And security is key as Kashmir is a disturbed area as recent terror attacks indicate.

Furthermore, Pakistan has been saying that any attempt by India to construct major new storage on the western rivers would be viewed as an act of war. Also if India disregards Pakistan’s lower riparian rights, it would not be able to argue its case if China interferes with the flow of the Brahmaputra river which flows through Eastern India.

Past Issues

There have been problems with the IWT in the past, but they had not led to suspension. The treaty became a source of dissatisfaction in  the two countries with growing demand for water.

According to media reports, Pakistan had objected to India’s Salal dam project in 1970 over design concerns, negotiations for which ended in 1978. This was followed by its opposition to the 900 MW Baglihar Hydropower project, which involved the construction of a 150 m tall dam on Chenab. The construction for the project started in 1999, but Pakistan raised objections soon after, finally threatening to invoke the arbitration provision in IWT and refer the matter to a Neutral Expert. The Neutral Expert, Swiss Engineer Raymond Lafitte, gave his decision in 2007, upholding some of Pakistan’s objections while denying others.

In 2013, a Court of Arbitration ruled in Pakistan’s favour by requiring India to release minimum environmental flows downstream of the Kishanganga project (upstream on Jhelum). In 2022 Pakistan objected to three Indian Hydropower projects in the Chenab basin – the 1000 Megawatt (MW) Pakal Dul project, the 48 MW Lower Kalnai project and the 624 MW Kiru project, aside from other smaller hydropower units India wanted to develop in Ladakh. But India maintained that all the projects are in full compliance with the IWT, reports said.

But the attack on the Indian army base at Uri in 2016 by Pakistani militants resulted in India’s suspending routine cooperation. It also began fast-tracking dam projects it had long delayed. In 2023,  India formally invoked Article XII(3), and requested renegotiation, citing climate change, national development needs, and “Pakistani obstruction”.

But Pakistan refused to renegotiate. India sought a Neutral Expert to review technical dam design questions, but Pakistan pushed for arbitration, reports said.

Geopolitical Conflicts

In the aftermath of the attack on India’s army camp at Uri in 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Blood and water cannot flow simultaneously,” soon after which, the Permanent Indus Commission talks were suspended for that year by the Indian side, which also at one point threatened to walk out of the treaty.

Again in 2019, when a suicide attack was carried out in Pulwama, in Kashmir, killing 40 security personnel, India had for the first time threatened to cut off water supply to Pakistan from the Indus River System.

Therefore, Wednesday’s Indian announcement that it is  “suspending” its obligations under the IWT is but the culmination of a long, escalating trajectory, experts point out. For the first time since 1960, one of the parties has effectively stopped the operation of the IWT.

END