WATER ISSUES AND THE INDUS WATER TREATY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The history of the Indian subcontinent is often viewed through the prism of partitioned lands, yet the most grievous wound inflicted upon the geography of the region remains the partition of its rivers. The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 is frequently lauded in global diplomatic circles as a beacon of cooperation between hostile neighbours, but for India, it stands as a monumental testament to strategic naivety and misplaced generosity. This agreement was not a settlement of equals but a capitulation by the upper riparian state which handed over the very lifeblood of its northwestern territories to a neighbour that has defined its existence through perpetual hostility. As we examine the trajectory of this treaty from the past into the present and towards a volatile future, it becomes evident that the agreement was never truly about water sharing for Pakistan but rather served as a convenient instrument to shackle Indian development while Islamabad pursued a policy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts.

To understand the depth of this historical error, one must look back at the context in which the treaty was signed. In the aftermath of Partition, the Indian leadership was driven by a romanticised vision of Asian solidarity and a desperate desire to buy peace with a neighbour that was already plotting war. India possessed the natural geographic advantage of being the upper riparian state, a position that historically grants a nation significant leverage and control over river systems. Yet, in 1960, India chose to surrender this sovereign advantage. It signed away the exclusive rights to the three western rivers, the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab, which constituted the overwhelming majority of the water mass of the Indus system. This act of benevolence was unparalleled in the history of international water treaties. No other nation in the world has voluntarily gifted over eighty percent of a river system to a lower riparian state, especially one that had already launched an invasion into Kashmir in 1947. The Indian expectation was that this colossal sacrifice would satiate Pakistan and pave the way for good neighbourly relations. History, however, provided a brutal rebuttal to this optimism.

Pakistan did not view this concession as a gesture of goodwill but as a weakness to be exploited. Almost immediately after securing its water lifeline through the treaty, the Pakistani military establishment launched Operation Gibraltar in 1965. This betrayal exposed the fundamental flaw in the Indian approach, which was the belief that economic generosity could alter the ideological DNA of the Pakistani state. The treaty allowed Pakistan to secure its agricultural heartland in Punjab and Sindh without offering a single strategic compromise in return. While India adhered scrupulously to the provisions of the treaty, Pakistan utilised the water security it had gained to fuel an economy that funded military aggression against the very hand that signed the waters over to it. The past six decades have proven that the Indus Waters Treaty effectively subsidised the Pakistani war machine by removing the single biggest existential threat it faced, thereby allowing it to focus its energies and resources on destabilising the Indian state.

The present situation reveals the full extent of Pakistan’s duplicity and the weaponisation of the treaty mechanisms. Islamabad has mastered the art of using the treaty not as a tool for water management but as a stick to beat India with on the international stage. Every time India attempts to construct a hydroelectric project on the western rivers, which it is fully entitled to do under the treaty provisions, Pakistan raises hysterical objections. The obstruction of projects like the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric plants is not based on genuine hydrological concerns but on a malicious intent to stall development in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistani strategy is transparently cynical. They aim to keep the people of Jammu and Kashmir energy starved and economically stagnant to fuel the fires of separatism, all while blaming India for the lack of development. They drag India to international arbitration courts and neutral experts over minor technical design elements like spillways and pondage, delaying projects for decades and driving up costs by billions of dollars. This is not water diplomacy. It is water terrorism disguised as legal procedure.

Furthermore, the narrative of water scarcity that Pakistan peddles to the world is a carefully constructed lie designed to hide its own domestic failures. Pakistan blames India for turning its fields into deserts, yet the truth is that Pakistan is one of the most inefficient users of water in the world. Its feudal landholding system, crumbling canal infrastructure and the cultivation of water intensive crops in arid zones are the real reasons for its water crisis. The Pakistani elite and the military land barons squander their water resources with impunity while the poor thirst. However, instead of fixing their leaking canals or taxing their wealthy landlords, the Pakistani establishment finds it politically expedient to point a finger at India. It is a classic diversionary tactic used by a failing state to rally its population against an external enemy rather than facing the rot within. The Indian government has tolerated this slander for too long, allowing Pakistan to play the victim card on global forums while it simultaneously sponsors cross border terrorism.

The continued adherence to this treaty in its current form has become untenable for India in the face of relentless state sponsored terrorism. The premise of any treaty is the existence of peaceful relations and mutual trust, both of which Pakistan has systematically destroyed. It is logically incoherent for India to allow blood and water to flow together. A nation cannot be expected to honour the water security of an enemy that sends suicide squads to attack its parliament and soldiers to massacre its citizens. The present Indian government has rightly begun to question the sanctity of this one sided arrangement. The realisation has finally dawned that water is a strategic asset and sovereignty cannot be compromised for the sake of a neighbour that refuses to behave like a civilised state. The suspension of the treaty talks and the notices issued for modification are not acts of aggression but necessary steps towards correcting a historical injustice that has prejudiced Indian interests for sixty five years.

As we look to the future, the trajectory is clear. India can no longer afford to carry the burden of this unequal treaty. The demands of a growing Indian economy and the rightful aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir for electricity and irrigation take precedence over the unreasonable demands of a hostile neighbour. The future will likely see India asserting its full rights as an upper riparian state, maximising the usage of the western rivers within the bounds of what is technically feasible, regardless of protests from Islamabad. The days of Indian hesitation are over. If Pakistan continues to choose the path of proxy war and terror, it must be prepared to face the consequences in every domain, including the hydrological one. The future of the Indus basin will be determined by Indian resolve to secure its own interests first. The era of appeasement has ended. India will likely move to construct ample storage and run of the river projects to ensure that not a single drop of water that belongs to it goes unutilised.

Ultimately, the unravelling of the status quo is the only logical conclusion to this saga. Pakistan has proven time and again that it is incapable of reciprocity. It demands water as a birthright while exporting terror as a state policy. The international community, which often preaches restraint to India, must understand that no country can sustain a treaty that undermines its own security and prosperity. The Indus Waters Treaty is a relic of a bygone era where India was willing to sacrifice its national interest at the altar of a nebulous peace. That era is dead. The future belongs to an India that is unapologetic about its power and unyielding in the protection of its resources. The water that flows from the Himalayas is Indian water and it will serve Indian citizens, Indian farmers and Indian industry. If Pakistan finds itself parched in the future, it will have only its own treacherous choices and its obsession with conflict to blame. The revision of the treaty is not just a possibility. It is a strategic imperative for a rising India that refuses to be held hostage by the machinations of a failing neighbour.