On 23 April, India declared it had suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a landmark water-sharing agreement with Pakistan. The announcement came a day after an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 and left 17 injured. India accused Pakistan of supporting terrorism – an allegation it strongly denies.
The move sent ripples of anxiety across Pakistan’s farming communities. It also revived longstanding debates about the treaty’s future.
Aamer Bhandara, a 37-year-old farmer in Pakpattan, Punjab, called the suspension “excessive and unjustified”. Speaking from his village after harvesting wheat and preparing to sow sesame, rice, maize and sorghum on his 100-acre farm, he warned that India’s decision would endanger Pakistan’s already water-stressed agricultural sector.
The move, he adds, sets a “dangerous precedent” that treaties can be broken “unilaterally on a whim”.
Hundreds of kilometres to the south in Sindh’s Tando Allayar district, farmer Mahmood Nawaz Shah shares his concern, warning that if India were to begin building dams upstream it would be disastrous. “There’s a growing sense of insecurity,” he says, pointing out that being at the tail end of the Indus makes Sindh particularly exposed. “We won’t just get less water – we’re likely to get more polluted water [because reduced flow means less dilution of waste and contaminants], which could devastate our soil, crops and livestock.”
The abrupt suspension marks an unprecedented development in South Asia’s water diplomacy. Yet experts urge calm. “There’s no need for panic – at least hydrologically and in the short term,” says Hassaan F. Khan, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy at Tufts University, Boston, United States.
Pakistan’s water crisis is already acute, driven by climate change, rapid population growth and mismanagement. Per capita water availability has dropped from 1,100 cubic metres in 2011 to just 908 in 2017 – nearing the critical scarcity threshold of 500. With a current population of 255 million projected to exceed 372 million by 2050, the pressure on water resources is only set to intensify.
This is not the first time India has threatened to restrict water. In 2016, following the Uri attack in which 18 Indian soldiers were killed, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared: “Blood and water can’t flow together at the same time.”
This time India has gone a step further by formally notifying Pakistan of its immediate decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty. In a raft of measures, it also closed the Attari-Wagah border, halting visas, giving Pakistani nationals 48 hours to leave the country and expelling military diplomats.
Despite the 1960 treaty having withstood two wars, its suspension has sparked a fresh wave of nationalist fervour, memes and political sparring on both sides of the border.
Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif warned that any attempt to block or divert Indus waters would be met with “full force and might”.
The defence minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, dismissed India’s actions as legally untenable, asserting that any change would require dialogue, either bilaterally or through intermediaries such as the World Bank – the treaty’s original broker.
The pact is like a Catholic marriage: once committed, you cannot wriggle out of it; there is no provision in the treaty for that
“The pact is like a Catholic marriage: once committed, you cannot wriggle out of it; there is no provision in the treaty for that,” he tells Dialogue Earth, adding that India had long sought an excuse to exit and the Kashmir tragedy gave them one.
India has grown increasingly vocal in its dissatisfaction with the Indus Waters Treaty in recent years. In 2023, it formally requested a renegotiation, a position it reiterated in 2024.
“The suspension is obviously better for India,” admits a senior Indian water expert who has led past bilateral talks with Pakistan. Speaking to Dialogue Earth from Delhi on condition of anonymity, he says: “Despite repeated calls to renegotiate the treaty, Pakistan remained unresponsive.” Too much time, he argues, has already been lost. “Getting caught in endless renegotiations would only lead to further delays,” when India needs to focus on safeguarding its own water security.
But for Pakistan, the treaty is critical. “Its water system is heavily dependent on the reliable, predictable flows from the western rivers,” explains Khan, the Tufts assistant professor. Without a treaty framework, he warns, Pakistan is acutely vulnerable to changes in the “timing and quantity of upstream flows, particularly given its already stressed water situation”.
With agriculture forming the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, securing adequate water supplies for crops has become increasingly challenging. “Water is quite an important part of our economy,” says Arif Anwar, former head of the Pakistan office of the International Water Management Institute.
“Almost 94% of Pakistan’s water resource goes to agriculture and all of this comes from the Indus, including water from Kabul, Jhelum and Chenab rivers, which are tributaries of the Indus. Almost 80% of its produce comes from irrigated agriculture, not rain-fed,” he adds. The sector also contributes a significant 24% to the country’s GDP and accounts for 37% of national employment.
Still, not everyone believes the treaty is fit for purpose. Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer, described the recent suspension as a “good chance to be done with it and adopt a new framework.” The problem, he acknowledges, is how to develop a new agreement when water has become so “securitised and Delhi and Islamabad hate each other”.
Anwar suggests an alternative: a whole-of-basin approach, in which “river basins are managed as a single unit, not as sub-units divided by international boundaries”. He points to the Columbia River Treaty between the US and Canada, which coordinates flood-risk management and hydroelectric power generation as an example of effective cross-border collaboration.
Ultimately, he recommends forging deeper ties – not less – creating an interdependency that is more lasting and peaceful: India and Pakistan must “intertwine through culture, religion, and trade – much like the European Union – making borders irrelevant.”
No expiry date
Legally, the Indus Waters Treaty contains no clause for suspension or withdrawal, underscoring its intended permanence, says Ahmer Bilal Soofi, an international law expert.
Under the treaty, India has “unrestricted use” over the three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas and Sutlej), while the same is true of Pakistan and the three western ones (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab). “Being the upper riparian, India must ensure the rights of the lower riparian are not infringed upon,” says Asif.
India cannot simply “turn off the tap or divert the water,” says the Indian expert. Khan agrees, noting that the country’s current infrastructure does not support such control over the large, glacier-and monsoon-fed western rivers. “Any attempt to manipulate flows would pose major strategic and reputational risks for minimal gain,” he says.
However, the anonymous Indian water expert explains that stepping away from the treaty could allow India to pursue building infrastructure it was previously restricted from developing. He warns this could significantly disrupt Pakistan’s irrigation system – on which 80% of farmers across Sindh and Punjab depend – and affect key reservoirs like Tarbela and Mangla, especially as India would no longer be required to inform or consult Pakistan on its plans.
The treaty already permits India limited use of the western rivers, including for hydropower development and irrigation, provided downstream flows remain unaffected. “If properly planned within the treaty’s constraints, it is possible to develop infrastructure that meets domestic needs while maintaining the obligations of the treaty,” says Khan.
One of the treaty’s key mechanisms was the sharing of comprehensive hydrological data, not just flood-related information to help Pakistan manage its flood risks. “For instance,” notes the Indian expert, “India’s data on the Kishenganga River’s flow throughout the year enabled Pakistan to upgrade the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower plant’s capacity from 700 megawatts to 969.”
Despite advancements in satellite technology, Khan says, real-time ground-gauge data remains vital for effective flood forecasting. “India has been sharing relatively limited information in the recent past, in any case,” he adds.
Minister Asif claims that the Permanent Indus Commission – tasked with overseeing treaty implementation – has not convened or communicated in nearly two years. That gap in coordination was confirmed by the Indian expert.
Rethinking water management
Viewing India’s suspension as an “act of war” that threatens regional peace and security, Soofi, who has previously advised Pakistan on the treaty, urges the government to take the matter to the UN Security Council. Doing so, he argues, could initiate a broader conversation around terrorism and also offer Pakistan an international forum to counter India’s accusations.
For farmer Bhandara, the treaty’s suspension is a wakeup call for Pakistan. “This is an opportunity for us to improve our on-farm water governance,” he says.
Khan agrees that internal reform is overdue. He warns that longstanding mistrust between provinces had paralysed decision-making on water in Pakistan and that, without institutional reforms, the country would remain ill-equipped to respond to climatic and environmental pressures. “The recent developments only make the need for reform even more urgent,” he says. “Building resilience into Pakistan’s water system must now become a national priority.”
Editor’s note: The article originally stated that the Indus Waters Treaty had survived three wars. It had, in fact, survived two wars. The first war between India and Pakistan (1947-48 ) took place before the IWT. While the Kargil conflict of 1999 is often referred to as the Kargil War, neither side officially declared war. The article has been updated accordingly.
