Rivers That Connect And Divide

The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty reflects a broader shift in India's foreign policy—a willingness to revisit outdated arrangements where strategic asymmetries have widened

- DAVINDER SANDHU

For over six decades, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has been hailed as a triumph of diplomacy and resilience—surviving wars, terrorism, and deep political hostility between India and Pakistan. Brokered by the World Bank and signed in 1960, the treaty allocated control of the eastern rivers of the Indus system (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India and the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan, while permitting limited Indian use of the western rivers for non-consumptive purposes such as hydroelectric generation, navigation, and irrigation.

The original intent of the treaty was to reduce friction over vital water resources, enabling peaceful coexistence. However, Pakistan was the first to use the treaty less as a means of cooperation and more as a tool of obstruction and diplomatic warfare. Repeated challenges to India's legitimate hydroelectric projects—such as Kishanganga and Ratle—have been filed at international forums, causing delays, inflating project costs, and undermining India's development agenda, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir.

Further, Pakistan's simultaneous pursuit of neutral expert intervention and appeals to the Court of Arbitration violated the graded dispute resolution mechanism explicitly outlined in the treaty. Such actions not only breach procedural integrity but also reveal Islamabad's tactic of leveraging the treaty as a political instrument rather than honoring it as a mechanism for peaceful resolution.

As the upper riparian, India could have modulated Pakistan's water availability right after 1965 and certainly after the 1971 war, putting economic and political pressure on Islamabad. As a responsible nation taking a humane stance, India did not exercise this option despite the extreme events.