Calls for Indus Treaty suspension grows in Kashmir after heatwave

Last spring, water came rippling through a section of a British-era canal and submerged Riyaz Ahmed Bhatt’s mustard crop at Sangri Top Watlab, a breathtaking locale overlooking the jagged Pir Panjal mountain peaks in Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

- Zia Haq

The following summer blasted a heat wave through Bhatt's eight-acre farm, shriveling his next crop, a popular rice variety called Shalimar. This year, Bhatt has sown rice again, but there's hardly any water flowing through the carriageway that is supposed to irrigate most of the valley. Experts have linked Kashmir’s hotter summers to the climate crisis.

As water crises mount, the valley's residents say they are finally hopeful of getting a fair share of key rivers flowing through Kashmir following India’s decision to suspend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, a move that came after a deadly terror strike in the region's Pahalgam area on April 22.

Under the treaty, total water from the six Indus rivers is shared in the ratio of 80:20 between Pakistan and India. The pact allocates the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, known as the western rivers, to Pakistan and the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, or the eastern rivers, to India. According to India, natural and climate-change induced changes in the Indus basin itself had diminished India’s share amid a rising population.

Srinagar, once a cool high-altitude station, now sees scorching summers and endless cycles of power cuts, as the Union Territory has turned a net buyer of electricity despite a string of hydropower projects, a grievance aired by many.