Time to reimagine the idea of the Indus itself

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE ON THE INDUS MUST START AT THE BASIN AND THE SUB-BASIN LEVELS, GIVEN THAT IT IS THE RIPARIAN STAKEHOLDER WHO HAS THE HIGHEST STAKES IN SHIFTING THE GRAMMAR OF SECURITISATION

- Nimmi Kurian

In many ways, India's decision to suspend the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in response to the Pahalgam terrorist strike is a tale of a death foretold. After all, it was preceded by four communications to Pakistan by India since January 2023, calling for a revision of the treaty. A parliamentary standing committee also had, in 2021, exhorted the government to renegotiate the IWT with Pakistan. In fact, India's official communication to Pakistan suspending the treaty, invoked Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties, and referred to "a fundamental change of circumstances" that had reworked the core assumptions that informed the treaty. For a treaty widely seen as an example of successful transboundary water diplomacy, what does this eddy in its fortunes mean? At 64, are its glory days clearly behind it?

There is no denying that the IWT has remained in a time warp of sorts by choice, having passed up the opportunity to modify its provisions from time to time, as provided under the treaty. It is not surprising then that it finds itself with virtually no tools to cope with the set of challenges that confront the Indus waterscape. But then, for a treaty that is fundamentally a product of distributive bargaining, fed on large doses of geopolitical angst and a zero-sum logic, there was perhaps little appetite for much else. The only established mechanism for dialogue between India and Pakistan that has survived wars, discord and distrust, thus finds that it simply has no bandwidth to deal with the governance challenges of the day.