Indian Council of World Affairs

Abstract: The decision to suspend the 1960 Indus Water Treaty remains to be a decisive step taken by the Indian leadership in view of the Pakistan sponsored terrorist attacks that were carried out in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025. The paper will lay out a brief history of the Treaty, assessing how India has sacrificed more than its share of water that was granted in the treaty. 

Introduction

Agreements and treaties between countries on river water sharing has always been complicated, marred by controversies and disputes. It requires mutual understanding, faith and cooperation between the signatories for its long-term sustenance. However beating all the odds, the Indus Water Treaty that was signed between India and Pakistan in 1960, survived the last six decades of animosity, even when both fought four wars and had severe strains in relations due to Pakistan’s continued policy of state sponsored terrorism against India. For the first time since the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) was signed, India has, on multiple occasions in the past two years, either sent notifications to Pakistan through the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) or written directly to Islamabad seeking modifications to the treaty.[i] But, in a paradigm shift, after the terrorist attack on Pahalgam, the Indian leadership took the decision of putting the treaty in “abeyance” until Pakistan permanently aborts support and sponsor of terrorism in all forms.

History of the Indus Water Treaty

The Indus River basin is a civilisational geography. It has been home to people before and after the Indus Valley Civilization, the Kushanas, the conquests of Alexander and later empires. It played a significant role in the period of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals. A large network of canals was built within this river systems to facilitate easy access of water for agriculture and local usage. During the British colonial rule, some canals were constructed in the river basin, allowing a transfer of surplus Jhelum and Chenab water into the Ravi River. However, disputes arose between British India and the princely states with regard to the building of additional canals and storage facilities. This dispute got exacerbated with the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, where the river basin was divided into two halves. The situation was further complicated with the illegal forcible occupation of portions of Jammu and Kashmir.[ii]

The dispute was resolved with the signing of the Indus Water Treaty. The treaty was signed on 19 September 1960 in Karachi by India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan. Since the negotiation process was initiated by then World Bank President Eugene Black, the World Bank also became a signatory and a third-party mediator under the treaty.[iii] Though the treaty was hailed to be a milestone finding an amicable resolution of river water sharing between nations, the ingrained bias of the treaty towards Pakistan, remained to be an anomaly, that was overlooked by India, benevolently for the last six decades.

In the last two years, India has pointed out issues that required clarification or amendments in the treaty which is required with changing climate and demographic changes. From the time, the treaty was signed, Pakistan has been getting 80.52% of the total waters of the six-river Indus system — and almost 100% of the western rivers’ waters. With the Indus system’s smaller three rivers reserved for India, the latter's share is just 19.48% of the total waters[iv] under what can be seen as one of the most disputable, lopsided and inequitable water-sharing treaty, which India has abided to all these years.

This agreement was agreed to by India, as being an upper riparian state, it allowed such a bias to exist, to keep the Pakistani leadership at ease and to demonstrate that it was not taking advantage of its geo-politically better position. However, far from showing any gratitude for India’s magnanimity towards a smaller neighbour, Pakistan has consistently complained even with the little access to the western rivers that India has under the treaty.

The Tulbul navigation project of India serves as a key example. Initiated in 1984, its construction was halted in 1987 after Pakistan raised objections, claiming that the Wullar Barrage — as it refers to the Tulbul project — exceeded the storage limits allowed under the IWT. Although India proposed a compromise, Pakistan ultimately rejected the project. Several rounds of negotiations held in 1998, 2004, 2006–07 (as part of the Composite Dialogue), 2011, and 2012 failed to resolve the dispute due to Pakistan’s intransigent attitude.[v]

Pakistan for the last six decades has remained adamant not to allow India to even access the waters of the Western rivers that the IWT allowed. Experts have stated that “out of an estimated power potential of about 20,000 MW, which could be harnessed from western rivers’ power projects, only a capacity of 3,482 MW have been constructed so far”[vi], on which Pakistan has obstructed to on the pretext of design of the projects, which as per Pakistani allegation was built on designs contravening the IWT.[vii] Pakistan has put such fabricated objections all through, to force India to abandon all projects that it could have built in accordance with the IWT. The larger objective of Pakistan here has however been to obstruct any developmental activity in Jammu and Kashmir as that would contradict their false allegation of India’s consistent discrimination against the people of J&K.

It needs to be mentioned that even being an upper riparian state, India has played the role of a supportive and understanding neighbour, abiding by the conditions laid down by the IWT, allowing Pakistani technical delegations to visit Indian project sites to resolve objections raised by them. Even after decades of Pakistan using terrorism as a principal state policy against India, IWT was abided by the word.

Suspending Indus Water Treaty

For decades, India has been suffering acutely from Pak-sponsored terrorism. It brought to light the various dimensions of this menace emanating from Pakistan in conversations and dialogues with its international partners. Our efforts in this direction have only been successful in a limited way, as Pakistan continues to  re-invent itself as an important ally of the key global powers. Over the past decade and half, especially since 26/11, India has had to learn its lessons the hard way and has now come out with an evolving new posture towards Pakistan, where it has abandoned its past hesitations and has shown a rising resolve with the Uri surgical strikes, the Balakot air strikes and now Pahalgam.

After the present Pahalgam attack, India decided to demonstrate a break from its past behaviour and suspend the IWT, a treaty that had survived three wars and thousands of proxy attacks in the last four decades, carried out by Pakistan sponsored terror groups and individuals. It was agreed to that the Pakistani establishment does not understand the language of diplomacy or the role it should have been playing as a neighbour from the 1950s till now. This suspension also came as a rude shock for Pakistan as they took it for granted that India will never take the step of suspending or exiting the IWT.

Will the suspension be revoked or withdrawn or will India opt for exiting the agreement in totality, remains in the purview of speculation as of date. While India has remained to be a responsible neighbour, the present step of “abeyance” was a credible step available to India to pressure and caution Pakistan to change its errant behaviour.[viii]

As Pakistan has not allowed any legitimate construction on the Western rivers which was allowed by the IWT, the suspension will not bring about any immediate impact in the short term.  With the suspension, India has already stopped hydrological data sharing, which remain crucial for lower riparian states. Hydrological data includes water flow, snowmelt, and river discharge information. India is also not bound to any restriction on the usage of the Western rivers, Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. If the suspension continues, India will be able to enhance or build new storage or hydropower projects and manage water flow more freely. India should also refuse to allow Pakistani officials to enter India for any joint inspections of the existing flow in the future. India has the option, in the future, to limit or cut off the flow of water into the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, or Sutlej rivers by diverting the water into canals and channels, or by raising storage levels in its existing dams and reservoirs. Modifying the existing infrastructure itself will immensely benefit Indian agricultural and irrigation. For instance, India could opt to halt or decrease the flow of water into the Upper Bari Doab Canal on the Ravi River, one of the oldest barrages on the Ravi-Beas River system, built prior to Independence.[ix]

India could proceed with the construction and water diversion for the Ratle hydropower project, while ignoring the existing agreements related to water storage at Kishanganga, which would impact the flow of the Neelam and Jhelum rivers. Kishanganga project has been operational since 2018, while the construction on the Ratle project started in 2022 and is ongoing. Pakistan has taken up the issue of Ratle and Kishanganga hydropower project to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, which will be able to withdraw with the “abeyance” of the treaty.[x]

As pointed out by an eminent Indian expert[xi], said that without the treaty in place, India would not be bound by the restrictions on “reservoir flushing” for the Kishanganga reservoir and other projects on the western rivers in Jammu and Kashmir—restrictions that are currently enforced under the Indus Waters Treaty. Flushing allows India to remove silt from its reservoirs, but refilling them afterward can take several days. The treaty currently mandates that this refilling must occur in August, during the peak monsoon season. However, if the agreement is held in abeyance, India would be free to refill the reservoirs at any time.[xii]

With the changing climate patterns, the entire Northern belt encompassing Northern India and Pakistan is experiencing extreme weather patterns due to climate change, altering snow melting and annual volume of rainfall, which is deeply impacting on the volume of water in the rivers originating in the region. This is further affecting agricultural growth and livelihood as most of the major cities in the region have developed or is dependent on the network of these major river basins. There is an urgent need to assess and study the deviations that is happening, adapting to the changing demands, taking sustainable steps of maximising usage of available resources with no or minimal impact on the geography. India had asked for amendments to the treaty to adapt to such changes, which Pakistan did not respond to. This is the need of the hour, for the well-being, growth and development of the people in the region.

Assessment

The treaty is an exceptional case in which India, an upper riparian state, has voluntarily agreed to forego more than four times the amount of water to Pakistan, a lower riparian state, and imposed stringent restrictions on water use on itself, for the purposes of good neighbourly relations. Nearly 79% of the total available water in quantitative terms in the basin was allocated to Pakistan, whereas India, which has major basin area and is upper riparian, was only allocated only 21%. Due to this, India has suffered huge loss both in terms of economic and agricultural development. India would have been qualified for at least 42.8% share of the waters of the Indus basin based on the criteria of population, drainage area and state of cultivated lands.

Understanding well that the IWT is beneficial to them, though never acknowledging it, Pakistan’s strategy has never been of revisiting, reviewing, or renegotiating the existing treaty. Instead, it sought to leverage international platforms to pressure India. It sought to interpret the treaty to its advantage and not to mutual benefit. The 1960 IWT cemented the advantageous position that Pakistan secured for itself during the Partition and Pakistan is well aware of that. Notably, the treaty remained unusually rigid, as it lacked any provision for periodic review apart from not having any exit clause.[xiii]

The current Indus Waters Treaty model, which relies on unconditional trust and places the obligations solely on India without offering corresponding benefits, has proven ineffective and needs to be replaced.[xiv] With the present situation, there is no spirit of “goodwill and friendship” that underlined the foundations of the IWT. While terrorists of LeT and JeM are cremated with full state honours, the presence of senior Army officers, political luminaries and police personnel, terrorists in Pakistan, can no more be considered to be non-state actors, but rather state actors.[xv] Terrorism has been the raison d’etre of Operation Sindoor and the Pakistani support for terrorism continues unabated, for which such fundamental change on rethinking on river water sharing and the existing agreements has been initiated and remains justified.

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*Dr. Dhrubajyoti Bhattacharjee, Research Fellow, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal.

Endnotes

[i] Suhasini Haider and Jocob Koshy, ‘No more Indus Commission meetings till Treaty renegotiated: India’, 18 September 2024, The Hindu, URL: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-serves-notice-to-pakistan-seeking-review-of-indus-water-treaty/article68655577.ece accessed on June 4, 2025

[ii] Maj Gen Ajay Kumar Chaturvedi (Retired), Indus Water Treaty: An Appraisal, VIF Paper, December 2018, Vivekananda International Foundation, https://www.vifindia.org/sites/default/files/indus-water-treaty-an-appraisal.pdf accessed on June 11, 2025

[iii] ‘Fact Sheet: The Indus Water Treaty1960 and the Role of World Bank’, The World Bank, 11 June 2018, https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/sar/brief/fact-sheet-the-indus-waters-treaty-1960-and-the-world-bank accessed on June 09, 2025

[iv] Fact Sheet: The Indus Water Treaty1960 and the Role of World Bank’, The World Bank, 11 June 2018, https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/sar/brief/fact-sheet-the-indus-waters-treaty-1960-and-the-world-bank accessed on June 12, 2025

[v] Shrabana Barua, “India’s Notices to Pakistan to ‘Modify’ the Indus Water Treaty: Causes and Implications”, Guest Column, ICWA, February 06, 2025, /show_content.php?lang=1&level=1&ls_id=12364&lid=7543#_edn5 accessed on June 12, 2025; ‘Reviewing Tulbul navigation project can put Pakistan on backfoot: Officials’, Business Standard, 26 September, 2016, https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/reviewing-tulbul-navigation-project-can-put-pakistan-on-backfoot-officials-116092601242_1.html accessed on June 12, 2025

[vi] Harikishan Sharma, ‘Changed circumstances: In 2021, House panel urged Centre to renegotiate Indus treaty’, The Indian Express, 29 January 2023, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/changed-circumstances-in-2021-house-panel-urged-centre-to-renegotiate-indus-treaty-8410215/ accessed on June 12, 2025

[vii] Shrabana Barua, “India’s Notices to Pakistan to ‘Modify’ the Indus Water Treaty: Causes and Implications”, Guest Column, ICWA, February 06, 2025, /show_content.php?lang=1&level=1&ls_id=12364&lid=7543#_edn5 accessed on June 12, 2025

[viii] Brahma Chellaney, “Blood for Water? India within its rights to withdraw from the Treaty”, The Times of India, April 27, 2025, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-that-matters/blood-for-water-india-within-its-rights-to-withdraw-from-treaty/articleshow/120651280.cms accessed on June 17, 2025

[ix] International law allows India to suspend Indus Waters Treaty with Pak: Experts, India Today, April 25, 2025. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/law-news/story/international-law-india-suspend-indus-waters-treaty-pakistan-experts-pahalgam-terror-attack-2715313-2025-04-25 accessed on June 17, 2025

[x] International law allows India to suspend Indus Waters Treaty with Pak: Experts, India Today, April 25, 2025. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/law-news/story/international-law-india-suspend-indus-waters-treaty-pakistan-experts-pahalgam-terror-attack-2715313-2025-04-25 accessed on June 17, 2025

[xi] Pradeep Kumar Saxena, is a prominent Central Water Engineering Services Officer with over three decades of exemplary service in water resources management and international water treaties. He represented the nation as Indian Commissioner for Indus Waters (2016-2022) in numerous engagements with Pakistan and the World Bank.

[xii] Indus Waters Treaty suspended: India has many options, says expert, The Hindu, April 24, 2025, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indus-water-treaty-suspended-india-has-many-options-says-expert/article69485354.ece accessed on June 18, 2025

[xiii] Rahul Bhandari, Guest column | Indus water treaty inherently unfair on India, Hindustan Times, April 25, 2025, https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/guest-column-indus-water-treaty-inherently-unfair-on-india-101745522097587.html accessed on June 18, 2025

[xiv] Brahma Chellaney, “Blood for Water? India within its rights to withdraw from the Treaty”, The Times of India, April 27, 2025, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-that-matters/blood-for-water-india-within-its-rights-to-withdraw-from-treaty/articleshow/120651280.cms accessed on June 17, 2025

[xv] ‘State funeral for terrorists in Pakistan’: Foreign Secretary slams Pakistan’s links to TRF, LeT, and JeM leaders”, The Hindu, May 09, 2025, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/state-funeral-for-terrorists-in-pakistan-foreign-secy-slams-pakistans-links-to-trf-let-and-jem-leaders/article69554240.ece accessed on June 17, 2025