India and water warfare

In a stark display of brazen unilateralism, India has cast aside decades of water-sharing cooperation by suspending the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a lifeline for Pakistanis. This is a calculated strike aimed at crippling Pakistan's water security.

With water levels plummeting in the Chenab and the spectre of drought looming over Sindh and Punjab, India has chosen to wield water as a weapon. The Modi administration’s reckless actions signal a disturbing trend of weaponising natural resources to serve political ends, and Pakistan must now tackle this unprecedented crisis with resolve and strategic clarity.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's aggressive rhetoric and military posturing, exemplified by Operation Sindoor, reflect a troubling shift towards unilateralism and disregard for diplomatic engagement. The suspension of the IWT also shows a willingness to weaponise essential resources, exacerbating humanitarian concerns. Such actions violate established agreements and threaten the livelihoods of millions dependent on these shared waters.

When the British finally relinquished their colonial grip on the Subcontinent in 1947, they left behind a partition so deeply flawed that its fault lines still rupture the lives of nearly two billion people. But amid the blood-soaked aftermath, one beacon of cooperative sanity emerged — the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. Brokered by the World Bank, it was a rare moment of pragmatism between two rival neighbours. Now, more than six decades later, India has chosen to brazenly undermine that fragile pillar of peace.

Let’s also not romanticise the IWT. The treaty was never a model of equity. It adopted a mechanical division: India got exclusive control over the three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej), while Pakistan was guaranteed unrestricted use of the three western ones (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab). Yet even within this flawed framework, the treaty represented a rare moment of sanity — a functional compromise that survived wars, cross-border skirmishes and shrill nationalism on both sides.

Let’s also be clear: there is no such thing as 'abeyance' in treaty law. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) offers no such provision. What New Delhi calls 'abeyance' is, in reality, a de facto suspension, which under international law can only be done with mutual consent or if the treaty allows such a suspension. The IWT allows for neither. This is not a semantic quibble but a calculated move to circumvent the architecture of international treaties, a manoeuvre with potentially catastrophic implications for Pakistan and the global system of rules-based governance.

India’s hydrological adventurism has long been a simmering concern. For years now, New Delhi has weaponised its upstream dominance by constructing a series of dams and barrages on rivers allocated to Pakistan — especially the Chenab — under the IWT. These structures are strategic levers, capable of choking Pakistan’s water supply at will or unleashing floods during monsoon seasons. In the short term, the engineered manipulation of water flows risks inundating Pakistani cities or starving them of essential water. In the long term, it aims to reshape the ecological and agricultural viability of an entire region.

One doesn’t need to squint too hard to see the broader agenda here. India’s persistent interference in Pakistan’s water flow — particularly in the Chenab — constitutes a clear violation of Article III (2) of the IWT, which explicitly prohibits such meddling. In essence, India is not just breaking a treaty but openly defying a body of international obligations. India, of course, offers its usual alibi: that Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the Pahalgam attack justifies this extraordinary step. But this accusation is as flimsy as it is irrelevant. There is no clause that permits retributive sabotage.

If India insists on wading further into the murky waters of lawfare, it should at least have the intellectual honesty to accept the ramifications. Water is not a negotiable commodity. It is a lifeline, and to weaponise it is to turn that lifeline into a noose. India’s disregard for dispute-resolution mechanisms speaks volumes. Article IX of the IWT provides two clear avenues: technical issues to a neutral expert, and legal violations to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. India has opted for neither because its legal standing is weak and its claims indefensible. Its silence in the face of due process is, in fact, a confession.

Short-term, the implications are devastating. India’s dam systems have been used to withhold or abruptly release water, inundating Pakistani farmlands or parching them in equal measure. In the long term, the damming and potential diversion of water flows could spell ecological ruin and agricultural collapse for Pakistan’s breadbasket regions. The eastern Ravi, once a proud tributary, has now been reduced to a near-dead river inside Pakistan — drained dry by India’s upstream dams. The western rivers, technically still under the IWT umbrella, are next in line.

Compounding this crisis is India's unchecked pollution. Drains like the Hudiara, originating in Indian Punjab, routinely carry industrial effluents and sewage across the border into Pakistan. These polluted waters end up in the Ravi, contaminating soil and crops. And while Pakistani industries downstream commit similar sins, it is India that turned storm drains into chemical sewers and exported the problem.

Worse still, it's setting a precedent. If India can walk away from a World Bank — guaranteed treaty with Pakistan, what’s to stop it from doing the same to Bangladesh with the Ganga? Or Nepal with the Mahakali? The Subcontinent, already a tinderbox of border disputes and nationalistic grievances, cannot afford this kind of legal nihilism.

As for Pakistan, it is time for Islamabad to shed its habitual diplomatic inertia. Mere condemnations and polite communiques will not suffice. The Simla Agreement — which India often wields to restrict Pakistan’s appeals to third-party arbitration — cannot be allowed to supersede or annul the IWT. And as per Article 28 of the VCLT, treaties do not operate retroactively. Pakistan must emphatically assert its right to seek international arbitration, pursue the case through the UN and, if necessary, take the matter to the International Court of Justice.

There are further legal avenues. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Pakistan retains the right to self-defence if its survival is imperilled. Considering that the Indus system supplies more than 90% of Pakistan’s water, India’s weaponisation of water can reasonably be construed as an existential threat. If India escalates this hydro-hegemony during a time of conflict — such as by bombing the Neelum-Jhelum project — Pakistan’s right to retaliate against dams and dykes used in support of military operations becomes not only legal but necessary. As outlined under Article 56 of Additional Protocol I, such infrastructure can be deemed legitimate military targets under stringent conditions.

Let no one mistake this for sabre-rattling. Pakistan is not seeking to stoke another war. But if New Delhi continues to undermine the treaty framework with impunity, and if the international community refuses to intervene, then the current trajectory leads us inexorably to confrontation.

The international community, including the World Bank, must step up. The impunity with which India manipulates water flows under the false cover of internal politics or retaliatory justice sets a dangerous precedent not just in South Asia, but for water-sharing treaties globally. If rules can be disregarded this easily, then we are not living in a rules-based international order, but in a global jungle governed by might over right.

If the world continues to look away, the next great conflict on the subcontinent may not be over territory or ideology, but over water. For Pakistan, this is not hypothetical. It is already happening.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

Originally published in The News