Weaponizing water? India suspends water treaty with Pakistan

With monsoon flows now uncoordinated, dam construction moving at breakneck speed, and mutual distrust at an all-time high,  India and Pakistan risk plunging into an era where water becomes weapon of war

Iftikhar Gilani

MNTV News Desk Analysis

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a landmark water-sharing agreement signed between India and Pakistan in 1960, long stood as a rare symbol of resilience in South Asia—a region otherwise marred by conflict, distrust, and instability.

Brokered with the active mediation of the World Bank, the treaty had survived wars, and deep political hostilities, successfully compartmentalising water-sharing from the broader India-Pakistan rivalry.

However, in 2025, the very foundation of this agreement has cracked. In an already water-stressed region where rivers are lifelines for millions, the suspension of the IWT has sparked fears that water could now be weaponised, transforming a longstanding dispute into a full-blown “water war.”

The immediate trigger was attack in the scenic town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, where 26 tourists were killed. India so far without offering any evidence has linked the attack to Pakistan.

In retaliation, India announced the suspension of the treaty, a move that reverberated not only through New Delhi and Islamabad but also through world capitals, raising alarms about regional security and environmental fallout.

Yet tensions over the Indus waters had been mounting long before the Pahalgam tragedy. Since 2022, the Permanent Indus Commission—the body comprising Indian and Pakistani experts tasked with resolving disputes under the treaty—had not convened.

By 2023, India had called for renegotiating the treaty altogether, arguing that demographic pressures, escalating water demand, worsening climate disasters, and persistent terrorism originating across the border made the treaty obsolete.

India particularly pressed for the overhaul of the treaty’s dispute resolution mechanisms, contending that the existing framework was cumbersome and outdated.

Under the original terms of the IWT, India retained rights over three eastern rivers—Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej—while Pakistan was allocated the three western rivers—Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum. India was permitted limited use of the western rivers for agricultural purposes and for constructing “run-of-the-river” hydroelectric projects, which do not significantly alter the flow of the river.

End of hydrodiplomacy

However, Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of tweaking the designs of projects like Kishanganga and Baglihar to secretly gain greater control over river flows. India, for its part, maintains that design modifications were made purely to ensure project viability and were within treaty parameters, not as an act of hydro-political aggression.

The question now facing international observers is procedural as well as strategic: Does India need to formally notify the World Bank about its decision to suspend the IWT, or is informing only the appointed Neutral Expert sufficient? In 2022, Michel Lino, President of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), had been appointed Neutral Expert by the World Bank to adjudicate disputes between India and Pakistan.

By opting to notify only him, India could effectively freeze all ongoing dispute mechanisms, including deliberations over the Kishanganga-Ratle projects, thereby placing the treaty into suspension without a direct rupture with the World Bank.

Officials in New Delhi have termed the suspension a “proportionate response,” but the symbolic impact has been dramatic: a powerful signal that the era of hydro-diplomacy in South Asia may be coming to an end.

With treaty obligations lifted, India is now exploring a series of immediate measures aimed at exerting hydraulic pressure on Pakistan. Among the most critical is the manipulation of seasonal water releases from Indian reservoirs.

Traditionally, these reservoirs are flushed and refilled during the monsoon season (June to September) when water is abundant. However, India plans to shift this cycle to the dry season (October to February), a period critical for Pakistan’s agricultural activities.

Such a move could severely disrupt Pakistan’s sowing seasons for key Kharif crops, including cotton, maize, sugarcane, and various pulses, raising the spectre of widespread food insecurity.

A Pakistani agricultural scientist told MNTV that such disruptions could push the region into acute food crises, deepening political instability in an already fragile country. Meanwhile, India is pushing ahead with a long-term strategy to build and upgrade a series of dams along the Indus system, a move that environmentalists fear could exacerbate ecological degradation and provoke further regional tensions.

But for India diverting water of Kashmir, geography is the ultimate obstacle. The Kashmir Valley, an isolated bowl encircled by the 5,000-metre-high Pir Panjal range, prevents any large-scale diversion of river waters to the Indian mainland.

Dr Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, a renowned glaciologist and Vice-Chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology in Kashmir, underscores this point: “Even if India decided to stop the water supply, where would the water go? We do not have the infrastructure to store it. We have not built enough dams in Jammu and Kashmir, and given the mountainous topography, we cannot transfer water easily to other states.”

There is climate change angle also. His research shows that precipitation patterns across the Himalayan region have shifted significantly. Snowfall has given way to rainfall, and river flow patterns have become increasingly erratic, putting both India and Pakistan at grave risk.

“Eighty-five per cent of North India’s rivers depend on Himalayan glaciers. Yet the treaty makes no mention of climate change or the need for environmental flow protections,” he said.

Climate scientists project that the flow of the Indus River system could decline by 20% between 2030 and 2050, with a further sharp drop after 2060. Given that 93% of Pakistan’s water usage is for irrigation—feeding about 16 million hectares of farmland and accounting for nearly 25% of Pakistan’s GDP—such a decline could have catastrophic effects. Pakistan is not merely running out of water; it is running out of time.

Dispute mechanism

The Indus Waters Treaty had been hailed as an engineering and diplomatic marvel. Disputes, however, have plagued its history—from disagreements over the Wullar Barrage to rows over the Kishanganga and Baglihar projects. The treaty laid out clear principles about which rivers belonged to whom and how conflicts should be resolved, but the absence of binding timelines for resolving disputes has allowed tensions to fester for years.

Ashfaq Mahmood, a former water secretary of Pakistan, lamented this shortcoming.

“Talks go on for years without resolution. There should have been an automatic trigger: if the Permanent Indus Commission cannot resolve an issue in a year, the next level of dispute resolution must automatically begin,” he said.

Mahmood also recalled past negotiations over the Baglihar Dam, where informal agreements collapsed due to lack of written commitments, highlighting the fragility of trust between the two countries.

By suspending the treaty, India has also cleared the path for an accelerated dam-building spree in the sensitive region of Jammu and Kashmir. Seven major hydroelectric projects are underway in the Chenab Valley alone, including Pakal Dul, Kwar, Kiru, Kirthai I and II, Bursar, and Ratle, with a combined capacity of over 5,000 megawatts.

However, the rush for dams has triggered massive displacement among local communities. In Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir, researcher Safina Nabi found that 36 households lost over 230 kanals (roughly 29 acres) of farmland to the Pakal Dul project. Compensation packages were often meagre and insufficient to buy alternative land, leading to growing frustration and resentment.

Environmental concerns are equally pressing. Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, warns that building so many dams in an earthquake-prone Himalayan zone dramatically amplifies the risk of catastrophic seismic events. “These dams are in a high seismic zone. Seven major dams in close proximity could amplify the devastation if an earthquake strikes,” he cautioned.

Legal uncertainties also cloud India’s decision. Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), “changed circumstances” are not generally accepted as valid grounds for unilaterally terminating or suspending a treaty. The 1984 International Court of Justice case between Nicaragua and the United States reinforced this principle. India’s reliance on factors such as terrorism, demographic shifts, and climate change to justify suspension could therefore face stiff international legal challenges.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the human cost of dam-building is already evident.

In the picturesque Gurez Valley of Kashmir, nearly 300 families of the Dard-Shina tribe were displaced during the construction of the 330-MW Kishanganga project. While compensation levels were higher for them compared to Kashmiri farmers across the mountains, the reason given was telling: authorities admitted that the Dard-Shina people were losing not just land, but their ancient culture and way of life. Today, many live anonymously in the bustle of Srinagar city, their unique identity slowly eroding.

Adding to the concerns is the lack of transparency. For instance, officials from India’s National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) kept the voluminous environmental impact assessment for the Kishanganga project hidden, even from the local state government.

With monsoon flows now uncoordinated, dam construction moving at breakneck speed, and mutual distrust at an all-time high, both India and Pakistan risk plunging into an era where water becomes not a shared resource, but a weapon of war.

The rivers of the Indus basin continue to flow—for now. But the dialogue they once symbolised hangs precariously in the balance.