India has just announced that it will no longer abide by the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, placing the agreement in “abeyance” until Pakistan, it claims, credibly and irrevocably renounces cross-border terrorism. This is a potentially historic moment.
For over 60 years, through wars, near-conflict, and complete diplomatic breakdowns, the treaty endured. Water, unlike so much else in the India-Pakistan relationship, had remained predictable. That predictability is now in question more than it has ever been.
The decision potentially marks a turning point in how the two countries manage the most essential shared resource between them. There will be many other discussions in the days ahead that dwell on geopolitics. The goal for this article is simpler: to understand the implications for Pakistan’s rivers, crops, people, and policymakers.
What matters most in the days and months ahead is not the threat of a sudden cutoff, but the erosion of reliability of a water system that millions depend on every single day.
How the treaty works
Before we get into what India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty might mean, it’s worth recalling what the treaty actually did. Signed in 1960 after years of negotiation, with the World Bank as broker, the Indus Waters Treaty has been one of the most durable transboundary water agreements in the world.
It divided the six rivers of the Indus Basin between the two countries. India received the three eastern rivers (the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej). Pakistan received the three western rivers (the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) which account for the majority (almost 80 per cent) of the shared basin’s water.
As part of the agreement, India retains the right to use the western rivers for non-consumptive purposes like hydropower, and for limited irrigation, but is not allowed to store or divert their flows in ways that harm downstream access. These constraints are deliberately specific and enforceable and include engineering design features and notification procedures. For Pakistan, this structure provides more than water. It provides the predictability needed to build an entire irrigation and water management system around.
The treaty also provides a standing mechanism for cooperation and conflict resolution. A Permanent Indus Commission exists, with one commissioner from each country, tasked with exchanging data, reviewing new projects, and meeting regularly.
Disagreements are resolved using a tiered process: technical questions go first to the commission, unresolved differences may be referred to a neutral expert, and legal disputes may be sent to an international Court of Arbitration, with the World Bank playing a role in both forums. This process has been used before to resolve disagreements over India’s Baglihar and Kishanganga dams — it is designed to prevent unilateral action. The treaty has no expiry date, and it includes no provision for suspension. Article XII makes clear that it can only be modified by mutual agreement. That has never happened.
The hydrologic reality
One common question that arises in moments like this is whether India can simply “stop the flow” of water into Pakistan. In the immediate term, the short answer is no. Certainly not at the scale that would make a meaningful dent in flows during the high flow season.
The Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab are enormous rivers. Between May and September, as snow melts, these rivers carry tens of billions of cubic meters of water. India has some upstream infrastructure on these rivers, including the Baglihar and Kishanganga dams, but none of it is designed to hold back these kinds of volumes. These are run-of-the-river hydropower projects with very limited live storage. Even if India were to coordinate releases across all its existing dams, all it may be able to do is slightly shift the timing of flows.
The overall volumes in the western rivers during this high-flow period are far too large to meaningfully disrupt without flooding its own upstream regions. India already utilises most of the flow from the eastern rivers allocated to it under the treaty, so any new actions on those rivers would have a more limited downstream impact.
A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical. That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.
Over the medium to longer term, the picture becomes more complicated. If India chooses to act outside the treaty framework, it opens the door to developing new infrastructure that would give it greater control over the timing and volume of flows into Pakistan. But even then, the path is far from straightforward. Any large-scale dam or diversion project would take years to build. The sites available in Indian-occupied Kashmir for significant water storage are limited and geologically challenging. The financial cost would be enormous. And the political risk would be even greater.
Pakistan has long said that any attempt by India to construct major new storage on the western rivers would be viewed as an act of war. In today’s age of satellites, these structures would not be invisible. They would be contested politically and possibly militarily.
There are also hydrological constraints. Holding back high flows on rivers like the Chenab or Jhelum risks flooding upstream regions in India itself. And the idea of diverting water out of the Indus Basin entirely, into other parts of India would require enormous infrastructure and energy costs that would be hard to justify, even in peacetime.
Beyond the basin, there are reputational and strategic risks. India is itself a downstream riparian on the Brahmaputra and other rivers that originate in China. This (often overlooked) reality has historically shaped India’s approach to respecting downstream rights. By suspending the treaty and acting unilaterally, it sets a precedent that could one day be used against it. This is not a cost-free move and could complicate its efforts to frame itself as a reliable partner in other international negotiations.
Possible Implications for Pakistan
While the physical and political limits on disruptions by India are real, the erosion of treaty protections still matters. This is not because water will stop tomorrow, but because the system it supports was never built for uncertainty. The flows of the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab are the backbone of our agriculture, our cities, our energy system. At this moment, we simply do not have a substitute for these waters.
For Pakistan, the impact of India’s disruption (if manifested) could be far-reaching. Pakistan’s irrigation system is one of the largest in the world, and it depends almost entirely on the predictable timing of flows from the western rivers. Farmers plan their sowing around those flows. Canal schedules are designed based on assumptions that have held for decades. If that rhythm is even slightly disrupted, the water system will begin to fray.
The most immediate risk is to predictability. Even if the total volume of water coming into Pakistan does not change immediately, small changes in when that water arrives can cause real problems. A late-season delay during the wheat planting cycle, or an unexpected dip in flow during the dry winter months, can mean missed sowing windows, lower yields, and higher costs. The Indus Delta is already shrinking due to reduced freshwater outflows. Further uncertainty in upstream flows could accelerate that degradation, with consequences for coastal livelihoods and fisheries.
Any shortfall or shift in river timing will force the state to make hard choices about water allocation. This risks intensifying inter-provincial tensions, especially between Punjab and Sindh, where water-sharing debates are already politically charged.
Then there’s energy. A third of Pakistan’s electricity comes from hydropower, generated by water flowing through Tarbela, Mangla, and other reservoirs. If upstream flows are reduced or poorly timed, it could cut into generation capacity. None of this is speculative. Pakistan is already a water-scarce country, living close to the edge. A system that has long been run on thin margins now faces a new layer of uncertainty.
Historical context
This week’s announcement did not come out of nowhere. While the Indus Waters Treaty has long been praised for its durability, the last decade tells a story of mounting strain.
In 2013, a Court of Arbitration
ruled in Pakistan’s favour by requiring India to release minimum environmental flows downstream of the Kishanganga project (upstream on Jhelum), and reinforced limits on reservoir drawdown. This successful resolution was a continuation of the treaty’s ability to manage complex engineering disagreements.
But that pattern began to shift after the 2016 Uri attack. India suspended routine cooperation, began fast-tracking dam projects it had long delayed, and started linking water to broader security narratives. Even then, India said it would work “within the pact.”
That too began to change in 2023, when India formally invoked Article XII(3) (the provision that allows for treaty modification only by mutual consent) and requested renegotiation, citing climate change, national development needs, and Pakistani obstruction. Pakistan refused to renegotiate.
In the months that followed, both countries doubled down on competing legal strategies. India pursued a neutral expert to review technical dam design questions; Pakistan pushed ahead with a Court of Arbitration. By early 2025, both mechanisms were active in parallel; this is something the treaty never envisioned.
This most recent announcement that India would “suspend” its obligations under the treaty marks the culmination of a long, escalating trajectory. For the first time since 1960, one country has effectively stepped outside the treaty’s procedural and cooperative framework. Whether this is a negotiating tactic or a permanent break remains to be seen. What comes next will test not just bilateral diplomacy, but the resilience of Pakistan’s water system in a world where guarantees no longer hold.
The Indus Waters Treaty is not perfect. But it does something few agreements between adversaries manage to do. It keeps the rivers flowing and gives both countries a reason to keep talking, even when everything else has broken down. That framework is now under strain. Whether the treaty is reinstated in full, renegotiated, or left to fade in practice, what follows will be harder.
Without clear rules, even small projects can provoke mistrust. Every monsoon, every reservoir, every dry spell becomes a potential source of tension. At a time when climate change is already intensifying droughts and floods, and when both countries face rising domestic water stress, the last thing the region needs is another layer of uncertainty. Yet that is where we now find ourselves.
The western rivers are not just shared rivers. They are Pakistan’s primary source of water. In the long run, there may be reforms or alternatives. But in the here and now, there is no substitute. These rivers sustain lives, livelihoods, and landscapes across the country. Pakistan can simply not afford to let it become collateral in a political fight. Thus, the flows must continue. Not out of goodwill, but because the consequences of stopping them are too great for either country to bear.
The Indus and its tributaries that have sustained civilisations for thousands of years, now test the capacity of two modern nuclear-armed nations to cooperate. The coming months and years will reveal whether wiser heads prevail, or if the subcontinent will enter a new, uncertain era of unilateralism on its most precious resource: water.
