Indus Water Treaty matters: Signpost to catastrophe

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The Indus Waters Treaty between Pakistan and India, applauded by the world for decades as the gold standard for water sharing, is under threat of collapse. India now actively sees it as a weapon of war.

India’s recent declaration that it is working to ensure “not a single drop” of water reaches Pakistan was not an off-the-cuff political remark. It was a strategic declaration. Union Water Resources Minister C.R. Patil said he was acting under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s directions and that India was actively developing the infrastructure needed to achieve this objective.

This is the latest step in India’s decade-long campaign to weaken, reinterpret and ultimately suspend one of the world’s most successful examples of transboundary water cooperation.

Water is not a bargaining chip; it is an existential resource. - Nasim Zehra

Water is not a bargaining chip; it is an existential resource.

For more than six decades, the treaty survived wars, military crises and prolonged hostility between India and Pakistan. Brokered by the World Bank, it became an international benchmark precisely because it insulated water from politics. That is no longer the case, and the treaty is now under unprecedented strain.

India’s policy shift, dragging the treaty into the arena of Indo-Pak confrontation, began much earlier. Following the 2016 Uri attack, Modi declared that “blood and water cannot flow together,” signaling a fundamental change in India’s political........

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