DURING a recent closed-door policy meeting, I was asked a question that cut to the heart of the region’s hydro-future: is the era of negotiated water-sharing in South Asia truly coming to an end? Or has the age of unilateral control already taken hold, leaving cooperation and regional stability a nostalgic memory?

The answer, sadly, is playing out in the valleys and deserts of our immediate neighbourhood. Pakistan now finds itself caught in a dual chokehold. In April 2025, India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, the only long-standing negotiated framework between upper and lower riparians in South Asia. Soon thereafter, plans to divert the Chenab through new inter-basin can­als were announced. Simultaneously, Afghan­is­tan, unbound by any treaty with Pakistan, dec­la­red it would dam the Kunar River before it returns to our territory.

Upstream states are increasingly weaponising water resources. The scholarship is clear, yet, often ignored. As Mark Zeitoun and Jeroen Warner’s influential 2006 framework on hydro-hegemony contended, “Power is the most fundamental aspect in controlling water in a transboundary river basin.” This provides a clear articulation of how upstream states exercise power over shared waters, consistent with arguments about upstream arbitrariness and dominance in water governance.

Since the 1950s, the unilateral construction of massive dams and diversion projects has remained a preferred strategy to secure water for agriculture and hydropower. But at what cost? Chronic scarcity, ecological collapse, and geopolitical........

© Dawn