Right Word | Indus Waters Treaty: Six Decades Of Indian Restraint, Pakistan’s Strategic Miscalculation

India's decision reflects the view that water cooperation cannot be separated indefinitely from the larger security environment

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At the recent 63rd UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Indian civil society raised questions about whether the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) should be reassessed in light of changed circumstances, water scarcity and the rights of communities dependent on the Indus basin. A separate side event also brought in Pakistani activists who raised concerns about the internal distribution of water within Pakistan, particularly the grievances of Sindh and Balochistan.

For more than six decades, IWT remained one of India’s most consequential exercises in strategic accommodation with Pakistan. Signed in 1960 after years of negotiations facilitated by the World Bank, the treaty established a system for sharing the waters of the Indus River basin between the two countries. India, the upper riparian, accepted substantial restrictions on its use of rivers flowing through its territory. Pakistan received assured access to the western rivers, which became the foundation of its agricultural economy and water security.

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The treaty survived several wars, military crises and repeated diplomatic breakdowns over the decades. Its durability was frequently presented as evidence that water cooperation could withstand political hostility. Pakistan’s continued reliance on cross-border terrorism raised a fundamental question for India as to how long a treaty, despite being disadvantageous to itself, designed to promote cooperation, could operate independently of the security environment between the two countries?

The Pahalgam terrorist attack of April 22, 2025, during which 26 civilian tourists, all but one Hindus, were killed by Pakistani terrorists, brought that question to the centre of India’s strategic calculations. A day after, on April 23, New Delhi announced that it was placing the IWT in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjured its support for cross-border terrorism. The decision marked a departure from India’s long-standing preference for preserving the treaty despite repeated security........

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