It needs a critical analysis
Amidst all the horrors of Pahalgam massacre, and resounding success of Operation Sindoor launched to avenge the carnage, the impact of the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty has not been paid as much attention it deserved. It is the most consequential political, diplomatic statement that was made on April 23, 2025. For the first time the water distribution treaty was used as a part of counter-terrorism strategy.
It was hoped that Pakistan would learn adequate lessons from it. The question remains, has the neighbouring country, the biggest beneficiary of the treaty, really heard the message and acted upon it. This needs a critical analysis.
The wider context of the Treaty needs to be revisited. Pakistani propaganda is that India took a unilateral action, violating the specified provisions of the Treaty- neither country can snap the treaty on its own. But is it really a unilateral action. This deserves attention and a fair analysis. The suspension of the Treaty on April 23, 2025, came a day after Pahalgam happened. There were very strong reasons – Pakistan violated all the international laws and bilateral agreements in mounting terror attacks in India and still hoped that it would not be punished as a result of that.
The fact is that as long as the waters will flow, or stopped in the rivers flowing to Pakistan under the World-Bank brokered Treaty, it will bring back the horrific images of victims of Pahalgam terror attack. That had never happened before. Perhaps, it is as serious a situation as the Partition of the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir owing to Pakistani invasion of the Himalayan territory. The accession should have settled the matters once and for all. Far from it.
The illegally occupied territories across the Line of Control continue to be festering wound for India. The country has been living with this painful reality for over 78 years now. And the roar of flowing Chenab, Indus and Jhelum waters to the other side will point to Pahalgam.
At the same time if the volume of waters is reduced, or when the data is not shared about the floods, Pakistan will feel the pain of its self-inflicted wound. It will be reminded of the price it is paying for what it did on Kashmiri soil on April 22, 2025- killing 26 innocent civilians, 25 of them tourists, targeted after ascertaining their religion. It enacted the act of terror in Pahalgam, but the clouds on the water treaty hurt it the most.
The two situations – military action against the neighbouring country has had its effect and left it scrambling for new security covers- that means it has not given up on its plans to launch more Pahalgam type attacks and prepare for the Indian action. Second, it is also clear to Pakistan that it has no counter to the suspension of waters treaty. It can buy weapons and technology, there, however, is nothing that to get its waters flowing again unless India agrees to do. Delhi has changed the very definition and context of the Treaty; nothing will happen unless or until India assents.
Pakistan is hoping that India will not be able to implement its threats because it will take years to construct new waterways and dams.
Pakistan’s approach is simplistic but not without understanding of real-time situation. India had been making a case for review of this Treaty for decades but did not make a substantive move until April 23, 2025, that too only after Pahalgam happened. This is the severest punishment handed over to Pakistan for its acts of terror. That is a concept based on future plans. Unless India does what it has promised to do - divert waters and irrigate its fields, the waters will continue to flow to the other side.
Six months have passed since the suspension of the Treaty. Technically, there has been no change in the flow of waters to Pakistan. There has been exchange of hyperbolic rhetoric but that has not changed the situation on the ground. That did not deter Pakistan from taking an extremely dangerous position- threatening nuclear war.
Perhaps Pakistan’s military leadership is unaware of the disasters nuclear wars wreak. India is a nuclear power – a bigger one on that. That should be a sufficient hint to those working out the plans of a nuclear war.
For a moment, let Pakistan’s words, after the suspension of the IWT, be considered in a perspective. Its leadership from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to the de-facto powerhouse Asim Munir termed the suspension of the IWT an act of war.The leadership asserted India cannot take a unilateral decision to suspend the World-Bank brokered International Treaty. It has quoted some of the provisions of the IWT.
All that is understandable. But that doesn’t mean that Pakistan got a licence to spill blood of Indians in Jammu and Kashmir and take the water flow for granted. The treaty has not mentioned anything, and it was an absolute failure of the Indian leadership of the 1960 that it could not bind Pakistan to any such accountability. There could be an argument that in that era Pakistan had not started what it started doing in late 1980s and continues to do so till date. But there was a real-time example of Pakistan’s invasion of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, first act of terror against India.
Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir whose provocative utterances led to Pahalgam attack, which harmed Kashmir the most, hasn’t taken a pause. He is having his compulsions as he wants to perpetuate his control over the country, using the political; government as his proxy. But the damage that he has caused to tens of thousands of farmers in his country is beyond his comprehension.
These six months should serve as a lesson to Pakistan that it cannot sustain a policy of aggression and cross-border terrorism against India without consequences. It is quite bewildering that Pakistan refuses to think on these lines. True, it may take years for India to construct dams and waterways to store and distribute waters of Chenab, Jhelum and Indus, It is also true that all the waters cannot be stopped from flowing to Pakistan, but the damage that it will cause to Pakistan is beyond the imagination of its military and the political government.
Can it foresee the time when India, after few years, implements its word of “blood and water” cannot flow together. Pakistan should understand this threat is not just for the future terror attacks if Pakistan tends to execute them. It is a policy decision after the Pahalgam attack.
The waters of all the rivers of Jammu and Kashmir were flowing to Pakistan before 1947, and what changed after the first Indo-Pak war in 1947-48 was that these waters flowed to Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir first and then to Pakistan.
India has all the legal and constitutional right on all the areas across the LOC (earlier ceasefire line) but it did not regulate the flow of water, though it could have done so, because it had to take care of the water needs of the people of PoJK . They are our own people, though living under the tyrannical rule of Pakistan. That ironical situation is still continuing.
There is a diplomatic flaw, however, as India has been unable to tell the world that it did not stop the natural flow of the waters of the rivers of Jammu and Kashmir to the other side, because it had to take care of its own people living in POJK. This narrative has been missing. India has rightful claim on the PoJK territories, and it did much to provide sustenance to them through flow of waters. India helped the people across the LoC to built and refurbish their natural resources. By contrast Pakistan grabbed them, pushing POJK people to starvation.
