Making matters worse for itself

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it abundantly clear that the Indus Waters Treaty in its current shape is neither tolerable nor acceptable to India. This is a clear messaging to Pakistan that it needed to reform its behaviour and not to take things for granted.

In his Independence Day speech, from the ramparts of Red Fort, Prime Minister touched on several issues of critical importance to the Indian nation. Some of the points were known – Operation Sindoor. The dimensions of this Operation from May 7 to 10, 2025, have panned out far beyond the military action to punish terrorists and their patrons. It is now a phrase for India’s new normal against terrorism and all those who wanted to harm it one way or the other. It also includes neutralizing the threats that want to harm its farmers and economy.

He reiterated India’s stand on the Indus Waters Treaty, and made it clear that there would be change in the nature of the treaty and flow of waters to Pakistan.

PM Modi stated: “Bharat has now decided – blood and water will not flow together. The people of the country now fully understand how unjust and one-sided the Indus Waters Treaty has been. The waters of rivers originating from Bharat are irrigating the fields of our enemies, while the farmers and the soil remain thirsty. This was an agreement that has caused unimaginable loss to our farmers for the past seven decades. Now, the water that rightfully belongs to Bharat will be reserved solely for Bharat, solely for the farmers of Bharat. The form of the Indus Agreement that Bharat has endured for decades will not be tolerated any longer. This agreement is unacceptable to us in the interest of our farmers, and in the interest of the nation.”

Each and every word in reference to the IWT has a context. These facts and the contexts were known for decades, but the country‘s leadership was shy of speaking it out until Modi arrived on the scene. He had made a very categorical statement regarding the Indus Waters Treaty and the disadvantages it inflicted on the country in 2016. That means he understood the impact the treaty was having on the farmers and soil of the country. Now, he was being more specific. It needs a thorough analysis.

Prime Minister spotlighted two aspects; blood and terror cannot flow together is not a phrase which gained currency after the Pahalgam attack. It is a messaging that there can be no business as usual on the issue of waters. Pakistan cannot inflict casualties and provoke a war-like situation, and expect waters to flow unhindered.

Second, that the Treaty in its existing form is unacceptable – that means it requires modifications underlining the supremacy of the national interest. This is quite reasonable, and also has international logic that a state that behaves like an enemy, should not expect that waters to flow in the natural course. Fundamentally, though India had been asking Pakistan to effect changes in the Treaty in tune with the changing times and needs. This was done after Pakistan overstepped the limits of resolution of issues provided in the IWT. It moved the International Court of Arbitration over Kishenganga and Ratle hydro-electric projects in Jammu and Kashmir.

A day after Pahalgam attack of April 22, in which 26 civilians were killed, India, on April 23, told Pakistan that “the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in abeyance with immediate effect, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.”

Instead of understanding the sensitivity of the issue and the outrage of the Indian nation on Pahalgam terror attack, Pakistan started playing a counter-blame game, accusing India of having staged a false flag operation in Pahalgam. This was not only the denial but a ridiculous suggestion.

Today, when Pakistan is crying hoarse over the ill-effects the suspension of the Treaty will have on its people and the economy, it had enough time to take action against the groups responsible for the Pahalgam attack. It did not move an inch even, and started threatening India with war. After Operation Sindoor, now these threats have graduated to the nuclear war level. Pakistan has made matters worse for itself.

Pakistan has intelligent people who understand the dynamic of the situation. They, however, have embarked on anti-India narratives instead of telling the establishment in their country to roll back cross-border terrorism directed against India.

Pakistan has embarked on two major things - that it will initiate war against India if it happened to stop waters flowing to the country, and second, that India is bluffing as it doesn’t have the capacity to divert and store the waters.

Jinnah Institute, in its explainer Blood and Water Cannot Flow Together : India’s Attempt to Start a Water War (April 30, 2005) sought to highlight that India cannot live up to its threat to cut off water to Pakistan without enormous engineering and environmental adjustments on its side, and potentially high political costs. The three western rivers: Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, account for more than 80 per cent of ( 117 billion cubic meters ) the Indus Basin’s total flows, and cautions that if India attempted to store or divert that volume, it would need to build storage equivalent to 30 Tehri Dams every single year. It added: “given the time and space required, this is neither logistically nor financially feasible. Each Tehri-scale dam takes nearly a decade to construct and would require extremely large land masses to build at that scale.”

This is true to some extent. But here remains a question unanswered. Do these challenges for India to tame the IWT governed river waters be used as a shield to cross-border terrorism? Pakistan needs to rethink and realize it is not the time for anti-India rants but reforming its own behaviour. The intelligent people in the neighboring country should focus on keeping their agrarian economy going; not to invent excuses to continue with terrorism, no matter which all support them in the world. The reinstatement of transient friendships of the past should serve as a lesson, not something to use as a springboard to threaten India.

If India can take rail tracks to Valley, cutting mountains and overpowering rivers, it can do anything. India has changed.