Chandigarh, April 25 (ANI) — India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) after the April 22, 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 civilians, has reopened debates over water security, sovereignty and strategic planning. In a forceful piece in Saviours Magazine, former bureaucrat KBS Sindhu argues New Delhi should convert the suspension into a lasting hydrological and geopolitical advantage.
Sindhu calls the 1960 treaty “an act of remarkable — and ultimately imprudent — generosity,” saying it reflected outdated assumptions of goodwill and left Pakistan with nearly 80 percent of the basin’s flow. Brokered by the World Bank and signed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan, the treaty allocated the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India and the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) largely to Pakistan.
He contends the treaty’s arithmetic was heavily imbalanced and that India, as the upper riparian state, “willingly constrained itself” while Pakistan benefitted downstream. Sindhu argues the decision to place the treaty “in abeyance” is legally defensible under principles allowing for a “fundamental change of circumstances,” pointing to decades of cross-border terrorism as justification.
Beyond legal reasoning, the article highlights India’s underuse of its entitlements. Projects such as Ranjit Sagar and Shahpur Kandi were delayed for decades, allowing substantial volumes to flow into Pakistan unused. Sindhu estimates each year of delay let roughly 0.6 million acre-feet of India’s Ravi entitlement cross the border, even as Punjab’s groundwater falls.
On the western rivers, treaty limits permit storage and hydropower, but India has realised only a fraction of allowed storage (up to 3.6 million acre-feet) and left over 18 gigawatts of hydropower potential largely untapped. Sindhu accuses Pakistan of “weaponising” the treaty’s dispute mechanisms through objections and arbitration that stalled Indian projects.
Placing India’s move in a wider international context, he argues global norms increasingly align with national interest, citing powers that have subordinated treaty text to strategic survival. “The lesson is unambiguous: nations, when sufficiently pressed, subordinate treaty text to sovereign survival,” he writes.
A central concern is Punjab’s water stress. Heavy groundwater extraction far outpaces recharge, posing agricultural, economic and security risks in a sensitive border state. Sindhu warns a depleted Punjab could invite instability, linking water scarcity to potential social unrest.
To convert leverage into domestic resilience, he proposes large-scale infrastructure: a Chenab–Ravi diversion via the Marhu Tunnel, expedited construction of storage dams such as Bursar and Sawalkot, and inter-basin transfers linking the Jhelum and Beas. These, he argues, should be national security priorities backed by full central funding and rapid clearances. “Threatening what one cannot yet deliver is a confession of weakness,” he cautions, stressing that leverage depends on built capacity, not rhetoric.
Sindhu also sees water becoming a bargaining chip in future India–Pakistan negotiations. As Pakistan faces growing water stress from population growth and climate change, it may be forced to negotiate from a weaker position; any new deal, he suggests, should be tied to verifiable action against terrorism.
Institutional reforms are recommended, including a National Indus Basin Authority to oversee planning and execution, with legislative support to cut bureaucratic delays.
Sindhu frames suspending the treaty not as an end but a strategic reset: “What comes next is not about revenge or headlines. It is about transforming a political signal into a hydrological fact, and a hydrological fact into a strategic reality.” The debate underscores the complex interplay of security, sustainability and sovereignty that will shape the Indus basin’s future.
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