“Will India Revocation of Indus Water Treaty Affect Pakistan”
In tit for tat war, India and Pakistan are imposing restrictions on each other. In lowing Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of at least 26 people. On Wednesday, India downgraded ties with Pakistan, announcing a series of steps, the most important of which is a decision to suspend its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which could seriously restrict Pakistan’s water supplies.
India has long held that Pakistan backs the armed rebellion in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies. On Wednesday, India claimed that the Pahalgam attack had “cross-border” linkages, blaming its western neighbour. During a special meeting, India has also closed its main land border with Pakistan and given some Pakistani nationals currently in India a deadline to leave the country.
On Thursday, Pakistan retaliated with similar steps against India and also threatened to suspend its participation in all bilateral agreements between the two, including the 1972 Simla Agreement, a peace accord drawn up following their war the previous year that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
Pakistan is particularly angered by the threat to the IWT and has warned India that any disruption to its water supply would be considered “an act of war”, adding that it was prepared to respond, “with full force across the complete spectrum of national power”.
What is Indus Treaty water 1960?
Signed in 1960, the origins of the IWT trace back to August 1947, when British colonial rule over the Indian subcontinent ended and India and Pakistan became two separate sovereign states. India is the upper riparian (located upstream) while Pakistan is the lower riparian, which means India has control over how the river flows.
Because both countries rely on the water from the Indus basin’s six rivers for irrigation and agriculture, they signed an agreement called the Standstill Agreement to continue allowing the flow of water across the border. When the Standstill Agreement expired in 1948, India stopped the water flow towards Pakistan from its canals, prompting an urgent need for negotiations on water sharing.
Following nine years of negotiations mediated by the World Bank, former Pakistani President Ayub Khan and former Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru signed the IWT [PDF] in September 1960. The treaty gives India access to the waters of the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. Pakistan, in turn, gets the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.
India can use the western rivers to generate hydroelectric power and for some limited agriculture but cannot build infrastructure that restricts the flow of water from those rivers into Pakistan or redirects that water.
The hydrologic reality, Can India stop water?
One common question that arises in moments like this is whether India can simply “stop the flow” of water into Pakistan. In the immediate term, the short answer is no. Certainly not at the scale that would make a meaningful dent in flows during the high flow season.
The Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab are enormous rivers. Between May and September, as snow melts, these rivers carry tens of billions of cubic meters of water. India has some upstream infrastructure on these rivers, including the Baglihar and Kishanganga dams, but none of it is designed to hold back these kinds of volumes. These are run-of-the-river hydropower projects with very limited live storage. Even if India were to coordinate releases across all its existing dams, all it may be able to do is slightly shift the timing of flows.
The overall volumes in the western rivers during this high-flow period are far too large to meaningfully disrupt without flooding its own upstream regions. India already utilizes most of the flow from the eastern rivers allocated to it under the treaty, so any new actions on those rivers would have a more limited downstream impact.
A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical. That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.
Over the medium to longer term, the picture becomes more complicated. If India chooses to act outside the treaty framework, it opens the door to developing new infrastructure that would give it greater control over the timing and volume of flows into Pakistan. But even then, the path is far from straightforward. Any large-scale dam or diversion project would take years to build. The sites available in Indian-occupied Kashmir for significant water storage are limited and geologically challenging. The financial cost would be enormous. And the political risk would be even greater.
Pakistan has long said that any attempt by India to construct major new storage on the western rivers would be viewed as an act of war. In today’s age of satellites, these structures would not be invisible. They would be contested politically and possibly militarily.
How Will It Impact Pakistan?
The Indus Waters Treaty grants India limited rights to develop hydroelectric projects on the western rivers—Jhelum, Chenab, and Indus—through “run-of-the-river” schemes.
These are designed to generate electricity without significantly altering the natural flow or storage of water. While this provision allows India a degree of development, the treaty also safeguards Pakistan’s interests by allowing it to raise objections to any design that may affect downstream water flow.
Pakistan, which receives roughly 80 per cent of the water in the Indus River system, relies heavily on these rivers. Of the 16.8 crore acre-feet of water in the system, India is allocated around 3.3 crore acre-feet. At present, India uses slightly more than 90 percent of its permitted share, leaving Pakistan deeply dependent on the remainder.
This dependence is profound. The Indus River network—comprising the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—forms the backbone of Pakistan’s agricultural sector. It sustains a population of tens of millions, fulfilling 23 per cent of the country’s agricultural water needs and directly supporting nearly 68 per cent of rural livelihoods.
Any disruption to this supply could trigger widespread consequences: reduced crop yields, food insecurity, and further economic instability, particularly in regions already burdened by poverty and an ongoing financial crisis.
Compounding the issue is Pakistan’s limited water storage capacity. Major dams such as Mangla and Tarbela have a combined live storage of just 14.4 million acre-feet (MAF)—a mere 10 percent of the country’s annual entitlement under the treaty. In times of reduced water flow or seasonal variability, this shortfall in storage leaves Pakistan acutely vulnerable.
Can India revoke the Indus Water treaty single handedly??
India cannot unilaterally abrogate or suspend the **Indus Waters Treaty (IWT)** without violating international law, as it is a binding bilateral treaty brokered by the World Bank in 1960 between India and Pakistan. Here are the key points to consider:
The IWT is an international treaty, and unilateral abrogation would undermine India’s credibility in adhering to international agreements. As per Article XII of the treaty, it remains in force unless both parties agree to amend or terminate it.
Unilaterally suspending the treaty could draw international criticism, potentially isolating India diplomatically. Pakistan might take the matter to the **International Court of Justice (ICJ)** or seek intervention from the World Bank, which oversees the treaty’s implementation.
While India has the technical and legal right to fully utilize the waters allocated to it (e.g., by building dams for hydropower projects on the eastern rivers), cutting off water supply to Pakistan entirely would escalate tensions. Such an action could be perceived as a hostile act under international norms, possibly leading to retaliatory measures or conflict.
India has hinted at revisiting the treaty in response to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. In recent years, India has focused on maximizing its use of the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) to assert its rights under the treaty without breaching its provisions.
The treaty divides the rivers geographically and hydrologically. Redirecting western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) would require massive infrastructure, which is not immediately feasible.
While India can threaten to suspend or abrogate the treaty as a diplomatic pressure tactic, it cannot legally or practically do so unilaterally without severe international and regional consequences. However, India can explore ways to maximize its water usage within the treaty’s framework to strengthen its position.
