India Pulls the Plug on Indus Water Treaty After Pahalgam Attack

On Thursday, April 24, 2025, India’s Secretary of Water Resources, Debashree Mukherjee, informed her Pakistani counterpart that India was suspending the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with immediate effect. The announcement came just hours after a devastating terrorist attack in Pahalgam claimed the lives of 26 civilians. Pakistan’s response was swift and fierce, calling the move an “act of war” and announcing the suspension of the 1972 Simla Agreement in retaliation.

The Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 and brokered by the World Bank, has long been hailed as a rare beacon of cooperation in the otherwise fraught relationship between India and Pakistan. It survived wars in 1965, 1971, and 1999, multiple border skirmishes, and prolonged diplomatic deadlocks. That resilience now appears to have reached its limit.

India’s decision to suspend the treaty marks a profound and potentially dangerous shift. For over six decades, water was treated as sacrosanct, insulated from political flare-ups even at the height of military confrontations. But in the wake of repeated terror attacks — many of which India links to actors operating from within Pakistan — the mood in New Delhi has palpably hardened. No longer content with issuing condemnations or pursuing protracted international arbitration, India is now turning to resource leverage as a tool of retaliation.

This shift is emblematic of a broader transformation in India’s foreign policy posture. Once cautious, rule-bound, and status quo-oriented, India is becoming increasingly assertive, even transactional, in its dealings with regional adversaries. The suspension of the IWT is not just about water; it is about signalling that the era of restrained, patience-based diplomacy may be coming to an end.

Can India Actually Cut the Flow?

Despite the symbolism of the announcement, significant practical challenges remain. The Indus Waters Treaty divides six rivers between the two countries. India has unrestricted control over the eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — while the western rivers — Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab — are allocated largely to Pakistan, with India retaining limited rights for non-consumptive uses like irrigation, hydropower generation, and navigation.

To substantially alter the flow of water from the western rivers would require an enormous and complex build-up of infrastructure — new dams, canals, diversion tunnels, and large storage facilities — most of which would take years, if not decades, to complete. While India has been working on strategically significant projects like the Kishanganga and Ratle dams in Jammu and Kashmir, these alone are insufficient to fundamentally shift the water balance in the near term. Moreover, any abrupt attempt to tamper with river flows could risk ecological disasters, including flooding Indian territories and violating long-standing environmental norms.

In addition to engineering challenges, international law offers little clarity but plenty of precedents. The Indus Waters Treaty is a bilateral agreement that, under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, cannot be abrogated unilaterally unless there has been a fundamental breach. Terror attacks, while deeply consequential, may not qualify under most interpretations as a legitimate legal trigger for suspending a water-sharing accord.

Global norms, including the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, discourage the weaponisation of water in international disputes. Although India is not a signatory to that convention, any move to block or reduce water flow to Pakistan could trigger diplomatic backlash, especially at a time when India is positioning itself as a responsible voice for the Global South, seeking leadership roles in multilateral forums like BRICS, the SCO, and the G20.

India’s move is not without parallels. In the Middle East, disputes over the Jordan River have long exacerbated tensions between Israel and its neighbours, notably Jordan and Syria. Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile has provoked deep anxiety in downstream Egypt, a country historically reliant on Nile waters for survival. Even in Central Asia, disputes over the sharing of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers have led to diplomatic standoffs between upstream and downstream nations, often exacerbating regional instability.

In virtually all these cases, attempts to control water flows have either deepened hostilities or forced uneasy negotiations. Rarely have such moves resulted in durable peace or resolution. The lesson is clear: while water can serve as a potent lever of influence, it is a perilous one — often escalating conflicts rather than resolving them.

What makes the India-Pakistan case uniquely combustible is the intersection of three volatile factors: the unresolved Kashmir dispute, persistent cross-border terrorism, and the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides. By bringing water into this combustible mix, India is raising the stakes dramatically. This is not merely a policy shift; it is a strategic gamble — one based on the hope that the pressure exerted through treaty suspension will compel Pakistan to rein in the groups India blames for sponsoring terrorism.

However, such gambles are fraught with risk. Pakistan’s decision to suspend the Simla Agreement — the foundational document governing bilateral peace, border protocols, and conflict resolution since 1972 — signals an erosion of the few remaining diplomatic guardrails. The space for dialogue is shrinking, and the pathways for miscalculation, miscommunication, or unintended escalation are widening.

India’s current stance reflects a broader desire to recalibrate its engagement with both Pakistan and the international community. Gone is the strategic patience of the past. In its place is a more self-assured, even aggressive India — one willing to challenge long-held agreements and established norms if they are seen as obstacles to its national security interests.

Experts remain divided. Former National Security Adviser and diplomat Shivshankar Menon has cautioned that “tearing up treaties might feel cathartic, but the real cost is often paid in the years that follow — in diminished credibility, diplomatic isolation, and unintended consequences.” Conversely, retired Army General Syed Ata Hasnain contends that “India has sent a long-overdue message — that peace has its price, and so does provocation.”

Whether the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty marks a temporary, high-stakes diplomatic signal or the start of a long-term strategic doctrine remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that the boundaries of India-Pakistan engagement have shifted. By choosing to weaponise water — one of the last remaining cooperative instruments between the two nations — India has fundamentally redrawn the lines of acceptable retaliation.

The rivers may still flow, but the trust that allowed them to do so for over sixty years is rapidly drying up.

---