'India's letter to Pakistan on April 24 (2025; two days after the Pahalgam terrorist attack) didn't tear up the treaty -- but it did put it on ice.'
In the first of a multi-part interview with Rediff's Prasanna D Zore, Uttam Kumar Sinha -- Senior Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses and author of Indus Basin Uninterrupted, published by Penguin Random House in 2021 -- explains the essence of the Indus Waters Treaty.
With Pakistan calling India's response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack by keeping the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance an 'act of war', Sinha explains how six rivers were carved in two -- eastern flows to India, western to Pakistan -- and why a one-time £62 million payment smoothed the split.
He also explains how Indus Water Treaty's three-tier dispute-resolution ladder was designed to keep water conflicts peaceful, why India's April 2025 'abeyance' differs from exit, and how claims of a 'fundamental change' in circumstances now put this landmark pact on pause.
For a layperson, what exactly is the Indus Waters Treaty? What waters are divided, and why was it considered a landmark agreement?
The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan, has often been praised as 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' -- a rare example of cooperation between two often-hostile neighbours.
But the roots of this treaty lie in the turbulent aftermath of the 1947 Partition. With the Indus river system -- comprising six major rivers -- spanning both nations, a water-sharing agreement became inevitable.
After years of tense negotiations and with the mediation of the World Bank, a unique formula was devised: The river system was effectively split.
The three western rivers -- Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab -- were allocated to Pakistan, while the eastern trio -- Sutlej, Ravi, and Beas -- went to India.
Pakistan ended up with 80.52% of the Indus Basin system's total water flow, a decision made more remarkable by the Treaty's structure: It didn't just divide water, it partitioned rivers themselves.
To soften the blow of losing access to the eastern rivers it had historically used, Pakistan received £62 million from India. This funding helped build new canals linking the western rivers to areas that had once relied on eastern flows.
Given that the IWT has survived wars and crises, what technical or legal grounds does India have to suspend it now?
The Indus Waters Treaty has no exit clause. Because the treaty predates the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties -- and India isn't a signatory -- the convention's withdrawal rules don't apply (to India or Pakistan). In other words, the treaty endures only as long as its signatories choose to honour it.
India's letter to Pakistan on April 24 (2025; two days after the Pahalgam terrorist attack) didn't tear up the treaty -- but it did put it on ice. This is abeyance, not abandonment -- a firm, deliberate pause.
Is it legally defensible? Yes.
The real fracture began with the 2016 Uri attack and Pakistan's repeated use of the treaty to stall Indian infrastructure.
Last August, India invoked Article XII (3) to propose long-overdue modifications. From Delhi's view, Islamabad's continued backing of cross-border terrorism marks a 'fundamental change in circumstances' -- a legitimate basis to revisit treaty obligations.
What is the mechanism under the IWT to resolve disputes? And has Pakistan exhausted that mechanism before India decided to suspend it?
The Indus Waters Treaty while both a water-sharing pact and partitioning treaty has a detailed three-tier dispute resolution mechanism designed to keep tensions from spilling over.
At the first level, differences are to be addressed by the Indus Waters Commission, a permanent bilateral body comprising commissioners from both India and Pakistan.
If the issue remains unresolved, it becomes a disagreement and escalates to a Neutral Expert, appointed with the World Bank's involvement.
Only when technical or legal disagreements persist beyond this can the matter be taken as a dispute to a Court of Arbitration.
But in recent years, Pakistan has repeatedly sidestepped this graduated process. Rather than exhausting the Commission's channels or deferring to a Neutral Expert, Islamabad has rushed to seek arbitration -- most notably over India's Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects.
In 2022, it went a step further by simultaneously pursuing both arbitration and expert evaluation -- an unprecedented move that created a procedural deadlock and undermined the treaty's dispute-resolution integrity.
India, in turn, flagged this as a breach of the treaty's carefully sequenced mechanism and an erosion of its foundational spirit.