Islamabad, Pakistan – Seven many years in the past, one in every of South Asia’s biggest fiction writers, Saadat Hasan Manto, revealed a brief story set in a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The plot revolved round rumours of an Indian plan to “shut down” water to Pakistan by closing off rivers that irrigated the province’s crops.
A personality within the 1951 story titled Yazid responds to that chatter by saying, “…who can shut a river; it’s a river, not a drain.”
That idea is now on check, 74 years later — with implications for 2 of the world’s most populous nations which might be additionally nuclear-armed neighbours.
In April 2025, after gunmen killed 26 civilians, nearly all vacationers, in an assault in Indian-administered Kashmir, New Delhi blamed armed teams that it mentioned have been backed by Pakistan for the violence.
India introduced it was walking out of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a six-decade-old transboundary water settlement that governs the division of water from the Indus Basin’s six rivers. The treaty is a lifeline for greater than 270 million individuals, most of whom stay in Pakistan.
A day after India’s announcement, Pakistan’s Nationwide Safety Committee (NSC), the nation’s prime safety physique, rejected the “unilateral” transfer, warning that “any diversion of Pakistan’s water is to be handled as an act of war”.
Within the weeks that adopted, India and Pakistan engaged in an intense four-day conflict in Could, throughout which each nations exchanged missile and drone strikes, earlier than US President Donald Trump introduced a ceasefire between them.
However although the weapons have fallen silent, for now, the neighbours have each launched diplomatic campaigns aimed toward convincing the world about their narratives.
And India has refused to rethink its determination to put aside the IWT. On June 21, Amit Shah, India’s house minister and the person extensively thought of because the second-in-command to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, declared the treaty would stay suspended permanently.
“It would by no means be restored. Worldwide treaties can’t be annulled unilaterally, however we had the precise to place it in abeyance, which we have now executed,” Shah instructed The Occasions of India, the nation’s main newspaper, in an interview.
“The treaty preamble mentions that it was for peace and progress of the 2 nations, however as soon as that has been violated, there’s nothing left to guard,” he mentioned.
For Pakistan, a decrease riparian nation, even the potential for water disruption is an existential menace.
Blocking river flows threatens agriculture, meals safety, and the livelihoods of tens of millions. It might additionally, warn consultants, set the stage for a full-fledged warfare between India and Pakistan.
So can India actually cease Pakistan’s water? And may Pakistan do something to mitigate that threat?
The brief reply: India can’t fully cease the stream of rivers into Pakistan, given the present infrastructure that it has. However consultants warning that even a small diversion or blockage might harm Pakistan, notably throughout the winter season. And for the time being, Pakistan doesn’t have the reservoirs it must retailer sufficient water to take care of the disaster it will face if India have been to handle to cease the stream of the Indus Basin rivers.
A river that defines the area
The mighty Indus River, the twelfth longest on the planet, originates from Mount Kailash in Tibet at an elevation of 5,490 metres (18,000 toes).
It flows northwest, reducing by way of the scenic but disputed Kashmir area, earlier than coming into Pakistan and travelling some 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) south to the Arabian Sea.
In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Indus is joined by its western tributaries – the Swat and Kabul Rivers – because it carves by way of mountainous terrain.
Getting into the fertile plains of Punjab, the river’s 5 japanese tributaries — the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — meet the Indus.
These rivers stream by way of Indian-administered Kashmir and different Indian states earlier than coming into Pakistan.
This geographic dynamic, with India because the higher riparian state and Pakistan the decrease state, has fed into long-standing mistrust between the neighbours.
To be clear, transboundary water conflicts usually are not unique to Pakistan and India, and historians have recorded wars over water since historic occasions.
Within the final half a century alone, Turkiye, Syria and Iraq have had disputes over water sharing because of the building of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Extra lately, there’s an ongoing water battle between Egypt and Sudan in opposition to Ethiopia, an higher riparian state setting up a dam on the Nile, inflicting insecurity among the many two decrease riparian nations.
In South Asia itself, Bangladesh, India and Nepal have water-sharing disputes over the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna rivers system.
Partition’s lingering legacy
As with most India-Pakistan disputes, the 2 nations’ tensions over water are rooted within the partition of the subcontinent in August 1947, when each nations gained independence from British colonial rule.
The area of Jammu and Kashmir, the place the Jhelum originates and the Chenab flows, grew to become a central point of conflict.
However one other crucial subject was the division of Punjab’s irrigation system, which had operated as a unified community underneath British rule. Canals, rivers and headworks have been all intertwined, complicating water sharing.
A brief-lived settlement held till March 1948, when India suspended water stream by way of two canals into Pakistan. The stoppage left practically eight % of cultivable land in Pakistani Punjab with out water for 5 weeks.
That early disaster impressed Manto’s Yazid and served because the catalyst for the Indus Waters Treaty.
With World Financial institution mediation and monetary assist, the treaty [PDF] was signed in September 1960, after 9 years of negotiations between India and Pakistan.
Based on Majed Akhter, senior lecturer in geography at King’s School London, the treaty was a “hydraulic partition” that adopted political partition. “It was wanted to resolve problems with the operation of an built-in irrigation system in Punjab, a province which the British invested closely in and that was partitioned in 1947,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
However Akhter identified that water sharing between the neighbours can also be linked to their dispute over Kashmir. Each India and Pakistan management components of the area, with China additionally administering two slices of Kashmir. India, nonetheless, claims all of Kashmir, and Pakistan claims the entire area aside from the components managed by China, its ally.
“Territorial management of Kashmir means management of the waters of the Indus, which is the principle supply of water for the closely agrarian economies” of Pakistan and India, Akhter mentioned.
India and Pakistan have fought three of their 4 wars over Kashmir, earlier than the famous updates battle in Could.
Treaty that divided the rivers
The 85-page treaty is unusually structured. Not like most world water treaties that share water in keeping with their whole quantity of flows, the IWT divides the rivers.
The three japanese rivers – Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas – have been allotted completely to India, whereas the three western rivers – Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab – have been reserved for Pakistan’s unique use.
India, nonetheless, was permitted to construct “run-of-the-river” hydroelectric initiatives on the western rivers, supplied they adhered to design limitations meant to make sure uninterrupted water stream to Pakistan.
The treaty additionally has a three-tiered dispute decision mechanism.
Any technical questions are introduced earlier than the Everlasting Indus Fee, a standing bilateral physique composed of 1 commissioner from every nation, which is ready up underneath the IWT clauses.
If the fee can’t resolve any variations, the matter is then referred to a impartial knowledgeable underneath the supervision of the World Financial institution. If the dispute nonetheless stays unresolved, it could actually then be taken to the Everlasting Court docket of Arbitration (PCA). The Hague-based PCA isn’t a United Nations company however an intergovernmental organisation to which nations go to “facilitate arbitration and different types of dispute decision between states”.
Although the treaty has been in place for over six many years, this formal dispute decision path has solely been invoked in three circumstances, all involving Indian hydroelectric energy initiatives on western rivers: Baglihar, Kishenganga and Ratle.
India was capable of win its case concerning Baglihar, a dam constructed on the Chenab, earlier than a impartial knowledgeable in 2007, following which the venture began working a yr later.
The Kishenganga venture, constructed on the Jhelum, once more confronted resistance from Pakistan, which claimed the development would impression water stream into Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The matter was taken to the PCA, the place a 2013 determination allowed India to divert water for energy technology functions, whereas making certain that water stream in the direction of Pakistan continued. The venture was inaugurated in 2018 by Indian PM Modi.
The Ratle hydroelectric plant, additionally being constructed on the Chenab, is the famous updates flashpoint between the 2 neighbours.
Pakistan has sought the PCA’s involvement over the dispute, however India has argued that underneath the IWT, the nations must first go earlier than a impartial knowledgeable. Nonetheless, with India now now not adhering to the water-sharing treaty, a cloud hovers over the arbitration course of, whereas building on the venture continues.
‘Blood and water’
Over its 65-year historical past, the IWT has withstood main pressures: Wars, a secessionist motion in Indian-administered Kashmir, recurring army skirmishes, lethal assaults in India that New Delhi has blamed on Pakistan-backed armed teams, and even nuclear exams by India and Pakistan.
The April 2025 Pahalgam attack marked a breaking level. However indicators of the treaty’s fragility had emerged lengthy earlier than that.
In September 2016, following an assault on an Indian Military base in Uri, a city in Indian-administered Kashmir, that killed at the least 18 Indian troopers, India accused the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistan-based armed group that has carried out a number of assaults on Indian soil, of being behind the Uri strike.
Pakistan swiftly denied any involvement of its authorities, however India’s then-Dwelling Minister Rajnath Singh branded Pakistan a “terrorist state” that supported “terrorists and terrorism teams”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then in his first time period main the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Get together, declared, “Blood and water can’t stream on the identical time”, amid rising calls inside India to cease the stream of water in Pakistan.
9 years later, after India really walked out of the treaty, former Pakistani International Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari issued a warning much more chilling than Modi’s authentic remark.
“The Indus is ours and can stay ours, both our water will stream by way of it, or their blood,” he thundered at an April rally in Sindh, a province named after the Indus River (Sindhu in Sanskrit).
Symbolism or substance?
A number of water consultants argue that India’s suspension of the IWT is extra symbolic than instantly dangerous to Pakistan.
Naseer Memon, an Islamabad-based environmental and water knowledgeable, known as it a “political gimmick” designed to generate nervousness in Pakistan relatively than alter water flows.
First, there’s worldwide regulation, which Pakistan believes is on its aspect. “Modi is attempting to painting that he would cease Pakistan’s water instantly. However legally, he can’t determine something in regards to the IWT unilaterally,” Memon instructed Al Jazeera.
Three weeks after India’s suspension of the treaty, Ajay Banga, the Indian-American president of the World Financial institution, additionally mentioned that there isn’t a provision within the IWT that permits a celebration to unilaterally droop the treaty.
“There is no such thing as a provision within the treaty to permit to be suspended. The way in which it was drawn up, it both must be gone or it must be changed by one other one. That requires the 2 nations to wish to agree,” he mentioned throughout a go to to New Delhi in Could.
Geography and infrastructure additionally restrict what India can do. Daanish Mustafa, professor of crucial geography at King’s School London, argued that these elements defend Pakistan greater than its policymakers on both aspect acknowledge. “The fanatic attachment to hydro-control in India and hydro-vulnerability in Pakistan is sort of comical,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Of the six rivers within the Indus Basin, the waters of three — the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — are in any case just for India’s use, underneath the IWT.
Of the three rivers whose waters belong to Pakistan, the Indus passes briefly by way of Indian-administered Kashmir and Ladakh. However Memon, the Islamabad-based knowledgeable, mentioned that topography within the area signifies that the river passes by way of areas which might be snowy, with little house for any canal diversion or agricultural initiatives. “Plus, there’s not sufficient quantum of water within the Indus in that space which might make it possible for India to construct any venture,” he mentioned.
Indian hydroelectric initiatives on the remaining two rivers — the Kishenganga dam on the Jhelum, and Baglihar dam and the under-construction Ratle dam on the Chenab — have sparked considerations in Pakistan, which has protested in opposition to them underneath the IWT.
Islamabad alleges that the initiatives might permit India to decrease water ranges into Pakistan, and that the Kishenganga dam might additionally change the course of the Jhelum. New Delhi rejects these allegations.
In actuality, consultants say that as with the Indus, India lacks the flexibility to divert water from the Jhelum, too. The river passes by way of populated areas of Indian-administered Kashmir akin to Baramulla and Jammu, Memon mentioned. Any plans to assemble a dam there might put the inhabitants liable to inundation.
The case of the Chenab is totally different. Its waters “might be disturbed” by India, Memon mentioned, although not in all seasons.
The knowledgeable says that the river has a number of potential websites the place dams might be constructed. However even when India constructed a dam, Memon mentioned, it will not be capable of retailer a lot water throughout the summer time season, when the stream of water is at its peak, as that would threat flooding India’s personal inhabitants residing close to the venture. To keep away from that, India would want to permit water to stream downstream — into Pakistan.
Anuttama Banerji, a New Delhi-based political analyst and water specialist, agreed that India can’t “cease” the river stream, solely regulate its launch.
“The stream of the Chenab River might be regulated by way of dams and storage amenities, however India would want severe capital funding [for that]”, she mentioned. “The menace received’t materialise for Pakistan within the rapid time period.”
Nonetheless, warn many consultants, simply because India can’t for the time being cease water stream into Pakistan doesn’t scale back both the worth of the IWT as a weapon for New Delhi, or Islamabad’s vulnerability sooner or later.
‘Actual strain level’
Dan Haines, environmental historian at College School London and creator of the e-book Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters within the Making of India and Pakistan, warned that even symbolic disruptions of water flows by India might undermine Pakistan’s agriculture.
Agriculture accounts for nearly 25 % of Pakistan’s gross home product (GDP) and employs greater than 40 % of the workforce.
“The Indian authorities introduced the abeyance in a short time after the Pahalgam terrorist assault as a result of it is aware of that water is an actual strain level for Pakistan. Water could be very politically delicate,” Haines mentioned.
In some ways, the latest fracture over river-sharing is exactly what the IWT had tried to insulate India-Pakistan relations from, say analysts.
“What India is trying to do is to tug the difficulty of water squarely again into the area of politics, which the treaty explicitly sought to separate,” Erum Sattar, lecturer in sustainable water administration at Tufts College, instructed Al Jazeera.
“Given Pakistan’s reliance on the waters of the Indus, it’s completely the case that having the treaty maintain in its current kind is crucial and very important to Pakistan.”
And Pakistan wants to organize for a future the place India may need the flexibility to harm it greater than it at present can, utilizing water, mentioned Ahmed Irfan Aslam, a lawyer by follow, and a former federal minister who oversaw portfolios together with regulation, justice, water, local weather change, and funding. Aslam has additionally represented Pakistan in worldwide water arbitration circumstances, together with underneath the IWT.
“India doesn’t have the capability to cease rivers from flowing at the moment. However that doesn’t imply that they can not purchase or develop that technique over time,” he mentioned.
Memon, too, agreed that whereas India can’t block the Chenab’s stream into Pakistan in the summertime, the dynamic modifications when the climate does.
“The actual concern, nonetheless, arises throughout winter when water stream reduces. And in case India builds storage or diversion initiatives, they might trigger hurt to Pakistan’s winter crops, akin to wheat,” he mentioned. “Moreover, if there’s a lean water stream in the summertime season, the dams can even retailer water throughout that point as properly, which might harm Pakistan’s agriculture.”
Shiraz Memon (no relation to Naseer), a former Pakistani consultant on the Everlasting Indus Fee for Pakistan, additionally mentioned that he feared that future Indian initiatives on the Chenab might ultimately harm Pakistan.
These initiatives — together with the Ratle dam — “might maintain water between 50 to 60 days throughout winter, which might be very damaging to Pakistan’s Punjab, which is completely reliant on the Chenab River for its agricultural wants,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
How ready is Pakistan for an India block on water flows?
For the time being, Pakistan has restricted water storage capabilities. The nation has three main multipurpose reservoirs – Mangla, Tarbela, and Chashma – in addition to 19 barrages and 12 inter-river hyperlink canals.
Collectively, these permit for the storage of just below 15 million acre-feet (MAF) of water, sufficient for roughly 4 weeks. Worldwide requirements advocate storage equal to at the least 120 days.
To handle the shortfall, Pakistan is constructing two main dams on the Indus River – Mohmand and Diamer-Bhasha – that are anticipated to extend capability by one other 9 MAF upon their completion in 2028 and 2029, respectively.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lately acknowledged the necessity for expanded storage and pledged to behave. “The enemy has sure evil designs in opposition to Pakistan and desires to take steps in opposition to the water treaty. For that, the federal government has determined that we are going to construct our water storage,” Sharif mentioned on July 1.
In impact, that units up a race between India doubtlessly growing the aptitude to truly block the stream of water into Pakistan if it desires to, and Pakistan constructing storage amenities sufficiently big to scale back the danger of a compelled water scarcity.
Nonetheless, regardless of how a lot storage capability Pakistan builds, it received’t be sufficient to outlive greater than short-term disruptions to water stream, if India have been to attempt to block rivers from coming into into its neighbour’s territory.
Khurram Dastgir Khan, a former federal minister for international affairs and defence in Pakistan, mentioned that India buying the aptitude to divert or retailer water within the medium to long run might push the area into warfare.
“India’s menace is a real, existential concern,” Khan, a senior chief of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, instructed Al Jazeera. “The Indus Basin is a civilisation. Move of those waters has braced our surroundings and sustained growth of Pakistan’s tradition, arts, agriculture, and business. However PM Modi and his ministers have threatened repeatedly to cease each drop of water flowing into Pakistan.”
What makes that menace notably worrying for Pakistan, mentioned Aslam, the opposite former minister, is the breakdown in any belief between the neighbours.
“What you may have proper now’s a state of affairs by which we as Pakistanis really feel that good religion is now not there on the opposite aspect of the border,” Aslam instructed Al Jazeera throughout an interview at his residence in Islamabad.
However Aslam acknowledged that the sentiment may be shared throughout the border. “Indians might have an analogous view on this about Pakistan,” he conceded.
A brand new Indus Waters Treaty?
For now, either side have adopted hard-line positions. New Delhi has rejected any reversal of the IWT suspension, whereas Pakistani officers have termed it an “act of warfare” and accused India of weaponising water.
However analysts — and a few Pakistani politicians — nonetheless maintain out hope for diplomacy, or worldwide authorized intervention.
“India, we hope, and we count on, will act like a accountable state,” mentioned Aslam. “And ultimately, no matter points there are, two neighbours must sit down to speak to one another and resolve.”
Al Jazeera reached out to a number of Pakistani authorities officers – together with the ministers for defence, info, and water – however obtained no responses in regards to the authorities’s plan of motion for a state of affairs when India really is ready to — and does — block the stream of water.
Nonetheless, a senior army official, talking on situation of anonymity, identified that Pakistan was already invoking worldwide authorized channels to make its case.
Since 2016, Pakistan has been protesting India’s hydroelectric initiatives on the Jhelum and Chenab on the Everlasting Court docket of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague. Final week, the PCA ruled that India’s determination to carry the IWT in abeyance didn’t impression its authority to adjudicate the case.
Nonetheless, India has constantly refused to recognise the PCA’s authority within the case, so it’s unclear whether or not New Delhi will settle for any verdict that emerges from that courtroom.
That successfully leaves Pakistan with two choices: a army response, or a diplomatic answer.
The senior army official mentioned that for Pakistan, the Indus waters have been a “lifeline for the 250 million individuals of the nation”.
“We see this as an act of warfare, and if there’s any motion taken by the Indians which we deem dangerous to our curiosity, we’ll reply,” the official instructed Al Jazeera. “Any act of warfare authorises us to ship an acceptable, reputable and befitting response at a time and place of our selecting.”
Banerji, additionally a former fellow on the Washington-based Stimson Middle, mentioned any army response could be unwise on condition that the latest battle has already decreased house for dialogue.
“I imagine Pakistan must also reassess the treaty and see the place it could actually derive advantages from a modified treaty, as that may allow the treaty to accumulate a brand new kind that’s mutually useful to either side,” she mentioned.
Mustafa, the King’s School London geography professor, mentioned Pakistan might use India’s determination to stroll away from the IWT to additionally search a renegotiated settlement — together with by staking a declare to a few of the water from the japanese rivers that New Delhi at present controls totally.
Aslam mentioned that though direct negotiations between India and Pakistan stay the best means ahead, the present local weather makes dialogue unlikely.
“As a measure of final resort, I believe the [Pakistan] authorities has made its place very clear on this,” he mentioned.
“If Pakistan is disadvantaged of water, all choices are there on the desk, together with the consideration to make use of army options.”