The Indus Water Treaty (IWT), signed in Karachi on September 19, 1960, was a historic water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan. The IWT classifies Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab as the “western rivers”, whereas Ravi, Beas, and Satluj are the “eastern rivers.” The primary tributaries of the Indus system originating in India are Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Ghaggar. After the April 2025 terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed, India announced that it was holding the IWT in abeyance, given credible evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the attack.
After Partition, only 12 out of 143 canals in undivided Punjab remained with East Punjab (India). Most of the profitable schemes and technically feasible projects were in West Punjab (Pakistan). East Punjab was deprived of development given rivers were at a significant distance from most of its area.
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At the instance of West Punjab, East Punjab and West Punjab entered into an agreement on December 20, 1947, to continue the status quo ante on the Upper Bari Doab Canal (UBDC) and Ferozepur Headworks till March 31, 1948. Deliberately or otherwise, West Punjab took no steps until March 31, 1948, to negotiate any further agreement with East Punjab. In the absence of any agreement, East Punjab on April 1, 1948, discontinued the use of its installations for the benefit of Central Bari Doab Canal (CBDC) in West Punjab. The CBDC and Dipalpur canals irrigated only 6% of the total irrigated area of Pakistan.
Pakistan soon created a false narrative that India had turned off water to all six rivers on April 1, 1948. On December 16, 1952, M Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan’s Representative in the UN Security Council, stated, “… On 1 April, 1948, … India turned off the waters of these rivers which used to flow into Pakistan”. Khan did not mention nor was questioned in the Security Council about the mechanism to turn off the flow of and India’s capacity to channel or store the water of the six mighty rivers for six weeks.
{{/usCountry}}Pakistan soon created a false narrative that India had turned off water to all six rivers on April 1, 1948. On December 16, 1952, M Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan’s Representative in the UN Security Council, stated, “… On 1 April, 1948, … India turned off the waters of these rivers which used to flow into Pakistan”. Khan did not mention nor was questioned in the Security Council about the mechanism to turn off the flow of and India’s capacity to channel or store the water of the six mighty rivers for six weeks.
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India had not built any structure on any of these six rivers during the nine months between Independence and March 31, 1948, which could control their waters. Khan succeeded in misguiding the Security Council as well as the entire world. This was the context in which the IWT was born.
After the signing of the IWT, India was allowed exclusive use of the eastern rivers estimated at 33 million acre feet (MAF). Pakistan received the waters of the western rivers estimated at 135-140 MAF. Ironically, the treaty allowed India only around 19.6% of the water though it accounts for almost twice that share in terms of catchment area. On the other hand, Pakistan receives around 81% of the water with a much smaller catchment area.
And, according to the 1941 census, 25 million of the dependent population (54%) was in Pakistan and 21 million (46%) in India. Despite this, the river waters were so unevenly distributed under the IWT.
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This post-Partition environment severely disrupted India’s food supply line. Even today, there is acute shortage of water in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, increasing reliance on drawing ground water.
Even now, Pakistan continues with its misleading narratives and overlooks both hydrological realities of water availability and the established operational and maintenance practices of run-of-the-river hydropower projects. And it has used every international platform to amplify its rhetoric: Transboundary water was framed as a “weaponised global common” during a policy seminar in Brussels, co-organised by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and Pakistan’s diplomatic mission to the EU. Similarly, another international seminar titled “The Indus Waters Treaty: An Instrument of Peace and Regional Stability” was held in Islamabad on June 30, where Pakistan sought to draw parallels between the Indus River and critical global maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal.
A Pakistani minister reportedly threatened to “chop off” the hands of anyone constructing diversion structures on the western rivers. Similarly, during an address to the Pakistani diaspora in Tampa, Florida, Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir issued direct military and nuclear threats against India. He said that Pakistan would launch missile strikes to destroy any future Indian dams built on the Indus River basin. Munir should remember that issuing provocative remarks only serve to inflame public opinion across the border, hardening positions.
Out of the 33 MAF of water allocated to India, close to seven MAF still flows to Pakistan due to local site constraints. In Pakistan, approximately 30-40 MAF escapes unutilised into the Arabian Sea, while an additional 30 MAF is lost due to operational inefficiencies and unlined irrigation canals. The systematic wastage of 60 MAF of Indus water by Pakistan, juxtaposed against India’s restricted usage of around 27 MAF despite being the upper riparian State, illustrates the imbalance in the water-sharing arrangement. Rather than spouting empty rhetoric at various forums, Pakistan should focus on minimising its internal water wastage and optimising its resource management to foster regional peace and stability.
The Indus basin has become a unique global anomaly where an upper riparian State is deprived of its natural rights in use of rivers that flow through its territory — be it meeting the basic water demands of its population or contingency storage — while the lower riparian State thriftlessly lets a massive volume get drained into the sea unutilised and wastes a significant quantum of the utilised water because of inefficient irrigation practices.