The Court of Arbitration’s (CoA) recent “supplemental award” issued on June 27 has once again placed the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) at the centre of international scrutiny. 

The award, which asserts the CoA’s continuing jurisdiction despite India’s objections and its preference for neutral expert mediation, adds another layer to what is already a deeply complex and increasingly untenable framework. 

But the real flashpoint came earlier—when India, in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam targeting innocent tourists, formally announced that it would place the IWT in abeyance. 

In doing so, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s words were clear, unequivocal, and morally resonant: “Water and blood cannot flow together.”

Indus Waters Treaty—a pact that, even when signed in 1960 under the World Bank’s guidance, was widely regarded as unjust by Indian interests. 

It divided the six rivers of the Indus system between India and Pakistan, handing over the lion’s share of water—approximately 80% of the total flow—to Pakistan. This left India with only 20% of the total water flow. Yet despite such asymmetry, India has remained faithful to its commitments. 

The Indus Waters Treaty was brokered at a time when geopolitical, environmental, and technological realities were vastly different. 

In an act of magnanimity—and under significant international pressure—India agreed to allocate the three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) to Pakistan, while retaining the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) for itself. 

The way India and Pakistan treated the waters of the Indus River System diverged significantly. India, rapidly developed key dams and hydro-energy projects on its share of the rivers. Such modernisation and equitable distribution of water resources amongst the lower riparian provinces of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana was a force multiplier in the Green Revolution and the hydro-power generation in India.

On the other hand, Pakistan still largely relies on legacy infrastructure for the effective utilization of its share of the Indus Waters. Moreover, its discriminatory policies have led to geographical discrepancies in distribution of water, leaving minority populated areas of Sindh largely barren and devoid of the benefits of the Indus Water, while Punjab benefits disproportionately from new and legacy projects. Despite having a large and expansive irrigation network, Pakistan has failed to modernise and like all its resources, the elites have the first say over water distribution.

The reality is that Pakistan continues to rely disproportionately on the Indus waters for agriculture, drinking water, and industrial use, all while failing to modernise its own water infrastructure.

Pakistan’s irrigation systems are among the most inefficient in the world. 

Vast quantities of water are wasted due to poor canal systems, lack of storage infrastructure, and mismanagement. 

There has been little effort to build new reservoirs or adopt modern water-saving technologies. 

Instead, Pakistan has relied on the predictable flow of the Indus—secured under the treaty and funded by India’s cooperation—as a substitute for self-reliance and reform.

It was only a matter of time before such fidelity and colossal wastage of a precious resource would be noticed by India.

A treaty born of compromise, now rendered obsolete

The assumption was that such a water-sharing agreement would help maintain peace and stability between two neighbours locked in a deepening rivalry over Kashmir.

But over six decades later, those assumptions no longer hold. 

While both have scrupulously adhered to the treaty in letter, even during times of war and military tension, the spirit in which the treaty was meant to function is no longer alive. Pakistan’s undeclared proxy war against India in the form of terrorism is often used by India to accuse Pakistan of having violated the original spirit of cooperation and co-existence that formed the basis of the Indus Water Treaty. The treaty which survived three wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999 and numerous cases of increased border tensions finally fell victim to the guns of terrorists which India accuses are trained, supported and equipped by Pakistan’s ISI

It was only after what Zulfikar Bhutto, the ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan called his doctrine of “thousand cuts”, was initiated in the form of institutional support for terrorism by Pakistan, that India started taking a hard look at this inequitable distribution of water resources and the baggage that it entailed. 

The recent Pahalgam terrorist attack, where tourists were targeted and lives brutally lost, was the last straw, in decades long insurgency which Pakistan has covertly and at times overtly sponsored. The attack on innocent civilians in Pahalgam was yet another reminder that Pakistan’s terror machinery remains active, emboldened, and unrepentant, despite international sanctions and monitoring.

CoA’s award: Ignoring ground realities

In its June 27 ruling, the Court of Arbitration held that it had a continuing responsibility to proceed “in a timely, efficient, and fair manner without regard to India’s position on abeyance.” 

While the CoA may be within its legal rights to interpret the IWT in this manner, it fails to address a critical truth: treaties do not exist in a vacuum. They are products of political realities, national interests, and mutual trust—all of which are absent today.

Moreover, the Court’s acknowledgement that both the neutral expert and the CoA have overlapping jurisdiction on matters of dispute underlines the legal ambiguities within the IWT framework itself. 

This interpretational overlap is not just a procedural issue—it reflects the outdated and ill-defined nature of the treaty’s architecture. 

At a time when India faces claims to face existential threats from across the border, asking it to adhere to a rigid treaty framework with a hostile neighbour is unrealistic.

Terror-water nexus: A dangerous equation

Pakistan’s security establishment made a strategic choice in the 1970s  to support terrorism against India as state policy. 

Whether through harbouring Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), shielding Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), or offering safe havens to global jihadists, Pakistan has often flirted with danger and gotten away with it. Whether it was the discovery of Osama Bin Laden in Rawalpindi, just a few miles from their Army Headquarters (GHQ) or the evidence which India presented to show Pakistan’s complicity in the terror attacks on Mumbai in 2008, Pakistan’s terror infrastructure survived.

This is not an environment where diplomacy can flourish or treaties can be expected to function. 

The Indian government, facing significant internal pressures, finally took a call that it was time to make some doctrinal changes to their stance on such mischief.

When Prime Minister Modi said “water and blood cannot flow together,” he wasn’t just issuing a warning—he was articulating a principled doctrine. 

The moral and strategic: a nation cannot be expected to provide essential lifelines to a neighbour that repeatedly sends death squads across the border, is hard to counter if we see beyond the isolated shield provided by the provisions of the treaty

Moral onus lies on the people of Pakistan

Some critics argue that suspending the IWT could hurt ordinary Pakistanis more than its leadership. 

That may be true, and it is precisely due to that reason that the people of Pakistan deserve better. The onus for this crisis lies disproportionately on Pakistan’s own establishment, which has consistently prioritised militancy over modernisation, jihad over jobs, and propaganda over progress, pushing a growing India into a corner, which its wants to box its way out of.

If there is to be any hope of restoring mutual arrangements like the IWT, changes must be made by Pakistan to its “thousand cuts” doctrine. 

It is for the people of Pakistan to demand accountability from their military-dominated state. 

An Abeyance in Context

India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, no matter how surprising, is strictly not a violation of international law—it is a act of punishment and national self-preservation. 

It reflects the profound shift in regional dynamics, the moral exhaustion of tolerating cross-border terrorism, and the structural failure of a treaty framework that no longer fits the geopolitical realities of the 21st century.

The IWT may have been hailed as a symbol of cooperation once, but today it has become a symbol of India’s patience being stretched beyond its limits. 

Pakistan continues to protest at all available international fora against India’s decision to hold the treaty in ‘abeyance’, calling it a hegemonic. However, it is about time that the average Pakistani contemplate the factors that have led to this predicament. It is time for the average Pakistani to question the decisions of the Establishment to support jihadi and radical elements as a matter of state policy in general and the moral and logistical support for terrorism against India in particular, and seek accountability from their political and military rulers.

To the rational unbiased eye, the abeyance of the IWT, when seen in the context of the horrifying videos of the Pahalgam massacre, appears justified.

It is easy and convenient to see India’s actions as collective punishment. However, it is important to see that such actions are in fact a chance for the Pakistani awam to speak up against the policies of their military rulers. Policies, which have reduced them to a country with vast resources and potential, and yet dependent on IMF and World Bank for their survival.  The world may have to understand: no treaty, however noble in its origins, can survive in the shadow of bloodshed and betrayal. The Pakistani citizens deserve better, and it is time for them to raise their voices.

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