Much before Pahalgam attack, India had warned Pakistan on Indus Waters Treaty because…

Much before the Pahalgam attack took place on April 22, 2025, India had asked Pakistan for a review of the Indus Waters Treaty. In a letter to her Pakistani counterpart, India’s Secretary of Water Resources, Debashree Mukherjee, reminded him about Pakistan’s intransigence and lack of cooperation. India is peeved at Pakistan particularly because of its continuous objections to India’s run-of-the-river hydropower projects, like the Kishanganga (330 MW) and Ratle (850 MW) projects. Though India maintained that these projects complied with the treaty’s provisions for non-consumptive use, Pakistan escalated the issue and threatened India to take the issue to the World Bank. Earlier in the 2000s Islamabad picked up the  Baglihar dam project and it led to arbitration.

Indus Waters Treaty: Unequal agreement?

This is despite the fact that the IWT is considered the world’s most liberal water treaty. In spite of India being the upper riparian state, 80% of the water of six rivers—the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Satluj—goes to Pakistan. Pakistan objects to any infrastructure projects in India, making in unable to properly use this 20% of the water. 

China complicates issue

India is also angry at Pakistan seeking help from China, which only complicates the issue further. Beijing controls the flow of the Indus in Tibet, the place it originates, by building hydropower projects and dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo, Brahmaputra’s upper reach. To express its solidarity with Pakistan in 2016 after the Uri attack, China,  blocked a Brahmaputra tributary. Analysts believe India might have kept the IWT in abeyance to signal to both Pakistan and China.

‘Blood and water cannot flow together’

Much before the present crisis due to the Pahalgam terrorist attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Uri attack in 2016 in the most unequivocal term, “Blood and water cannot flow together.” India also announced the plan to accelerate dam construction in the Indus basin to maximise its share. Soon after, the Permanent Indus Commission meetings were halted temporarily, though the treaty itself was left untouched. India considered suspending the Indus Waters Treaty in 2019 after the Pulwama terrorist attack. The government directed the water resources ministry to expedite infrastructure projects.

New Delhi also warned Pakistan weeks before the Pahalgam attack. It stopped the flow of Ravi River water into Pakistan on March 1, 2025, after 45 years of delays and redirected it for domestic use. In the latest move, India shut down the Salal Dam on the Chenab River on May 5, 2025.