How abeyance of Indus Water Treaty will deepen political economic crises in Pakistan

First Post

19-05-2025

Weaponising water or choking Pakistan through riverine disconnect will hurt its Achilles' Heels and stir more unrest in Pakistan. It can be an effective recipe for Pakistan's balkanisation read more
The Baglihar Dam in Jammu and Kashmir's Ramban after India cut the flow of water through the dam on the Chenab river following suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. PTI
The Pahalgam attack on the tourists on April 22, 2025, was Pakistan's provocation. This heinous attack took place in the immediate aftermath of Pakistan's Army Chief, General Asim Munir's communal speech, echoing the standard Pakistani line, blending religiously charged ideological narrative with distraction as a strategy. Animosity against India has always been a powerful narrative, tactically employed time and again to distract the Pakistani citizens from domestic issues.
The Pakistani military has lost its image in the wake of India's surgical strikes and airstrikes in 2016 and 2019, respectively. Imran Khan's brand politics further dwindled the image of the inviolable Pakistani military. General Asim Munir tries to recover the morale of the Pakistani military through anti-India and anti-Hindu rhetoric because it chimes well with the people and is a shortcut to image restoration.
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The Pahalgam attack could not have gone unpunished. The 2016 'surgical strike' and the 2019 Balakot 'airstrike' have set the precedent of what India can do when it is messed up with. The repetition of a limited military action against the terror infrastructure was unavoidable.
The non-military options have been used as well, and they include abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty, closure of the integrated check post Attari, travel ban on Pakistani nationals under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES), staff reduction in the High Commission, suspension of visa services, and suspension of all symbolisms during the Retreat Ceremony at Attari, Hussainiwala, and Sadki in Punjab.
Economic and diplomatic coercions have been rolled out to test Pakistani grit. Psychological war has already started with the abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty. Therefore, weaponising water or choking Pakistan through riverine disconnect will hurt its Achilles' Heels and stir more unrest in Pakistan. It can be an effective recipe for Pakistan's balkanisation.
India has the capacity, and it can push more infrastructure into the Indus water systems to inflict a water war on Pakistan. Since its inception in 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty has never been weaponised. Pakistan's unrestrained terror sponsorship since Partition has forced India to hit back. It will be very different this time. Pakistan has crossed all limits. The Pahalgam massacre was the tipping point. Its demonstrative religious overtones have surpassed all thresholds of restraint. Retribution is the only corollary. Islamabad must be taught a lesson in the language that it understands well. Water war will hit Pakistan harder.
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In the age of climate change, global warming, and freshwater scarcity, water war is an emerging reality. Its viscerality is yet to see the light of day. The scope of conceivable conflicts finds a new dimension through water wars. It is going to be non-kinetic but more damaging. Kinetic wars are becoming increasingly obsolete in the age of a multipolar world order, AI, critical space research, and nuclear power.
The Ukraine-Russia war was never expected to last more than three days. The asymmetrical rivals were conceived to warp the war in a few days. Conversely, it has become unending and inconclusive. It has stretched to the length of two years. Hot pursuits may be risky and involve collateral. But the effective, aggressive, and consistent cold pursuit can be a better deterrence.
The Indus Waters System comprises the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi. The eastern rivers are Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej. The Indus Treaty entitles India to use the waters of the eastern rivers. On the other hand, the western rivers include the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab. The treaty ensures that Pakistan can use its waters. This is Pakistan's lifeline. Its hydropower, agriculture, and industrial and non-industrial domains depend essentially on them. If India carves out the short-, medium- and long-term plans to weaponise Indus water with robust capacity building, Pakistan will undergo nightmares.
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New Delhi has done some effective work in this direction. Many more projects are in the pipeline. If they are rolled out with precision and systematicity, Pakistan will find a surer passage to crushing poverty.
Agriculture contributes to around 25 per cent of Pakistan's GDP. Around 40 per cent of the workforce is involved in the agricultural sector. This explains the importance of the Indus water for Pakistan. Exercising control over the Indus water will hurt Pakistan severely. Food security will be in grave danger. Poverty will embrace Pakistan. Its hydropower stations will run dry, leaving Pakistan in prolonged darkness.
Climate change has affected the precipitation patterns and volume. The Indus water blockade will exacerbate the water crisis, leading to drought or flooding. Downstream will be either inundated or dried depending on India's decision to release or restrict water.
Kishenganga (330 megawatts) and Ratle (850 megawatts) hydroelectric power plant projects on the Jhelum and the Chenab in 2018 have already rattled Pakistan. These are the western rivers where Pakistan has the unrestricted use of water. Pakistan reached out to the World Bank in 2016 against the Kishenganga and Ratle projects. Nothing conclusive came out of this exercise. The hydro projects were built. They strengthen India's capacity for water coercion.
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Pakistan's promotion of terror will now be responded to with water coercion. India's philanthropy has its limits, too. It cannot go on infinitely, especially when Pakistan cultivates hatred against India. However, India has followed the structural specifications of the treaty insofar as the construction of the hydro projects is concerned. It may increase the height to enhance the storage capacity.
Pakistan's downstream Mangla Dam will dry up for want of water. India will fast-track its hydro project constructions on the Jhelum and Chenab. On the eastern rivers, India has already built the Shahpurkandi Dam on the Ravi and is planning the Ujh Dam to redirect its water to Indian fields. The surplus water from the eastern rivers will not be released to Pakistan. This will severely impact Islamabad's fragile economy. Punjab and Sindh Provinces of Pakistan will be directly affected.
The water war on Pakistan will have economic ramifications, affecting agriculture and hydropower production. Indus water feeds Pakistan through irrigation, cotton, rice, and wheat production. Crop yield and food production will nosedive in the absence of water. Pakistan's export basket will shrink. Its textile industry will be impacted. Food prices will skyrocket. Inflation will hit people directly. Economic hardship will hurt the people. On the other hand, electricity production in Punjab and Sindh will be decreased, affecting the industries and manufacturing sectors.
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Suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty will restrict information sharing. If India stops sharing the hydrological data, the downstream areas will have no clue of flooding. Life and livelihoods will face grave risks of inundation, causing severe economic stress. Climate change has invited more unpredictability. Fragile Indus ecology and its glacial ecosystem have become more sensitive. Unpredictability enlarges risk thresholds. Frequent flooding embodies consequences, especially in the downstream.
This, too, has sociological ramifications. Pakistan is a divided society. Economic vulnerability will open a Pandora's box of internal conflicts, clearing the way for balkanisation. The strained relationship between India and Pakistan will hurt the latter, thinning its dependencies on India. However, Pakistan ought to be tutored. Terrorism and friendship cannot coexist.
For Pakistan, India is an enemy nation. This is entrenched in the Pakistani collective unconscious. It will never shift its conviction. Its fundamentals of India hatred, which is synonymous with Hindu hatred, are inalterable. Its political conceptions of the nation-state are ingrained in religious exclusivism. Its existential philosophy rests on religious bigotry. Given this non-negotiable constancy and historicity of hatred, India has tried doggedly to transform Pakistan despite betrayal and declarative despise.
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India has done everything from humanitarian aid, Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, medical help, and education to people-to-people contact. India has always followed the rule of law and shown humanitarian gestures. Conversely, it has only received hatred, terrorism and war. India gave Pakistan the MFN status in 1996. It was withdrawn in 2019 following the Pulwama attack. The 26/11 Mumbai attack in 2008 was forgotten in the pursuit of friendship with the enemy nation. It was always misconstrued that the Pakistani state is not the same as its people. This misconception has given India a hard time. It is time to shun it.
Since 2016, India's action against Pakistan terror has been stern, swift and decisive. Its unequivocal iteration will keep Pakistan in check. It is time to overcome Stockholm syndrome and smell the coffee. It is time to act and set a precedent so that Pakistan will think many times before it does anything wrong.
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Jajati K Pattnaik is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Chandan K Panda is an Assistant Professor at Rajiv Gandhi University (A Central University), Itanagar. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.