Asif Mahmood

India is making the same mistake over the Indus Waters Treaty that it made during Operation Sindoor. There, too, it committed a strategic miscalculation and ended up facing international embarrassment. On the Indus Waters issue, India is repeating the same error. It still appears unaware of the price it may have to pay for violating the treaty.

Prime Minister Modi seems to believe that by unilaterally undermining the Indus Waters Treaty and turning water into a weapon, he can force Pakistan into submission. Yet he has not fully grasped the gravity of the situation. The greater cost of violating the treaty will not be borne by Pakistan but by India. This is not mere speculation. It is writing on the wall. If the Indus Waters Treaty ceases to exist, India will find itself trapped in a strategic quagmire that, at present, Mr. Modi does not appear to foresee.

Pakistan has so far exercised strategic restraint, but India has mistaken that restraint for weakness. Pakistan has consistently demonstrated responsibility and caution in every matter. However, once Pakistan chooses to respond in kind, Mr. Modi may once again find himself asking in disbelief, “What? Pakistan has turned the tables on us.”

Pakistan also took its time before responding to Operation Sindoor. When it did respond, the answer was, in its own assessment, more than satisfactory. The same approach is being followed in the case of the Indus Waters Treaty. Pakistan is first completing the process of making its case before the world. It is informing the international community that India is violating international law and putting the lives of millions at risk. Why, then, was the international seminar recently held in Islamabad? It was part of that process: a final warning before a decisive response.

Let us now consider what could follow.

Suppose India persists in its decision to violate the Indus Waters Treaty. What then?

If the Indus Waters Treaty no longer exists, is it inevitable that the Simla Agreement should remain in force under all circumstances? Pakistan, acting as a responsible state, has continued to respect the Simla Agreement despite India’s repeated unilateral and unlawful actions. But for how long? What guarantees are there that Pakistan, in response, will not declare the Simla Agreement terminated? If that agreement no longer remains in force, what becomes of the Line of Control, and what obligation remains to respect it? The entire framework could be fundamentally altered. However, that is not today’s subject and deserves a separate discussion. For now, let us remain focused on the Indus Waters Treaty.

The treaty recognizes Pakistan’s rights over three rivers and India’s rights over the other three. If the treaty ceases to exist, then under generally accepted principles of international law, Pakistan’s rights would extend to all six rivers rather than only three. The three rivers over which Pakistan currently recognizes India’s rights derive that status solely from the treaty. Once the treaty is gone, India’s exclusive rights over those rivers would also cease to exist. If India believes that by ending the treaty it can claim all six rivers for itself, that would be both a strategic miscalculation and a grave mistake. In this view, the treaty’s termination would instead restore Pakistan’s legitimate claim to all six rivers.

At present, India makes full use of the waters of the rivers allocated to it under the treaty. At the same time, because the rivers allocated to Pakistan pass through Indian-controlled territory before entering Pakistan, India also utilizes those waters, both in ways permitted by the treaty and, according to Pakistan, beyond those limits. In practical terms, India benefits from all six rivers, while Pakistan has already been deprived of three and now faces increasing restrictions on the remaining three. If the treaty were to collapse, Pakistan’s claim would extend to all six rivers, a position that, in this argument, is supported by international law.

India’s strategic miscalculation lies in assuming that by unilaterally violating the treaty it can stop the flow of water allocated to Pakistan and effectively take control of all six rivers. Under international law, however, India remains under an obligation to allow the waters of all six rivers to reach Pakistan. It cannot lawfully block even a single river. These waters are not India’s property. Water is regarded as a shared resource to which human beings have common rights.

The United Nations has not left something as fundamental as water at the mercy of any state, allowing it to weaponize water and deprive millions of people of this essential resource. Instead, it has established legal frameworks that impose binding obligations. These include the UN Water Convention, the Protocol on Water and Health, the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Stockholm Declaration, the Dublin Statement, Agenda 21, the 2016 Political Declaration, the Mar del Plata Action Plan, the Helsinki Rules, the UNECE Water Convention, and numerous other legal instruments, some of which also reflect customary international law.

If India believes it can block Pakistan’s water by violating the Indus Waters Treaty, it should recognize that the UN Water Convention explicitly prohibits such conduct.

Under the UN Water Convention, India is legally obliged to ensure that sufficient water reaches Pakistan to satisfy three essential requirements. First, Pakistan must have enough water to meet its drinking water needs. Second, its agricultural sector must not be adversely affected. Third, its environment must not suffer serious harm. It bears repeating that these obligations exist regardless of whether the Indus Waters Treaty remains in force.

If, despite these obligations, India blocks Pakistan’s water, such conduct would, in this argument, amount to a crime against humanity and a violation of international law. The practical implication, from this perspective, would be that Pakistan would have the right to destroy any dam used to obstruct the flow of water allocated to it. At present, Pakistan is still in the stage of exhausting diplomatic and legal remedies, but the Indian leadership, according to this argument, has failed to understand that. What follows after this stage, it contends, could be a decisive confrontation.

It is simply inconceivable that an agricultural country such as Pakistan could be deprived of the waters on which it depends and remain silent. That will not happen. If necessary, Pakistan’s response, according to the author, will be one the world cannot ignore.

India is making a major strategic miscalculation, and it may ultimately pay a very heavy price for it.