Strategic calculus: How suspending the Indus Waters Treaty becomes India’s most potent non-military counter to Pakistan-backed terror

As an initial response to the cross-border terrorist attack in Pahalgam which killed over two dozen tourists on April 22, India has suspended its water sharing treaty - the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 – with Pakistan.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which met a day after the attack decided that ‘the treaty will be held in abeyance with immediate effect, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism’. The IWT covers all rivers that are part of the Indus River system, Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej and their tributaries. An abeyance of the treaty could mean India can disrupt the water flow towards Pakistan impacting that country’s drinking water needs, and water availability for agriculture and industry. 

Will India go that far?

Well, the idea of linking water supply to terrorist attack was mooted by Modi nine years ago when he said ‘blood and water could not flow simultaneously’ post the Uri terrorist attack in September 2016. The government had set up a high-level task force look into all the strategic aspects of the IWT with Pakistan soon after and it was decided that India would harness maximum water from the rivers Indus, Chenab and Jhelum on which Pakistan has rights for unrestricted use of water under the provisions of the IWT. Given the fact that India was not utilizing the entire quantum of water it can within the permissible limits of IWT, this decision would have reduced the water flow to Pakistan but not cut off the water supply. The question was to what extent India has the capacity to hold additional water if it wants. In fact, this was one of the questions asked by an expert in a discussion paper published by New Delhi based think tank Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) in 2019; while looking at the various policy options before India in case it needs to look at the water route to punish Pakistan.

The paper had looked stoppage of water from flowing to Pakistan as an option but suggested that it may not be as simple as it seems for multiple reasons. Apart from an issue of human rights violation, the paper pointed out inadequate storage capacity as main reasons for making it an unviable idea, at least in the short term. The second option, again, not preferred, was to maintain ‘status quo’ as climate change and melting glaziers would eventually reduce the water flow in these rivers. The third option, one where India does not violate the IWT but goes ahead with plans to fully utilise the waters entitled by the Treaty, was suggested as the more practical one. The paper written by Major General (Retd.) Ajay Kumar Chaturvedi pointed out that India could very well plan to harness the hydro-electric potential of the Indus River system to utilize more water that is it using today. “Out of a potential of 18653 MW only 2324 MW is being exploited and therefore it would be in fitness of things that India creates the necessary infrastructure to store the water to the extent of her entitlements and generates hydroelectricity as provided in the IWT”, the paper had pointed out. India has planned 21 projects on Chenab, 13 projects on Jhelum and Up-per Sind (Ganderbal) Phase 2 project, the paper said, adding that these will inevitably add to the water storage capacity of India in these rivers.

Incidentally, India’s attempts to build hydropower projects across these rivers in Kashmir have always attracted the protests from Pakistan.  Even the 1960 Treaty was the result of a water sharing dispute between the two countries that started with the Partition of British India in 1947. By keeping the IWT in abeyance, India would be signalling its plans to build more water storage systems across these rivers, but not any immediate stoppage of water flow.