Staunch the breach: On India, Pakistan and the Indus Waters Treaty

In its fourth notice to Pakistan since January 2023, India has escalated its demand for the renegotiation of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), now calling off all meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) until Pakistan agrees to sit at the table for talks. India’s demand last year followed a logjam in the entire process, once held up internationally as a model template for water-sharing agreements. Even in the new millennium, the tenets of the treaty held firm, and India was able to win two major disputes by adhering to the processes laid out, including the Baglihar Dam project in 2007, and another dispute over allegations that India was interfering with Pakistan’s Neelum project in 2013. The issue over how to proceed on dispute resolution for the Kishenganga and Ratle projects has snowballed since 2016, when Pakistan escalated the disputes — having a neutral expert look at them and demanding a Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). In a moment of weakness, that it may come to regret, the World Bank — it is a co-signatory and guarantor of the IWT — decided to allow two parallel processes of the dispute mechanism to run at the same time. To make matters worse, Pakistan turned its back on the neutral expert’s proceedings, while India has boycotted the PCA hearings at The Hague. Pakistan has been cold to India’s notices on renegotiating the treaty and the decision by the Modi government to stop all PIC meetings has put the future of the process in peril. Unlike in past decades, when the IWT was considered off-limits for partisan politics, leaders on both sides are now not above using fiery rhetoric. Mr. Modi’s statement after the 2016 Uri attack, that “blood and water” cannot flow together, is perhaps the most egregious example.

It is no coincidence that the spiral mirrors the unravelling of the India-Pakistan bilateral relationship in the same period. There is no political engagement or trade and the 2021 LoC ceasefire agreement is in danger after growing terror attacks and deaths of Indian Army personnel. It may be possible to re-open the treaty talks, but concluding any agreement will be that much more difficult. All eyes are now on New Delhi’s response to Pakistan’s invitation for the SCO Heads of Government meeting on October 15-16. Such an opening could present an opportunity for talks on the way forward. No doubt, new-age issues such as climate change and the need for renewable energy and hydropower options on the Indus necessitate a re-opening of the 64-year-old Treaty. How that is done, along with resolving current disputes, will decide whether the two countries can save the treaty, once referred to as the “one bright spot” in a “very depressing world picture” by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.