THE Indus Waters Treaty has been a failure — scientific, environmental and socioeconomic. It stood on a pillar made of political sand, which has collapsed. Let us brace ourselves for the reality that the IWT is no more; let’s rejoice and move on with the opportunities this situation has brought.
Surprisingly, neither India nor Pakistan was facing water shortages when the treaty negotiations started. It was triggered through political prejudice alone — India shut down the canals emanating from the head works now under its control (after Partition) but feeding irrigated land in Pakistan. It was a war crime according to the Rome Statute. The dispute was immediately hijacked by players of the Cold War. It was seen as an opportunity to prevent India from drifting into the communist bloc and Pakistan from becoming another Korea — were war to break out over the Kashmir dispute.
Based on this premise, David E. Lilienthal, the former head of Tennessee Valley Authority, proposed a ‘solution’ and wrote to Eugene Black, president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), that there were business opportunities for the bank in the implementation of his proposal regarding the Indus Basin.
Lilienthal’s solution, however, defied science. First, it suggested that both countries build infrastructure to prevent the river waters from reaching the sea — a death sentence for the world’s sixth largest mangrove forest and the Indus Delta, which is an environmental system of global significance. Second, it supported an illusion of greening the deserts through canals.
The IWT allowed the complete shutting down of three large rivers, with no provision of environmental flows downstream, which was unprecedented. The final nail in the coffin was driven by letting India dispose of unlimited contaminants into the empty riverbeds of the Ravi and Sutlej flowing into Pakistan.
Neither India nor Pakistan was facing water shortages when the treaty negotiations started.
International water treaties are negotiated to safeguard the rights of lower riparian jurisdictions. Primarily, a treaty is needed to protect a lower riparian from excessive diversions upstream, which may reduce the flow downstream; extreme damming upstream, which disrupts the natural rhythms of flow downstream; and dumping polluted waste upstream, which contaminates the water quality and impacts the environment downstream.
The IWT, however, has allowed, first, all practicably possible diversions to the upper riparian (and what was not practically feasible was ‘given’ to the lower riparian); second, an unlimited number of dams upstream (with some conditions); and, third, uncapped pollution from upstream. In other words, the treaty completely deprived the lower riparian of its rights. This is, thus, not a treaty to safeguard the lower riparian but a licence for the upper riparian to violate all international provisions and the rights of the lower riparian. From a lower riparian’s perspective, it is not a treaty, but a surrender.
A treaty is generally negotiated when the initial positions of two parties are different. Negotiations bring the two parties somewhere between their initial positions — give and take is involved. In the IWT’s case, India’s initial position was to get 100 per cent of the waters of Ravi, Beas and Sutlej (eastern rivers) and 7pc from the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab (western rivers).
Pakistan’s initial position was to retain 100pc of the western rivers and 70pc of the eastern rivers. After years of negotiations, India not only got 100pc eastern and 7pc of the western rivers, but also the permission to dump unlimited and untreated waste in the Ravi and Sutlej downstream into Pakistan. In effect, Pakistan had forfeited all its rights as a lower riparian and surrendered to all of India’s demands.
The big question is, what circumstances forced, tricked or lured Pakistan into signing such an agreement. Apparently, it was a condition set by IBRD, that in order to get financing for building two large dams (on the Indus and Jhelum), Pakistan must sign an agreement with India for the closure of the eastern rivers as was proposed by the IBRD in 1954. Perhaps the lure of funds for megaprojects was too much to resist with little thought for the long-term repercussions of such an agreement. The latter, when finally signed in 1960, went down as an annexure to the funding agreement between IBRD and Pakistan and had nothing to do with India. It was only in 1962, when on India’s request, the document was added to the UN’s register of international treaties, and thus the agreement gained the status of an international treaty.
The consequences are nothing short of an ecocide — from stunted growth, gastrointestinal diseases and renal conditions among those exposed to the pollution in the Ravi and Sutlej to the annihilation of the Indus delta. Billions were spent on the thousands of kilometres of canal infrastructure in India’s Rajasthan desert; the infrastructure lies buried under sand dunes. The ecosystem around the diverted rivers is severely degraded, with not even one per cent of the desert greened.
Pakistan got the two dams which have since been silted (dry winters in 2024-25 brought both the Mangla and Tarbela reservoirs to dead level), but lost the rivers permanently. The 1960 agreement which was hailed as a means to prevent war failed as early as 1965, and later as well.
India had nothing to gain by getting out of this treaty and Pakistan has nothing to lose. Thanks to the ignorance of Mr Modi, we have been given a chance to reclaim our forfeited rights as lower riparians, demand restoration of shutdown rivers and call for ending all the contaminated waste being dumped in the Ravi and Sutlej from India. Science and the current global mind is already with us. SDG-6, for example, cannot be implemented as long as the pollution allowed by the treaty persists. To move with the rest of the advancing world, we must get rid of the ills the IWT has brought and work towards a healthy future for the coming generations. With this background in mind, we should seriously think of our way forward. Sticking with the treaty should not be an option.
The writer is an expert on hydrology and water resources.
Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025