The Indus River System comprises six major rivers—the Indus, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—flowing through the territories of both India and Pakistan. The system sustains drinking water, agriculture, and electricity generation across the Indus Basin, supporting hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the border.
After the Partition of India, the Indus River system was split between India and Pakistan, leaving India with upstream control while Pakistan relied heavily on downstream flows for agriculture.
Despite its own pressing needs, India signed the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan on 19 September 1960, a World Bank-brokered agreement to ensure water sharing and regional stability.
Negotiations – India paid the price for rationality
The negotiations were shaped by a clear imbalance—India took a constructive approach, while Pakistan pushed more extreme demands, leading to outcomes tilted in its favour. The World Bank's first substantive proposal of 5 February 1954 illustrates this plainly: even at this initial stage, it required significant one-sided concessions from India:
•All planned Indian developments along the upper reaches of both the Indus and Chenab were to be abandoned, with those benefits accruing to Pakistan instead
•India was required to forgo diverting approximately 6 MAF from the Chenab River.
•No Chenab waters at Merala (now in Pakistan) would be available for Indian use.
•No water development would be permitted in Kutch from the river system.
Despite the significant constraints, India accepted the proposal in good faith, reflecting its intent to reach a quick settlement. Pakistan, however, took nearly five years, until December 1958, to formally agree. As a result, India faced tighter restrictions, while Pakistan continued expanding its use of the western rivers with fewer limitations. This, the passage argues, reinforced a pattern where delay proved advantageous and cooperation carried costs.
What India lost: The scale of sacrifice
Under the Indus Waters Treaty, India was granted rights over the eastern rivers; Sutlej, Beas and Ravi, while Pakistan received control of the western rivers; Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. India was allowed only limited, non-consumptive use of the western rivers, mainly for run-of-river hydropower, under strict conditions.
In volume terms, the eastern rivers carry about 33 MAF annually, compared to around 135 MAF for the western rivers, giving Pakistan roughly 80% of the system’s water. India retained about 20%, largely only formalising access it already had, while giving up claims to the far larger western river system.
One of the treaty’s most unusual features was its financial clause: India agreed to pay about £62 million to support water infrastructure in Pakistan. This created a rare situation where the upstream country, despite giving up most of the river waters, also compensated the downstream country, effectively subsidising a deal that already favoured Pakistan on water sharing.
The Treaty's structural unfairness
The Indus Waters Treaty places several design and operational limits on India’s use of the western rivers, including caps on irrigated area, restrictions on storage capacity, and strict technical conditions for hydropower projects. These provisions are largely one-sided, constraining India’s ability to develop resources within its own territory while imposing no comparable obligations on Pakistan, effectively giving the downstream country assured water flows while subjecting the upstream state to tighter controls.
Pakistan's weaponisation of the Treaty
Since the Treaty's signing, Pakistan has consistently used its dispute resolution provisions as a strategic tool to delay and effectively obstruct development rather than genuine dispute resolution. Virtually every significant hydropower project India has proposed on the Western rivers, even those explicitly permitted under the Treaty's terms, has faced formal Pakistani objection, technical challenge, or referral to arbitration.
Projects such as Baglihar, Kishenganga, Pakal Dul and Tulbul have faced repeated objections from Pakistan, often despite acknowledged benefits like improved water regulation. This pattern suggests the opposition is less about treaty compliance and more about limiting India’s development in Jammu and Kashmir.
At the same time, Pakistan has portrayed India as a potential “water aggressor” in international forums, despite India’s consistent adherence to the Indus Waters Treaty. This narrative has helped build external pressure on India, even though it has not violated the treaty at any point, including during major conflicts.
The Consequences for India
The Treaty's constraints have had measurable, lasting consequences for India's development in the Indus Basin. Vast areas of Rajasthan and parts of Punjab that could have been irrigated remain arid or dependent on alternative, more expensive water sources. The agricultural productivity foregone over six decades represents an incalculable economic loss.
The impact has been especially significant in Jammu and Kashmir, which lies along the western rivers and has vast untapped hydropower potential. Development has been repeatedly constrained by treaty restrictions, Pakistan’s objections and lengthy dispute processes, leading many locals to see the arrangement as limiting their economic growth.
These constraints also affect India’s energy security, as the country is unable to fully harness clean and cost-effective hydropower from the western rivers due to restrictions and persistent challenges to even its limited rights under the Indus Waters Treaty.
India’s case
The Treaty was intended to achieve the "most complete and satisfactory utilisation of the waters of the Indus system of rivers" in a "spirit of goodwill and friendship", a context that no longer exists.
Treaties rely not just on legal force but on good-faith conduct by all parties. Pakistan’s continued support for cross-border terrorism, highlighted by attacks such as the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, 2008 Mumbai attacks and the Pahalgam attack in 2025, raises questions about the basis of India’s continued adherence to the Indus Waters Treaty.
The argument is that agreements cannot be upheld in isolation, one side cannot violate core norms while expecting full compliance from the other. In this view, India’s stance reflects the principle that international agreements require mutual responsibility.
The Indus Waters Treaty is often seen as a diplomatic success, but this view overlooks an imbalanced outcome shaped by Pakistani rigidity and Indian concessions. India gave up about 80% of the water, paid significant compensation (£62 million or approx. $2.5 billion in present value), accepted restrictive conditions, and upheld the treaty for decades, even during conflicts and tensions. In return, India has faced development constraints and persistent challenges, along with a narrative portraying it as a “water aggressor.”
This article is based on writings by Dr Pradeep Kumar Saxena, former Indian Commissioner for Indus Waters, on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT)
