India's Indus Waters Treaty Suspension: Political Signal or Strategic Reality?
In April 2025, India suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan, citing retaliation for terrorism. The move, framed as water weaponization, is largely symbolic, as India lacks the infrastructure to significantly divert or halt the western rivers—vital to Pakistan’s agriculture and population. While the act escalates bilateral tensions and challenges international norms, experts argue India’s technical capacity to control water flow is limited, though disruption of data-sharing and reservoir management can still pressure Pakistan.
The article examines India’s unprecedented decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan following a major terrorist attack in Kashmir, framing the move as both a political signal and a strategic gambit. While Indian leaders have publicly threatened to withhold, store, and redirect water flowing to Pakistan—using the slogan “blood and water cannot flow together”—the reality is that India currently lacks the large-scale reservoir and diversion infrastructure on the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to meaningfully halt flow to Pakistan, which depends on these waters for 80% of its agriculture and sustains 90% of its population. Most Indian hydropower projects on these rivers are run-of-river designs with limited storage capacity, constrained further by the IWT’s technical provisions, which Pakistan has challenged in international arbitration. Instead of a total water cutoff, India can tactically disrupt Pakistan’s water management by delaying data-sharing on river levels and manipulating reservoir releases, complicating flood forecasting and crop cycles. The article notes that India’s suspension of the treaty not only escalates bilateral tensions—with Pakistan calling it an “act of war”—but also undermines India’s international reputation as a reliable stakeholder in transboundary water agreements. Moreover, the gesture is seen as driven more by domestic political pressures and the need to project strength after the Pahalgam attack, rather than by a realistic hydrological strategy. The piece concludes that while India’s actions carry significant symbolic and diplomatic weight, the technical limits on water diversion mean the actual impact on Pakistan may be more about psychological and tactical pressure than a fundamental alteration of water flows.
