Ripples Of Uncertainty: Rethinking The Indus Waters Treaty

DINESH KUMAR

One of the oldest water treaties on the planet which was over sharing of waters between two nations of South Asia that came into existence in 1960 and survived several tensions and military conflicts between them was kept in abeyance by one of them, i.e., India on April 22, 2025 immediately after a terror attack on its soil by the perpetrators who belonged to the other country. In a few days after suspending the Treaty, the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, one of the most influential world leaders, said unequivocally in an address to the nation: ‘Water and blood won’t flow together”.

The message was loud and clear. India will continue to dis-honour the provisions of the Treaty that give Pakistan certain rights over the Indus waters until that country takes convincing steps to stop the terror training camps in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). This was a very important political action by India, which has been a victim of cross-border terror supported by Pakistan for many decades, while exploring military options and actions on the diplomatic front against that country.

Since then, many academics and researchers working on trans-boundary water management and international water conflicts from within South Asia and beyond, and many Indian experts on foreign diplomacy have written and spoken about this move by India on print and visual media, sharing their viewpoints on the stand taken by India and its implications. Barring a few interesting insights, these viewpoints were largely devoid of any empirical analysis.

The absence of any numbers pertaining to the basin hydrology, the volumetric share of water that each country is entitled to as per the Treaty and the economic implications of its suspension by India in the debates and articles was quite surprising, especially when the Treaty in question was between two countries known to be facing serious water scarcity problems. That compelled me to have a close look at the 1960 Treaty.

The Indus Water Treaty of the 1960: A Snapshot

A quick reading of the Indus Water Treaty (1960) will tell us that it is all about sharing the rivers of the Indus river system between the two countries, unlike many international water treaties that talk about sharing water and benefits from the use of water between concerned parties. As per the Indus Water Treaty, the six rivers, the trunk river Indus and its five tributaries on the left, viz., Jhelum, Chenab, Sutlej, Ravi and Beas, were to be shared equally between India and Pakistan.

While India would get unrestricted rights to use the water from three eastern rivers, viz., Ravi, Beas and Sutlej in its territory and also along the borders, Pakistan will have unrestricted rights to use the water from the western rivers, viz., Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.

Since geographically the two rivers (Sutlej and Ravi) will also cross into Pakistan, Pakistan will have unrestricted rights to use the water from those reaches of these two rivers for domestic, non-consumptive and agricultural uses, once they cross into Pakistan’s territory.

However, Pakistan shall be under an obligation to let flow, and shall not permit any interference with, the waters of the Main Ravi and Sutlej Rivers and their tributaries in their reaches where these rivers flow in Pakistan and have not yet finally crossed into Pakistan.

As regards the three west-flowing rivers, as per the Treaty, Pakistan can make unrestricted use all those waters of these Rivers and India is under obligation to let flow as per the following provisions, and shall not permit any interference with these waters, except for the following uses, restricted (except as provided in item (c) (ii) of Paragraph 5 of Annexure C) 1 in the case of each of the rivers, The Indus, The Jhelum and The Chenab, to the drainage basin thereof:

(a) Domestic Use;

(b) Non-Consumptive Use;

(d) Generation of hydro-electric power, as set out in Annexure D. 2

The above clause, written in a complex legal language, basically means that India will be able to use the waters of the three west-flowing rivers for all the above-mentioned four uses if such uses are within the basin’s drainage area falling in its territory, which eventually is quite small. Since the demand for such uses will be too small due to the limited area, the permitted withdrawal by India also will have to be small.

Additionally, Pakistan shall have the unrestricted use of all waters originating from sources other than the Eastern Rivers which are delivered by Pakistan into The Ravi or The Sutlej, and India shall not make use of these waters.

A Treaty without ‘Quantity’

The most striking feature of IWT, which is about sharing water from a river system, is the absence of any numbers indicating the volume of water to be shared in the main articles (Articles II, III and IV). The points in these articles do not mention of how much water each country should get. Instead, they only mention which river (out of the six) should be used by each country or which stretch of a river should be used by each.

This is mere geographical division of water and not volumetric allocation. Probably this had been done due to paucity of hydrological data for the basin for a sufficient time period at that time. While it goes without saying that the Treaty should receive commendations for having survived three large-scale conflicts between the two nations, a major shortcoming of the Treaty is that it doesn’t seem to have taken proper cognizance of the following facts:

1 The demand for water within each national geography (India and Pakistan) which the waters of the six rivers can meet through engineering measures that are feasible, against the flows in those rivers. This is extremely important for a river system like the Indus because of the sharp spatial variation in the water generation potential of the basin as well as water demand.

A quick look at the precipitation and climate of Indus river basin shows a sharp decline in annual precipitation from around 1100mm in some of the upper basin areas to around 100mm in the lower basin area, and the climate varying from ‘cold & arid’ to ‘warm and sub-humid and humid’ to ‘hot and arid’.

2 There is sharp spatial variation in the water demand for consumptive uses, especially irrigation, with the lowest demand in the cold mountains of the upper basin area and the highest in the semi-arid and hyper-arid plains of Pakistan (Sindh and Punjab) and India (Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan), and plains within India to which water goes (through Indira Gandhi Nehar Project (IGNP) and Bikaner canal in western Rajasthan), due to the vast difference in precipitation and aridity and arable land availability. ‘Arable land availability’, which is a major driver of agricultural water demand along with ‘climate’, is mostly in the semi-arid and hyper arid plains of Pakistan and arid plains of India which receive too little rainfall.

3 The fact that only Pakistan will be able to use the flow (runoff) that is generated within its territory as per the existing Treaty means that simple geographic division of river does not hold much water, a s large stretches of the two of the eastern rivers viz., Ravi and Sutlej (over whose waters India has full rights) are within Pakistan territory and de facto it belongs to that country.

But vice versa is not true. India doesn’t have the right to divert water of Chenab, Jhelum and Indus, except for non-consumptive uses and limited domestic uses within its territory falling in the basin’s drainage area.

4 Because of the above reasons, geographic distribution of water no longer makes much sense, as the water demands have grown manifold in both India and Pakistan since the day the Treaty was signed. Within remarkable increase in its per capita GDP during the past 30 years or so, for India, the financial viability of the projects that involve expensive long-distance water transfer, which would have been dropped due to high costs had such proposals came up in the last, has also increased.

5 While the average annual flow of Indus basin is 175 BCM (billion cubic metres), the basin’s hydrology is characterised by vast variation in annual flows (runoff) between years, due to the vast year to year variation in rainfall in the arid areas of Indus plains in Pakistan, and to some extent due to the variation in rainfall witnessed in Punjab & Haryana in India and the changes in precipitation (rain and snowmelt) in the mountains in both the countries. While the ‘utilizable runoff’ estimated for the Indian part of the basin is only 46 BCM (against an average flow of 73.3 BCM), it is the excessive runoff causing floods in wet years that keeps the average runoff quite high, leaving a gap of almost 27 BCM.

It is important to recognize that a large part of the basin is in the arid plains. Because of this reason clauses should have been kept in the Treaty on how water would be shared between the two countries in dry and wet years as well as normal years. The variation in the flows is in orders of magnitude. Notably, Pakistan can take immense advantage of the excess flows during wet years (caused by the occurrence of very high rainfall in Indian part of the basin as well as theirs) as it can be used to replenish the alluvial aquifers underlying the Indus plains by inundation, given the vast canal network of Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) irrigating nearly 14.0 million hectares of cultivated land.

The Way Forward?

In the current geopolitical scenario, a loose treaty like the IWT, which favours the lower riparian country, cannot work. The only way forward is to draft a new Treaty that applies sound hydrological science and economics and good politics.

By now, i.e., nearly 65 years after the Treaty came into existence, there is sufficient amount of hydrological data for the basin that can shows how the yield of the basin changes from year to year, what is the ‘utilizable water resource’ that one can use for allocation decisions in the current scenario with advancements in water engineering, and to what extent the flows can deviate from normal values during dry and wet years.

The cost of not having water will be very high during dry years in the form of decline in crop production and electricity generation (due to hydrological and agricultural droughts) and the benefits will be disproportionately higher in wet years (due to increased irrigation, augmented groundwater recharge, soil and groundwater salinity reduction, hydropower etc.), to a larger extent for Pakistan’s IBIS and to a lesser extent for parts of India (like western Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana) that receive the flows from Ravi, Beas and Sutlej for irrigation. Therefore, great precision needs to be exercised in drafting a new Treaty providing clarity on volumetric allocation during typical hydrological years and during different seasons.

Dinesh Kumar is a renowned Distinguished Water Sector Expert, Executive Director, Institute for Resource Analysis & Policy (IRAP), Hyderabad & Honorary Advisor, IMPRI.

The article was first published in LinkedIn as A Treaty in Abeyance: The Future of Indus Waters on 06 June 2025.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.