Pakistan presses for restoration of Indus Waters Treaty amid disputes with India

I did not expect to leave Islamabad thinking about the future of international law. I went to speak. I came home with something harder to shake: a conviction that what is happening on the Indus river is not just a bilateral water dispute between two nuclear-armed neighbours. It is a test of whether the global architecture of treaty-based cooperation can survive the moment we are living in. On June 30, I had the honour of speaking at the Institute of Regional Studies seminar on the Indus Waters Treaty, held at the Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad. The high-level gathering brought together scholars, practitioners, diplomats, and policymakers from Pakistan and around the world. The expertise assembled in the room was formidable, and the sense of urgency surrounding the issue was unmistakable. My panel was asked to examine treaty-based conflict prevention, specifically, how the institutional mechanisms embedded in international river agreements keep water from becoming a cause of war. I came to that question as a policy and diplomacy strategist, not a water lawyer. But sometimes an outside eye sees the architecture most clearly. And what I saw, looking across the Danube, the Mekong and the Nile before turning to the Indus, was an alarming pattern. Across those basins, water does not cause conflict. The absence of institutions does. That is not a rhetorical flourish. It is what the empirical record shows. (Data) sharing is caring The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River spans 15 nations, including former Cold War adversaries. Its formal dispute settlement mechanism has never once had to be invoked because its technical working groups meet regularly, share data and resolve differences before they climb to the political level. The Mekong River Commission’s experience offers the inverse lesson. Scholars have found explicitly that withholding hydrological data can itself incite regional conflict. Control information, and you control the conditions for crisis. The Indus Waters Treaty reflects that lesson. Signed in 1960 after years of World Bank-mediated negotiations, it gave India and Pakistan not just a water allocation framework but an institution, the Permanent Indus Commission, staffed by senior engineers with diplomatic standing, mandated to meet regularly, empowered to conduct joint inspections, and backed by a tiered dispute resolution ladder running from Commission to Neutral Expert to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. That architecture has survived three wars. It has outlasted governments, generals, and crises that should by any measure have broken it. It is, by global standards, one of the most stress-tested bilateral water institutions ever built which is precisely why what is happening now is so serious. India’s declaration in April 2025 that it was placing the Treaty in abeyance, following the Pahalgam terror attack, has no basis in international water law. The 1997 UN Watercourses Convention, which codifies customary international law binding on all states regardless of signature, is unambiguous. Treaties governing shared watercourses carry obligations of equitable use, prior notification, data exchange, and good faith performance that do not dissolve on unilateral announcement. The Permanent Court of Arbitration confirmed this in its June 2025 Supplemental Award, finding that India’s declaration does not deprive the tribunal of jurisdiction. An arbitral award does not disappear because a party calls it illegal. In good faith Beyond the Indus, pacta sunt servanda — treaties must be performed in good faith — is not a polite aspiration. It is the load-bearing wall of the entire international legal order. When it is eroded in one place, the damage radiates outward. Every shared river basin in the world, and there are 310 of them, is watching. Yet what moved me most in Islamabad was not the legal argument, though it is airtight. It was the people making it. The Pakistani participants in that seminar included scholars who have spent careers on this; practitioners who understand what reduced water flows mean at the village level, policymakers who are navigating an impossible situation with discipline and rigour. They brought a quality of commitment to that room that I have rarely encountered. They are not arguing from grievance but from law, from evidence, and from the knowledge that 240 million people’s livelihoods depend on getting this right. That is why the international community needs to be in that room with them, figuratively if not literally. The Permanent Indus Commission must be allowed to meet. Data on flow variations must be shared. The arbitral process must be respected. These are not diplomatic requests. They are legal obligations that underpin a framework the world spent decades building. I came to Islamabad to speak about institutional mechanisms. I left understanding, more deeply than before, why those mechanisms exist. They exist because human beings, at their best, decided that some things were too important to be left to the politics of the moment. Water is one of them. The Indus Waters Treaty must not be allowed to fail. Not for Pakistan alone, though the stakes for Pakistan are existential, but for every nation that has ever signed an agreement and expected the other party to honour it.

Pakistan on Thursday rejected India’s attempt to “distort facts” about the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) at a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) open debate, saying that New Delhi’s actions in the aftermath of the attack in occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama were “simply illegal”. At a UNSC debate on natural resource governance, Pakistan’s Permanent Representation to the UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad had highlighted India’s unilateral decision to hold the treaty in abeyance, saying that “no state should be permitted to abuse shared water resources as an instrument of coercion or political pressure, much less when it breaches solemn treaty obligations”. Subsequently, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni had accused Pakistan of “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism”, saying that it had “eroded the basis for bilateral cooperation on the treaty”, according to Indian news agency ANI. He had also asserted New Delhi’s claim on occupied Kashmir. In response, Pakistan’s First Secretary Ansar Shah responded, saying India’s “misleading statement” was a “futile attempt to distort facts and misrepresent the situation”. “The treaty contains no provision whatsoever permitting its so-called abeyance. India’s unilateral action is simply illegal,” he said. Shah said that the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in August 2025 had reaffirmed that the treaty “remains valid, binding and fully in force, together with its dispute settlement mechanisms”. “India’s weaponisation of a shared natural resource for political coercion, with the stated aim of starving the population of Pakistan, is a serious breach of legal instruments and international norms,” Shah highlighted, adding the situation poses a “direct threat to regional and international peace and security and is completely germane to today’s debate”. The first secretary also dismissed India’s “baseless assertion regarding terrorism”, saying it was an effort by New Delhi “to conceal its sponsorship and financing of terrorism against Pakistan”. “India’s terrorist proxies — the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Balochistan Liberation Army and Majeed Brigade — have killed thousands of civilians and law enforcement personnel, including women and children on our soil,” Shah said. “India’s involvement in extraterritorial executions including in North America is also well known. India is not a victim of terrorism. It is a sponsor of terrorism,” he said. He went on to say that India was also a perpetrator of state terrorism in the Occupied Kashmir. He added that the population of the territory “is being denied its right to self determination in gross violation of numerous resolutions of the UNSC”. “India continues to disregard its obligations under the UN Charter, including Article 25, which requires member states to carry out the decisions of the Security Council,” he said, adding that occupied Kashmir “never was, nor is, an integral part of India”. “No unilateral or unlawful measures by the occupying power can alter the historical, legal and disputed character of the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” he added. ‘Natural resource governance must be anchored in international law’ In his remarks, Ambassador Ahmad had said that natural resources should serve as instruments of sustainable development and prosperity and must not become sources of conflict, coercion or exploitation. “Yet, in many contexts, weak governance, illicit extraction, external interference, violations of international law and UN Charter, and the unequal distribution of benefits continue to fuel instability and conflict, and exacerbate humanitarian crises,” he said. He pointed to Africa, saying that Pakistan had long stood in solidarity with African countries in their pursuit of sovereign control over their natural wealth. “Sustainable peace cannot be achieved where immense natural wealth coexists with persistent poverty and underdevelopment. It is a recipe for conflict,” he asserted, adding that natural resource governance must remain firmly anchored in the UN Charter and international law. “The right of peoples to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources, as enshrined in General Assembly resolution 1803, remains fundamental. International cooperation must strengthen national capacities while respecting national ownership, priorities and policy space,” he said. Highlighting India’s decision to hold the IWT in abeyance, he said, “Our eastern neighbour has sought to weaponize water against Pakistan by abusing its status as the upper riparian, unilaterally and illegally placing the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance – a course of action for which neither the Treaty, nor the general principles of international law, provide any basis whatsoever. Pakistan categorically rejects this unlawful action, which directly threatens the livelihoods and well-being of more than 240 million people of Pakistan.” He said that the IWT remained “valid, binding and fully in force, as reaffirmed by the August 2025 Award of the Court of Arbitration”. “No State should be permitted to abuse shared water resources as an instrument of coercion or political pressure, much less when it breaches solemn treaty obligations. That this is happening in the backdrop of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, a longstanding flash point in South Asia, carries grave risks for international peace and security,” he said. Ambassador Ahmad said that the UNSC had an “important responsibility where the exploitation or weaponization of natural resources, threatens international peace and security, whether through the illicit exploitation of minerals that fuels and perpetuates conflict, or the unilateral actions to exploit shared natural resources as instruments of coercion in disregard of international law and binding treaty obligations”. “Such actions require the council’s continued vigilance. The council should make full use of the tools at its disposal, including preventive diplomacy, peaceful resolution of disputes, sanctions regimes and monitoring mechanisms to address these threats,” he said.

Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar requested Canadian support for the Indus Waters Treaty. He stated India suspended the agreement, adding a new dynamic to security. Dar urged India to end water weaponization and uphold international law. India maintains its position remains in abeyance due to terrorism. Pakistan views the Indus as a lifeline and will defend its sovereignty.

Tensions between India and Pakistan over the six-decade-old Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) have entered their most dangerous phase since New Delhi placed the agreement in abeyance following the 2025 Pahalgam terror attack. The latest flashpoint came with Pakistan's Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik's warning that Islamabad would "cut off those hands" seeking to claim Pakistan's share of the Indus waters. Combined with Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's declaration that Islamabad could "go to war" if its water security were threatened, the rhetoric has transformed what was once a technical water-sharing arrangement into an overt national security confrontation.The escalation comes as India moves beyond diplomatic signalling and begins translating political intent into infrastructure action. The launch of two major Chenab-linked projects worth nearly Rs 2,600 crore—the Rs 2,352 crore Chenab-Beas Link Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh and the Rs 268 crore sediment bypass tunnel at the Salal Dam in Jammu and Kashmir—signals that New Delhi is entering a new phase of hydro-strategic planning. Water, which survived multiple wars as a relatively insulated area of cooperation, is increasingly becoming another arena of geopolitical competition between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.Islamabad has simultaneously intensified efforts to internationalise the dispute by portraying India's actions as the "weaponisation of water" and invoking climate change, humanitarian concerns and downstream vulnerability to win international sympathy. This strategy is hardly new. From Zafrullah Khan raising the canal water dispute before the United Nations in the early 1950s to Asif Ali Zardari's 2009 warning that Pakistan's water crisis could fuel extremism, successive Pakistani governments have attempted to frame the issue as an international rather than a bilateral treaty matter.However, Pakistan's legal argument is considerably weaker than its political rhetoric suggests. The Indus Waters Treaty grants Pakistan treaty-based rights to utilise specified waters; it does not confer sovereign ownership over the rivers themselves. Since the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab originate in Indian territory, the treaty preserved India's territorial sovereignty while regulating utilisation of river waters between two sovereign states. This distinction is central to India's evolving position that greater utilisation of its legitimate share cannot automatically be portrayed as depriving Pakistan of its sovereign rights.From Diplomacy To DoctrineThe suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is no longer confined to diplomatic symbolism or retaliatory signalling. More than a year after Pahalgam, India has begun converting policy into infrastructure on the ground. What initially appeared to be a temporary coercive measure is steadily evolving into a broader doctrine of hydro-strategic leverage. The latest projects indicate that India's approach has entered a more operational phase. The message is unmistakable: New Delhi intends to maximise utilisation of waters that historically flowed downstream with only limited domestic exploitation.End Of Strategic RestraintThe significance of this shift extends well beyond engineering. For decades, successive Indian governments argued that restrictive treaty provisions, coupled with inadequate infrastructure, prevented the country from fully utilising its legitimate share of the Indus Basin waters. The current political and security environment has fundamentally altered that calculation. India's decision to keep the treaty in abeyance rests on the argument that the agreement was built on an assumption of peaceful coexistence and mutual restraint—an assumption repeatedly undermined by decades of Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism, culminating in the Pahalgam attack.Chenab Projects Signal ShiftWithin India, the Chenab-Beas tunnel is being projected as a developmental project that would benefit Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan by improving water availability while generating nearly 4,000 MW of additional hydropower. Strategically, however, its significance extends far beyond regional development. The project reflects New Delhi's determination to optimise utilisation of the western rivers through storage, hydropower, flood management and inter-basin transfers rather than allowing vast quantities of water to flow downstream without adequate domestic use.Pakistan's Growing ConcernsPakistan's growing anxiety stems not from any immediate prospect of India "turning off the tap" but from the long-term implications of expanding upstream infrastructure. Islamabad understands that India currently lacks the storage capacity to drastically alter annual river flows overnight. Most existing Indian projects remain run-of-the-river schemes with limited storage. Yet, as barrages, tunnels, sediment-management systems and inter-basin transfer projects gradually expand, India will acquire greater flexibility to regulate the timing and management of flows within the framework of its legitimate rights. In highly seasonal river systems, even modest control over timing can assume considerable strategic significance.Pakistan's dependence on the Indus system further magnifies these concerns. Nearly 80 to 90 per cent of its agriculture relies directly or indirectly on the basin, while the suspension of hydrological data sharing has introduced additional uncertainty for reservoir operations, irrigation planning and flood forecasting. Consequently, Islamabad's increasingly aggressive rhetoric reflects not only present realities but also apprehensions about India's future hydro-management capabilities.India's Strategic BalanceIndia, however, must also calibrate its strategy carefully. As an upper riparian vis-à-vis Pakistan and Bangladesh but a lower riparian in relation to China on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej, New Delhi cannot afford to create precedents that may weaken its own position in future water disputes. It must, therefore, continue presenting its policy as an exercise of legitimate sovereign and treaty rights rather than an attempt to deprive Pakistan of water.Water As Strategic FrontierUltimately, the real significance of India's emerging hydro strategy lies not in abruptly choking Pakistan's water supply—something geography and existing infrastructure do not presently permit—but in ending decades of self-imposed restraint that limited India's utilisation of the western rivers. The Indus Waters Treaty was once regarded as one of the world's most durable water-sharing agreements because both sides respected its underlying spirit. Today, that foundation has been eroded by persistent cross-border terrorism and deepening strategic mistrust. With India accelerating infrastructure projects and Pakistan openly speaking the language of war, the Indus Basin is no longer merely a water-sharing arrangement. It has become a critical arena where engineering, diplomacy, sovereignty, national security and geopolitical power increasingly intersect, making the future of South Asian stability inseparable from the politics of water.The writer is a senior political analyst based in Shimla.

IN this article, I argue that India’s decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance fails on two independent grounds. First, ‘abeyance’ is a status unknown to the treaty and to the law of treaties: the IWT contains no suspension or exit clause, and Article XII(4) continues it in force until terminated by a duly ratified treaty betw­een the Pakistani and Indian governments. Sec­o­­nd, even according to India’s own logic the step was premature, for every fact it relies upon is disputed and none has been examined by any com­petent multilateral or bilateral forum or court. The tragic Pahalgam incident occurred on April 22, 2025. FIR No. 25/2025 was registered within 10 minutes of the incident. No Pakistani national was named in it. Without proper investigation, without the apprehension of any suspect, without a confessional statement, and without seeking cross-border cooperation through any mutual legal assistance, India assumed that it was Pakistan that caused the terrorist incident. Let us now turn to a letter by India’s water and power ministry addressed to Pakistan and dated April 24, 2025, just two days after the Pahalgam attack. In the said letter, India takes a strong position that “sustained cross-border terrorism by Pakistan targeting the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir” is a fact tantamount to not honouring the good faith that is ‘fundamental’ to a treaty. Pakistan categorically denies this ‘fact’ of sustained cross-border terrorism in occupied Jam­mu and Kashmir, including Pahalgam. Its Forei­­gn Office, prime minister and ministers have all denied involvement. The very existence of the ‘fact’ has thus fallen into dispute; a disputed fact is an allegation, nothing more. India has only put a baseless assertion in place of proof. A state that suspends performance on its own assessment of another’s breach acts at its own peril. The facts India relies upon are what we in le­­gal practice call ‘issues’; they are: whether Pak­i­stan was involved in the Pahalgam attack; whe­ther Pakistan is providing sustained cross-border terrorism targeting Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir; whether Pakistan has refused to enter into negotiations as envisaged under the IWT and is thus in breach of the treaty. The first two issues do not belong to the Indus waters machinery at all. Article XI expressly confines the treaty to the use of the waters of the rivers and associated matters. Terrorism, however grave, is extraneous to a treaty dealing with water and hydro works. Even if ‘proved’, it could not constitute a breach of this treaty and no unilateral letter can extend the ambit of a treaty’s subject matter which was never agreed to nor envisioned by the parties. Such allegations have their own forums: the UN Security Council and its counterterrorism committee, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the FATF where financing is alleged, and existing mutual legal assistance regimes for bilateral cooperation in criminal cross-border matters. India approached none of them. The third issue fails in law and in fact. In law, Article XII(3) is permissive: the treaty “may from time to time be modified by a duly ratified treaty”. It confers a jointly exercised option, not an obligation, and a state that declines to renegotiate is not in any breach whatsoever. In fact, Pakistan never declined. Its reply of April 26, recorded: “At no point has Pakistan refused to engage. On the contrary, Pakistan has consistently conveyed its openness to hear and discuss India’s concerns.” A refusal that never occurred, to negotiate what was never obligatory, cannot constitute a breach, let alone a material one. If India nonetheless believed that some conduct of Pakistan affected the application of the IWT, the route lay in the treaty itself. Pakistan’s letter said precisely this: “… If India considers that there is a conduct by Pakistan that either affects the application of the treaty or constitutes a breach, it is open to India to pursue these claims under the mechanisms established by Article IX of the treaty. Were India to do so, Pakistan would engage fully and without hesitation, including as appropriate by agreeing to the urgent empanelment of a court of arbitration to address such matters without delay.” India, instead, chose not to join the proceedings before the court or to present its case before any international forum. A state that suspends performance on its own assessment of another’s breach acts at its own peril; the International Court of Justice said as much in the Gabíkovo-Nagymaros case (Hungary/Slovakia, ICJ Reports, 1997). When India’s stance was tested, the Court of Arbitration in its supplemental award of June 27, 2025, held that India’s ‘abeyance’ has no effect on the court’s competence, irrespective of the justification offered. The court did not find it necessary to examine the terrorism allegations at all. The award speaks for itself. Intended to be purely an engineering treaty, the IWT has been transformed by India’s letter of April 24, 2025, into a political document, linked to allegations extraneous to its subject, thereby creating a dangerous uncertainty for a lower riparian. Years ago, I wrote in these very pages that we need to object to the justification of all hydro projects bilaterally at the governmental level and not at the commissioners’ level, because, under the garb of engineering clearance of drawings, India is building its capacity to delay water flows or considerably divert water from the lower riparian. It is seeking a go-ahead on projects under the annexes of the treaty, but the object seems to be, at some stage, to threaten the lower riparian with starvation. I was then relying on statements of out-of-power BJP and RSS extremist elements which, years later, unfortunately for Indian democracy, have been mainstreamed and are now an official narrative of the Indian government. What the world is noticing is that India, an aspirant for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, has held a 65-year-old water treaty in abeyance on the strength of facts it has neither proved nor permitted any forum to examine. The writer is a former caretaker federal law minister. Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

FOR more than sixty-five years, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has stood as one of the world’s renowned, most enduring and successful transboundary water-course division arrangements between two nation states. Beyond its legal and international significance, it has also been the cornerstone of Pakistan’s water resources development. The certainty and predictability of flows provided by the treaty enabled Pakistan to develop the Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS); the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system, comprising three major reservoirs, six barrages, twelve inter-river link canals and an extensive distribution network that irrigates nearly 35 million acres and supports more than 90 per cent of the country’s food production. Pakistan’s hydropower system, irrigated agriculture and much of its economic development have evolved on the foundation of uninterrupted and predictable flows from the western rivers. The treaty has also contributed significantly in the overall strategic stability of South Asia. While the world looks to strengthen governance and transparency on shared river basins in pursuit of the ‘One Water-One Vision’ principle, India is moving entirely in the opposite direction That strategic stability was fundamentally challenged in May 2025, when India illegally and unilaterally announced that it was holding the IWT in abeyance. The Indian move is being increasingly categorised as blatant violation of its binding treaty obligations, and international law. In the recently concluded Water Convention under UN arrangements at Geneva, nation states have been asked to strengthen governance and transparency on shared river basins in pursuit of the “One Water-One Vision” principle. India, on the contrary, is moving entirely in the opposite direction. Regardless of the legal debate concerning the Indian decision, its strategic consequences for Pakistan are very serious. It marks a departure from more than six decades of treaty-based water cooperation and introduces uncertainty into a river system that guarantees Pakistan’s water, food and energy security. Since May 2025, India has continued to accelerate the development of upstream infrastructure on the western rivers, while inviting bids for fast-track implementation of additional projects, including the planned expansion of Ranbir Canal and the Chenab-Beas Link Tunnel. Considered collectively, these developments can severely threaten Pakistan’s long-term water security. India has also suspended sharing of hydrological data for the Western Rivers with Pakistan’s Commissioner for Indus Waters, contrary to the data-sharing obligations envisaged under the IWT. During the 2025 flood season, the absence of timely river flow information adversely affected Pakistan’s flood forecasting and emergency preparedness, increasing risks to human life, critical infrastructure, and livelihoods. Such actions are inconsistent with humanitarian principles, undermine international water-course cooperation and violate the fundamental objective of safeguarding populations from transboundary flood hazards. Moreover, Indian actions limit Pakistan’s ability of realising Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6.5, 6.5.1 and 6.5.2, which are globally shared objectives. As a lower riparian state, Pakistan’s irrigation system, reservoirs, agriculture, growing population, and industrial development depend heavily on reliable and predictable river flows originating upstream. Any uncertainty in the quantity or timing of these flows presents a strategic challenge that extends far beyond conventional water management, directly affecting national water, food, energy, environmental, and economic security. The geographical configuration of Indus Basin makes the reliability and predictability of flows in Chenab River indispensable for safe and efficient operation of IBIS. The non-availability of river flow data from upstream significantly weakens Pakistan’s ability to regulate canal diversions, manage floods, and issue timely warnings. In the event of extreme hydrological conditions, the absence of such information can endanger human lives, damage critical infrastructure, and increase economic losses. Pakistan’s concern is frequently misunderstood: neither is it based upon any single dam, hydropower project or engineering structure, nor is it confined to the annual volume of water received under the Treaty. The emerging challenge is the cumulative capability created by multiple upstream projects to increasingly regulate the quantity, timing and predictability of flows entering Pakistan. For a lower riparian country whose irrigation system, depends upon reliable river flows, this represents an existential challenge that extends well beyond conventional water management. Among the western rivers, Chenab occupies a uniquely critical position. Carrying an average annual flow of 25 million acre-feet (MAF) at Marala, it irrigates nearly 10 million acres through the Marala, Khanki, Qadirabad, Trimmu and Punjnad Barrages. These command areas constitute one of Pakistan’s most productive agricultural regions, contributing significantly to national production of wheat, rice, sugarcane and other strategic crops while supporting millions of rural livelihoods. More importantly, the River Chenab forms an integral and vital component of the interconnected Indus Basin Irrigation System. Reservoirs, barrages, link canals and irrigation canals across the basin operate as one coordinated hydraulic network. Consequently, any sustained alteration in the quantity or timing of Chenab flows extends well beyond its immediate command area, influencing canal regulation and irrigation supplies across the wider basin. The strategic significance of Chenab is further amplified by geography. Almost the entire catchment of this river lies upstream in India before it enters Pakistan at Marala. Unlike rivers receiving substantial downstream tributary inflows, Pakistan has limited capacity to offset prolonged upstream regulation through additional local runoff. This geographical reality makes the reliability and predictability of Chenab flows indispensable for maintaining the operational stability of the Indus Basin Irrigation System. Until recently, the technical debate had focused primarily on whether individual Indian projects are within the engineering criteria of Indus Waters Treaty, or otherwise. While that scrutiny remains important, it no longer captures the broader strategic picture. Following India’s decision to hold the treaty in abeyance, Pakistan’s concern has shifted from individual projects to the cumulative impact of multiple upstream interventions operating together. Technical assessments indicate that existing operational projects already provide India with the capability to regulate Chenab flows over significant periods during the year. As projects presently under construction become operational, this capability is expected to increase substantially. Diversion works, including the planned expansion of the Ranbir Canal and Chenab–Beas Link Tunnel, would further enhance this capability, particularly during the lean-flow months when Pakistan’s dependence on the Chenab is greatest. The implications for Pakistan are more serious than a limited military conflict with India. The strategic challenge confronting Pakistan demands a response that is comprehensive, forward looking and implemented through a whole-of-the-nation approach. This is not a moment for rhetoric; it is a moment for national resolve, sound diplomacy and accelerated development. Pakistan’s response must rest on three mutually reinforcing pillars: diplomatic engagement, legal action and strategic water development. Firstly, Pakistan should continue to pursue all available diplomatic avenues to preserve the integrity of the Indus Waters Treaty. The Permanent Indus Commission must remain the principal platform for technical dialogue, information exchange and resolution of emerging issues. Simultaneously, Pakistan should actively engage the World Bank, friendly countries and the broader international community to reinforce the importance of honoring international treaty obligations. The credibility of international agreements depends not merely on the negotiation process but on faithful implementation of each clause particularly the treaties recognised internationally. Hence, Indian actions have to be viewed by international community seriously as these carry dangerous potential for jeopardizing regional peace. Secondly, Pakistan should continue to safeguard its rights through the legal mechanisms provided under the Indus Waters Treaty and applicable principles of international law. The treaty has governed one of the world’s largest transboundary river systems for more than six decades because it established clearly defined rights, obligations and dispute resolution procedures. These mechanisms must continue to serve as the primary means of addressing differences. A rules-based approach remains indispensable for maintaining confidence in international water governance and regional stability. Thirdly, Pakistan must significantly accelerate the development of its own water resources. Diplomacy and legal processes are essential, but they cannot substitute for national preparedness. The Planning Commission of Pakistan has established promising targets for the next decade to strengthen Pakistan’s water security. These include increasing national strategic water storage capacity from 13.5 MAF to 23.5 MAF, enhancing water availability at farm gates from 64 MAF to 84 MAF, and improving overall irrigation water-use efficiency from approximately 40pc to 70pc. Achieving these targets will require sustained investments in storage infrastructure, irrigation modernization, watershed management, and institutional reforms. Timely completion of the Diamer-Basha dam, Mohmand dam, the Dasu Hydropower Project and Tarbela’s fifth extension must remain national priorities to increase storage, improve flood regulation and expand clean hydropower generation. Similarly, projects such as the Mangla–Marala Link Canal, Sindh Barrage, Chashma Right-Bank Canal, Kachhi Canal, the K-IV Water Supply Project and the proposed Chenab Cascade projects should be expedited through broader national consensus to enhance operational flexibility, irrigation efficiency and drought resilience. These projects are no longer simply development initiatives; these are strategic investments in Pakistan’s long-term water, food and energy security. The debate over the construction of large dams in Pakistan may continue; however, the hydrological realities of Indus Basin are unequivocal. Approximately 84pc of the country’s annual river flows occur within only three to four months, while the remaining 16pc is distributed over the other eight to nine months of the year. This pronounced seasonal variability makes adequate water storage indispensable for ensuring sustainable water supplies, strengthening food security, enhancing energy generation, mitigating floods, and improving resilience to climate change. Under Pakistan’s current leadership, a historic breakthrough has been achieved in the form of national consensus on cost sharing for water security projects. For the first time since independence, provinces have collectively agreed to support development of strategic water storage infrastructure and have agreed to contribute financially towards the implementation of these nationally vital projects. This consensus marks a major milestone in fast tracking ongoing and future water and energy sector projects. The Tarbela and Mangla dams were constructed at an approximate cost of $2 billion each (excluding subsequent raising and rehabilitation investments). Since commissioning, these strategic national assets have generated extraordinary economic benefits through irrigation, hydropower production, flood mitigation, and water regulation. Based on World Bank estimates, Tarbela Dam has contributed economic benefits exceeding $460 billion, while Mangla Dam has generated benefits exceeding $301 billion, making them among the most economically productive infrastructure investments in Pakistan’s history. Pakistan must also modernise the management of Indus Basin system through real-time telemetry, satellite-based monitoring, artificial intelligence, advanced hydrological forecasting and integrated basin modelling. In an era where upstream regulation capability is expanding, timely and reliable information has become as important as physical infrastructure. Scientific water management and data-driven decision-making must become central components of Pakistan’s national water strategy. Pakistan’s response must be guided by confidence rather than complacency. The country should continue to defend the treaty through diplomacy, technical engagement and international law, with the firm expectation that India will have to return to its obligations under the treaty, while sustaining its long-standing national requirement of investing in strategic water infrastructure, expanding storage capacity, improving irrigation efficiency and adopting modern technologies for basin management. The Indus Waters Treaty has endured because it recognised a fundamental principle: the sustainable management of trans-boundary rivers is essential for peace, stability and shared prosperity. Preserving the treaty’s faithful implementation is, therefore, not merely a legal obligation; it is indispensable for safeguarding Pakistan’s water, food and energy security. History will judge our generation not by the challenges it inherited, but by whether or not it had the vision, unity and resolve to secure water for Pakistan’s rapidly growing future needs. The writer is currently serving as chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority. This article was published in the July 6 and 7 editions of the paper as a two-part series. Both parts have been reproduced above for the convenience of our readers.