Milan [Italy], July 8 (ANI): India’s landmark decision to place the historic Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance following the April 22, 2025, terrorist attack in Pahalgam has been widely misrepresented by global commentators as the weaponisation of water, according to an extensive geopolitical analysis written by international writer and legal expert Dimitra Staikou for the Pressenza International Press Agency.
Writing for the independent news outlet, which specialises in global peace, disarmament, and human rights, Staikou asserted that this mainstream interpretation fundamentally mistakes the consequence for the cause, noting that the long-standing accord was never a simple legal instrument but a deeply complex political compact constructed entirely on the fragile element of mutual trust.
The veteran journalist and lawyer noted that the treaty, originally brokered by the World Bank and signed on September 19, 1960, institutionalised a massive geometric asymmetry against New Delhi’s interests from its very inception.
Staikou highlighted that, under the initial World Bank proposals of February 5, 1954, India, despite being the crucial upper-riparian state, voluntarily accepted extraordinary concessions and severe structural restrictions on its own internal river infrastructure development in a unilateral pursuit of regional harmony.
In her comprehensive analytical report for Pressenza IPA, Staikou detailed how this historic imbalance permanently awarded Pakistan nearly 80 per cent of the entire basin’s annual flow, leaving Islamabad with exclusive control over an estimated 135 million acre-feet (MAF) of the western river system.
The author observed that India did not gain a single drop of additional water through the 1960 framework but instead gave up its legitimate claims to the massive western rivers, even agreeing to pay a staggering £62 million, worth approximately USD 2.5 billion in today’s terms, to directly bankroll Pakistan’s downstream water infrastructure.
Despite New Delhi’s unparalleled strategic patience and continuous adherence to the text through multiple major wars, severe military stand-offs, and repeated cross-border terrorist provocations, the strategic environment has been fundamentally poisoned by Islamabad’s chronic obstructionism.
Staikou reported that Pakistan has consistently used the treaty’s dense procedural mechanisms to strategically block and delay vital Indian development projects, pointing to a legacy of prolonged legal disputes over the Salal Hydroelectric Project, the Tulbul Navigation Project, and subsequent clean energy infrastructure, including Baglihar, Kishenganga, Ratle, Pakal Dul, and Lower Kalnai.
Shifting the lens to Pakistan’s internal failures, the author argued that Islamabad’s worsening domestic water crisis is entirely a product of its own weak governance, systematic underinvestment, and total lack of national planning.
Staikou revealed that independent global assessments, including detailed findings by the World Bank, show that Pakistan’s systemic domestic water mismanagement actively bleeds approximately 4 per cent of its national GDP every single year, proving that its structural vulnerabilities cannot be mitigated by projecting blame onto India through the transboundary treaty.
Staikou further pointed out that successive Pakistani administrations have repeatedly failed to build internal political consensus on vital storage installations, allowing nearly one-third of available river water to flow unproductively into the Arabian Sea due to severe infrastructure negligence.
Highlighting the state’s chaotic economic priorities, she noted that Islamabad has implemented drastic funding cuts to its federal water-sector allocations for the fiscal year 2026-27, further crippling its own long-term storage capacity while its population continues to grow.
Confronted by an increasingly hostile cross-border security matrix and obsolete frameworks, New Delhi formally invoked Article XII(3) in January 2023 and August 2024 to demand a comprehensive modification of the pact, though Pakistan continually refused to address the core substantive issues.
Staikou concluded her Pressenza IPA analysis by stating that India’s final decision to suspend the treaty after the 2025 Pahalgam atrocities was the inevitable culmination of a prolonged strategic review, reminding the international community that while rivers follow physical geography, international treaties ultimately follow political will.
This deep strategic reassessment directly connects to the latest policy assertions from the Indian government regarding its neighbour.
Escalating its diplomatic offensive against Islamabad, New Delhi confirmed last week that the historic Indus Waters Treaty continues to remain in abeyance, directly citing Pakistan’s unyielding sponsorship of cross-border terrorism as the sole driver behind the ongoing suspension.
Reaffirming India’s uncompromising stance on the matter, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal issued a stern ultimatum, declaring, “Pakistan must credibly and irrevocably abjure its support for cross-border terrorism.”
India’s message since the devastating Pahalgam attack has remained unswerving, establishing that international treaties cannot function in isolation from ground realities.
New Delhi has made it clear that until Pakistan completely dismantles its terror infrastructure and addresses what officials term “abnormal hostility”, even the world’s most cited water-sharing agreement will remain suspended in more ways than one.
To contextualise how this suspension impacts the region, the foundational mechanics of the agreement must be noted.
Brokered by the World Bank and signed in 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty regulates the distribution of water from the Indus river system.
Under the foundational framework, India controls the eastern rivers, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas, while Pakistan receives the waters of the western rivers, the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab.
Under the treaty, India, which sits in the advantageous upper basin, also used to share crucial flood warnings with Pakistan during the monsoon season through the Indus Water Commissioners.
However, as a direct consequence of its state-backed hostility, a vulnerable Pakistan has now been cut off from this vital lifeline.
With the treaty formally placed in abeyance, New Delhi is no longer obliged to share this critical data, leaving Islamabad completely exposed to seasonal disasters.
Furthermore, India is aggressively expanding its strategic leverage by pushing ahead with a flurry of massive hydroelectric projects in the Indus basin, including Sawalkote, Ratle, Bursar, Pakal Dul, Kwar, Kiru, and Kirthai I and II.
This diplomatic squeeze has triggered severe panic within Pakistan’s fragile establishment, exposing its profound systemic vulnerabilities to the global community.
Nearly 80-90 per cent of Pakistan’s agriculture remains desperately dependent on the Indus river system, yet the state’s structural negligence has left it with a water storage capacity that barely covers a single month of flow.
Making matters worse, its major reservoirs, Tarbela and Mangla, are reportedly near dead storage due to decades of domestic mismanagement.
What was once a technical treaty arrangement has now been transformed by New Delhi into a potent strategic pressure point against its neighbour.
Consequently, Islamabad’s reaction to India’s decisive action has been frantic and desperate.
Over the past year, a rattled Pakistan has summoned foreign envoys, rushed anxious delegations to world capitals, written pleading letters to the United Nations, initiated desperate legal actions, and held multiple international conferences, all centred on a victimhood narrative that fails to mask the reality that India has successfully targeted its most sensitive vulnerability. (ANI)
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