Indus Waters Treaty: An Ongoing Water Dispute Between India and Pakistan

GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 26th Sept. In the 1960s, David Lilienthal, a former chief of the Tennessee Valley Authority, remarked, “No army can devastate a land as much as India can by permanently shutting off the water sources that keep Pakistan’s fields and people green.” This statement gained prominence following the historic meeting between Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s military ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, in Karachi on September 19, 1960, which culminated in the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty.

The treaty was born out of a tumultuous 13 years of conflict between India and Pakistan since independence. Nehru advocated for permanent peace in exchange for water supply, a decision that many experts later deemed a significant blunder. Recently, India has once again demanded a review of this treaty with Pakistan, reigniting discussions about its implications.

Lieutenant Colonel J.S. Sodhi, a defense analyst and author of “China’s War Clouds,” describes the treaty as an “aqua bomb” for India, which serves as one of its most potent weapons against Pakistan. India has the capability to control the flow of the seven rivers that traverse the Indus Basin. However, it has only tested this power once, a minor step that forced Pakistan to its knees.

Research conducted by Aaron Wolf and Joshua Newton from Oregon State University highlights that the dispute over water-sharing dates back to before the partition in 1947, amid ongoing conflicts between the Punjab and Sind provinces. Engineers from India and Pakistan met in 1947 to sign a “standstill agreement” regarding two major canals that supplied water to Pakistan. This agreement allowed for uninterrupted water flow until March 31, 1948. However, after this date, India halted water supplies to these canals, resulting in severe drought conditions affecting 1.7 million acres of land in Pakistani Punjab. Indian engineers cut off the water supply from the Ferozepur headworks to the Depalpur canal and Lahore, also stopping electricity supply from the Mandi hydroelectric project, leading to a dire situation for Pakistan’s second-largest city.

As tensions rise, the roots of the Indus Waters Treaty dispute remain a critical issue, raising questions about strategic decisions made in the past and their long-term consequences for India and Pakistan.