Matters will only improve if Pakistan exits the IWT.
www.dawn.com
Hassan Abbas Published May 26, 2026
IFI LOANS are an opiate. Water managers will pursue any mega project if financing is available — especially when repayment comes from taxpayers and not project performance. The failed Neelum-Jhelum project is the latest example. As India violates the Indus Waters Treaty, questionable ‘benchmarks’ surface — Pakistan’s storage is “below recommended levels” and more dams must be built in response. New storage would unlock IFI loans. But would it offset the loss of the treaty? The basic question is: what did Pakistan actually gain from the IWT — and what remains to be lost?
The crisis began in 1948, when India shut off irrigation canals to Pakistan. It ended in 1960, when the IWT was signed. India’s position never wavered: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — the eastern rivers — are India’s. Pakistan was told to replace pre-Partition dependence on them with water from the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — the western rivers — before India cut ‘its’ rivers off entirely. A question not answered by the IWT is: what did Pakistan receive that would be forfeited if the treaty disappeared? The text is unambiguous on India’s gains. Exclusive rights to the eastern rivers. Zero share for Pakistan. No deviation from the line India drew on April 1, 1948.
The western rivers went to Pakistan, with less than seven per cent reserved for India, but with India’s unlimited right to build hydropower projects on them. India kept every drop it could physically divert. Pakistan kept what India could not — because of geography, not generosity. Article IV(4) and (5) permit India to release wastewater through drains into the Ravi and Sutlej as they enter Pakistan and obligate the latter to maintain the drains. There is no cap on volume or quality. The treaty is, in fact, a rivers-division formula, with pollution allowed.
India got more than it asked for in 1948. Could India have taken even more of the Indus Basin without this formula? On the western rivers, no. Geography protects them. The rivers cross into Pakistan out of steep mountains where large-scale diversion or storage is unviable. The treaty permits India to divert or store over 3 MAF from the western rivers, yet in 65 years it hasn’t because it can’t. The eastern rivers are different, crossing a border located on flat alluvial plains where diversion is cheap and easy. In effect, the treaty lets India take all the water that could be taken and ‘gives’ Pakistan only what it can’t. Treaty or no treaty, India diverted the maximum feasible. Further diversions from the western rivers are neither practical nor economic.
Matters will only improve if Pakistan exits the IWT.
The treaty places no limit on the number of India’s hydropower projects on the western rivers. India must share designs and water-release data, and projects must meet technical restrictions. Disputes over Kishenganga, Baglihar and others went into arbitration. The projects proceed anyway, but arbitration caused delays and cost overruns. India now wants dispute mechanisms rewritten to avoid future delays. It is moving ahead on western river projects without treaty compliance. That is the most it can do to avoid arbitration.
What if there were no treaty and no international norms for lower riparian rights? What’s the maximum a powerful upper riparian could do? Divert every drop that is physically divertible. Build unlimited hydropower where diversion isn’t feasible. And send unlimited pollution downstream — which is what has happened. Through the IWT, Pakistan surrendered prior-use rights on the eastern rivers. It can’t demand environmental flows. It can’t limit the number of upstream hydropower projects that disrupt natural flow regimes and ecological timing in Pakistan. And most consequentially, it can’t stop unrestricted Indian pollution discharges into the Ravi and Sutlej.
The water Pakistan receives today will keep coming, treaty or no treaty, violation or no violation. What will also keep coming, if Pakistan continues to honour the treaty unilaterally, is industrial and municipal pollution affecting our drinking water and food chain. The worst outcome for Pakistan’s water security has already occurred and was legitimised by the IWT. There is no further water-security threat left to fear.
The situation can only improve if Pakistan exits the treaty and frames its case on environmental and human rights grounds under the Berlin Rules on International Waters, 2024. Pakistan got no real gain from the IWT. India took all the divertible eastern rivers; geography, not the treaty, protects the western ones. India already discharges unlimited pollution, builds unlimited hydropower, and diverts the maximum feasible. With or without the IWT, western river flows will continue. The worst, legalised by the IWT, has already happened. Seeking IFI loans to pour more concrete will solve nothing.
