India’s decision to “hold in abeyance” the 1960 Indus Water Treaty may conjure up images of cutting off a lifeline to Pakistan’s 240 million people, but any major water diversion would likely take years, experts said on Thursday.
The experts, who have studied the treaty’s history, said India’s past compliance with the treaty’s rules on sharing water from six rivers — Indus, Chenab, Jhelum, Beas, Ravi and Sutlej — makes swift action to block flow into Pakistan virtually impossible.
“India’s move is less about any immediate disruptions, more about long-term leverage,” said Rahul Lad, a geographer who specialises in hydrology and politics at the JSPM University, Pune. “Any major diversion or large-scale water storage will require long-term initiatives — it is not something that can be done very quickly,” Lad told The Telegraph.
A day after the Pahalgam attack, the Indian government had said on Wednesday that it
would, among other retaliatory steps, hold the treaty in abeyance “until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism”.
This prompted the Pakistan government to announce on Thursday that any attempt to divert water meant for Pakistan under the treaty would be considered an “act of war”.
Islamabad said the water from these rivers was a “lifeline” for 240 million Pakistanis.
The treaty grants India full use of the Beas, Ravi and the Sutlej while restricting its use of the Indus, Chenab and the Jhelum to non-consumptive purposes such as hydroelectricity — with a total storage limit of 3.6 million acre feet, roughly equal to 1.8 million Olympic-size swimming pools.
The allocation effectively gives Pakistan control over about 80 per cent of the six rivers’ combined flow.
India’s existing projects on these rivers comply with the treaty and do not significantly impact water flow into Pakistan, even in the driest seasons, according to an analysis by Lad and co-author Ravindra Jaybhaye, published last Decembert in the journal Water Policy.
In the short term, Lad said, India could exert pressure by suspending the sharing of hydrological data or denying Pakistani officials access to Indian project sites along the rivers — both of which are obligations under the treaty.
While India says it has adhered to the treaty’s terms, Pakistan has often objected to projects such as the 330MW Kishenganga on the Jhelum and the 850MW Ratle onthe Chenab.
However, these are “run-of-the-river” projects, meaning they store little or no water and allow continuous downstream flow, experts say.
“With no provisions for large-scale storage, it will be difficult to store the huge volume of water from these western rivers,” Lad said.
Redirecting or storing significant amounts of water for use in Jammu and Kashmir or northern India would require extensive, long-term infrastructure development.
Some scholars and Indian political leaders have long argued for a revision of the treaty, citing the 80:20 water-sharing ratio and limitations on India as restrictive and outdated.
Critics also argue that the treaty has hindered Jammu and Kashmir’s economic development by capping its ability to exploit hydropower potential, especially during the winter months when generation drops and power shortages intensify.
“As a fallout of the treaty barriers, J&K pays a heavy price in peak winter months when power generation hits a low, creating hardships for its people,” chief minister Omar Abdullah had said at a 2024 conference of state power ministers.
Some Indian analysts view Pakistan’s objections to projects on the Jhelum and the Chenab as strategic efforts to block infrastructure development in Kashmir.
Pakistan’s own vulnerabilities to water stress are exacerbated by limited storage infrastructure and inefficient water use, hydrologists say. A 2019 assessment found that Pakistan had only 30 days worth of water storage capacity, compared to India’s 220 days and Egypt’s 1,000.
Lad and Jaybhaye also say in their paper that nearly 75 per cent of Pakistan’s water resources are used up in cultivating water-intensive crops such as rice, cotton, maize, and sugarcane, further straining the country’s already precarious water balance.