india is dismantling the world’s most successful water treaty

by treating the indus as leverage, not a lifeline. new delhi is redefining what upstream powers can get away with.

On April 23, India fractured the world’s most durable water pact.

A day after insurgents killed 26 civilians in Kashmir, New Delhi suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty. This means halting data sharing, withdrawing from the Permanent Indus Commission, and signaling a reassessment of its treaty obligations to Pakistan. The move marked not just a bilateral rupture, but a potential unraveling of the planet’s most resilient model of water diplomacy.

Two weeks after the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly backed the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. His speech marked a turning point, framing the Indus not as a shared resource, but as strategic leverage

The Indus Waters Treaty, brokered by the World Bank in 1960, divided the vast river system between India and Pakistan. It was a Cold War anomaly: a technocratic workaround for a geopolitical standoff. Even as the two countries went to war, the water kept flowing, not because of goodwill, but because the treaty treated water as infrastructure, not ideology.

That firewall may be eroding.

India has not formally withdrawn from the Indus Waters Treaty, but its recent suspension of participation marks a significant shift in its approach to the agreement. In recent weeks, senior Indian officials have framed the river system as strategic leverage. Public statements suggest India may reinterpret the treaty’s constraints, exploit its ambiguities, and test its limits. Not quietly, but pointedly.

The Indus River, pictured here in Ladakh, has been a lifeline for South Asia for millennia and a fault line for decades. Since 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty has governed its flow between India and Pakistan, surviving wars, nuclear tests, and terrorism. That framework is now under direct strain.

That shift matters far beyond South Asia. It cracks the norm that upstream powers restrain themselves for the sake of downstream stability. If India moves first, others may follow.

China has long held strategic control over the Mekong River, affecting water access in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. Drawing criticism for dam-building that disrupts regional ecosystems and livelihoods. In Africa, Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile has alarmed Egypt, which depends on the river for 90% of its freshwater. And in Central Asia, tensions flare periodically over water control between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, especially in drought years.

These aren't theoretical parallels. They’re live tests of the same question: Can a treaty or norm hold when an upstream power decides it no longer serves its interests?