By Sant Kumar Sharma
The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed by the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani President Ayub Khan on September 19, 1960, in Karachi in the presence of World Bank officials. It endured for over 50 years and Pakistan built a narrative that even wars have failed to shake up IWT. Misguided do-gooders from India tagged along, and praised it sky high, as an unshakable talisman of cooperation between the two neighbours, often bitter rivals, and enemies.
The Indian government under Atal Behari Vajpayee, for the first time ever, talked of the possibility of scrapping the Treaty after December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists. The threat was not carried out then and two years before that, during Kargil war, it was not something that was on the table even for discussions. If it was, one did not hear about it being mentioned publicly by any leader of consequence.
On April 23, 2025, almost 65 years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done to IWT after a gruesome terrorist strike in Pahalgam what earlier wars could not do.
Keeping IWT in abeyance was the first of five major punitive steps that the Modi government has initiated against Pakistan. For too long, Pakistan has played with a straight bat denying any hand in repeated terror strikes it managed to engineer through its proxies in India, particularly Jammu & Kashmir.
This time, however, Modi decided that enough is enough. The message from the Indian government leaves no room for ambiguity. Retaliation, swift and punitive, was in order and duly announced.
Modi’s 5th punch on IWT
The very first step that the Modi government has decided on is to keep in abeyance the IWT. This is a real knock-out punch. Incidentally, it has been Modi’s consistent policy to use IWT as a cornerstone of his government’s strategic policy for mounting pressure on Pakistan. It needs to be mentioned here that this was Modi’s 5th punch on IWT delivered to an adversary when least expected.
If this is the 5th IWT blow by Modi, when were the first four delivered?
We will have to go back to scrutinising Modi’s record of 11 years as PM and then the timeline of earlier four blows becomes clear to us. During his first tenure as PM, from 2014 to 2019, Modi referred to the IWT, indirectly and then directly, twice. During his second tenure, from 2019 to 2024, Modi referred to the IWT, directly, once in January 25, 2023. In his current third tenure, the Modi government used IWT in August 2024 and now for the second time in April 2025.
Till April 23, 2025, Pakistan ignored all warnings issued by the Indian government, direct and indirect, to behave and not jeopardise IWT. But on Wednesday (April 23) evening, it had no choice but to straighten its back and take notice.
On Wednesday, it was for the 5th time during his three tenures that PM Modi had invoked IWT in the context of diplomatic ties with Pakistan. Of these five times, it has been referred to at least thrice due to spectacular terrorist attacks. Wednesday’s action on IWT it the 5th time Modi government has taken substantial action on IWT.
On earlier occasions too, Modi had talked of IWT decisively. It has been an escalatory ladder, with each new step a notch above the previous one.
On the 4th time, August 30, 2024, a notice was sent to Pakistan for modification of IWT under Article XII (3). Before that, the Modi government had made its intentions clear about the future of IWT when it gave its first notice for modification on January 25, 2023. That was the third time during Modi’s tenure that IWT had come into play.
Just after the Pulwama attack of February 14, 2019, a working group on IWT hurriedly made its recommendations on February 22. The Modi government’s plans to undertake three projects on Ravi river for fuller utilisation of India's share of water under IWT were announced. However, only one of the three projects have been completed with nothing done till date on project no 2 and project no 3.
Weaponising IWT was overdue
Just as Pakistan has been consistent in engineering terror attacks, Modi had started flirting with IWT soon after the Uri attack in September 2016. A statement attributed to him then was: Blood and water can't flow together. Another phrase that gained much currency during that phase was: Terror and talks can’t go together.
In the paragraphs above is a bird’s eye view of the IWT through the last 65 years. It may be interesting to note that no Congress government at the Centre thought of touching IWT in any manner despite grave provocations. Just as the Pahalgam terror attack was the handiwork of Lashkar e Toiba (LeT), the attack on Mumbai during November 2008 was directed and choreographed by Hafiz Saeed and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in tandem. The difference being that despite the death of 166 people in an orgy of death perpetrated by Ajmal Kasab & Co in 2008, IWT was not even discussed then. It has gone into abeyance with immediate effect this time, sowing the seeds of its modification in the long-term.
(Sant Kumar Sharma is a senior journalist.)
Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.
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