Pakistan and India clash on Indus waters

India notified Pakistan on January 25 that the Indus Waters Treaty must be changed. Pakistan has steadfastly declined to interact. The 1960 pact, which was originally signed by India, Pakistan, and the World Bank, grants India and Pakistan ownership rights to various rivers in the Indus Basin.

The treaty has frequently been regarded by analysts as a high point in the two countries' otherwise tense bilateral relationship. Nonetheless, resentment has been building in both nations, and India and Pakistan have already engaged in public spats over the treaty.

Both the engineering issues at stake and the procedures the treaty outlines for resolving them are very sophisticated. But, India's desire to construct hydropower projects on the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab Rivers is the root of the issue. Pakistan has unrestricted access to these waterways thanks to the pact. The pact, however, places restrictions on what India, which is upstream, can do with them. Pakistan wants to make sure that India's dam plans comply with how it interprets the terms of the treaty.

Indus Basin Tensions are Increasing

From the middle of the 2000s, the two parties have been presenting opposing cases about the use of water. Since coming to power in India in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has adopted a harder public stance on water sharing with Pakistan. Even in 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that his country would prevent "every drop" of water from the Indus Waters Treaty-assigned Rivers Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas from flowing into Pakistan.

Pakistan has three times referred to the treaty's dispute resolution clauses. In order to resolve concerns that a proposed hydropower project on the Chenab River in Indian-administered Kashmir would give Indian engineers more control over the river's flow than the treaty permitted, Pakistan first requested the World Bank select an impartial expert. India's proposals were authorised by the impartial expert in 2007, who said that his decision was consistent with the most recent best practises for sediment management.

The World Bank was then requested by Pakistan to set up an arbitration tribunal to render judgement on India's ambitions to build a hydroelectric project on the Kishenganga-Neelum, a tributary of the Jhelum River. Indian officials are impatiently awaiting a final decision after the court's 2013 judgement did not fully side with either country.

Ultimately, Pakistan's opposition to the Ratle project, another Indian dam on the Chenab, is the primary cause of India's current unhappiness. It is planned to start building soon. In 2016, India wanted to refer to a neutral expert, while Pakistan urged the World Bank to appoint another court of arbitration. The World Bank started both processes simultaneously in 2017 and appointed key employees in October 2022, much to the chagrin of Indian officials. In the midst of their demand to change the treaty, Indian officials have now vowed to disregard any interim decisions of the arbitration court.

The demand from India takes the treaty into uncharted territory.

Although India and Pakistan have previously argued over the pact, this current missive from India is unusual. India has requested that the pact be changed through the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC), the international body that oversees the treaty's execution and addresses any issues. Given that neither party has previously requested revisions to the treaty language through the formal procedure of the PIC, this raises the possibility that the Indian government's ambitions go beyond rhetorical bluster.

What India hopes to do or intends to achieve is not really clear. According to reports, India particularly requested that Pakistan modify the terms of dispute resolution. Spokespeople for the Indian administration asserted that Pakistan's "intransigence" was what prompted their action. So what genuine motive is there for Pakistan to sit down and negotiate if India wants Pakistan to agree to new terms that benefit India when Pakistan is already making a valiant effort to stop India from benefiting under the current arrangements?

Of again, Indian officials might bet that Islamabad will be intimidated into submission by their upstream advantage over Pakistan and a healthy dose of bellicosity. They might even be looking for a justification to reject the pact and continue moving forward with upstream project development, ready to pay whatever reputational costs may result.

Both of these goals may turn out to be grave errors in judgement. The authorities of Pakistan are well aware of India's riparian advantage, and their staunch opposition to the treaty has always been motivated by fear. When engineers in East Punjab cut off water supplies to a crucial Pakistani canal, the international conflict over the Indus waters was first raised in 1948. Since then, Pakistani political narratives have framed the conflict over the Indus as one of survival. Pakistani authorities might interpret India's unilateral abrogation of the treaty as a deliberate effort to topple their nation.

For any Pakistani leadership, the risks of appearing to give in to India through renegotiation would be too great to bear. The government of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is already coping with a severe economic crisis, so it has very little political capital to devote to appeasing India.

Thus, it is unlikely that Pakistan will consent to making significant changes to the pact at this time. It is also improbable that India will try to renegotiate the treaty on its own. The BJP will not want to take a chance on starting a potentially embarrassing war with its neighbour, especially at this time when India is hosting foreign leaders and media for a year of G20 summits. It appears more likely that India is using the Permanent Indus Commission to vent its frustration at Pakistan and possibly the World Bank, trying to convey that it is growing impatient with both of their objections. Additionally, India may be frustrated with the World Bank's apparent unwillingness to support India's position.

A flimsy geopolitical negotiating chip

More generally, India may utilise the demand as a negotiating tool as it tries to keep pressure on Pakistan over other issues.

After determining Pakistan's efforts to combat terrorism financing were insufficient, the worldwide Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylisted Pakistan in 2018. S. Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs for India, took credit for keeping Pakistan on the list till 2021, although the FATF delisted Pakistan in October. Delhi may see its request for an amendment to the Indus Waters Treaty as a beneficial method to maintain pressure on Pakistan, which India considers as a "epicentre of terrorism," in Jaishankar's words.

Virtually definitely, taking a harsh stance against Pakistan will benefit India's political leadership domestically. The BJP has already begun their general election campaigning for 2024. Before the national elections that propelled the BJP back to power in 2019, the party highlighted Modi's decision to approve an airstrike on Pakistani territory following a terrorist attack in Indian-administrated Kashmir to highlight his strong-man credentials.

India will have to take action or risk appearing weak if the 90-day deadline it set for Pakistan to respond to it is not met. The airstrike of 2019 and Pakistan's physical retaliation appear to have decreased the threshold for violent confrontation. Water security specialists have demonstrated that "water wars" are highly improbable in the near future, even in South Asia, and that rivers are not armies. Yet, a failure of hydro-diplomacy might lead to a worsening of bilateral relations more broadly, perhaps jeopardising the hard-won cease-fire in Kashmir.

Even India's aspirations for global leadership, which include a desire to be viewed as a trustworthy country, may not prevent strong action on the rivers. Discarding the treaty would damage India's standing abroad, but the BJP has consistently given domestic politics precedence over world opinion. Authorities have vigorously rebuffed criticism of changes to Jammu and Kashmir's constitutional status and new regulations that are widely perceived as discriminatory against Muslims.

Even if the pact's text remains unchanged, New Delhi might claim that it is free to continue with upstream development. This would be a violation of the treaty. In the past, the World Bank has aided in resolving disputes, but according to a source in the Indian administration, New Delhi intends to bar "third parties" from getting involved in the management of the water in the Indus Basin.

One hopes New Delhi hasn't put itself in a risky situation.