Pakistan loses nothing from India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty

Everyone in Pakistan, with a few exceptions, will disagree with me when I characterise the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) as more of a tragedy than a lifeline for the Indus Basin’s people and ecology. The IWT was an artefact of its times, when Pakistan felt chronically – and, in retrospect, unreasonably – threatened by India’s potential to stop water flows into Pakistan. Out of that paranoia, and an ambition for infrastructure-based development – both impulses that sadly persist – Pakistan signed the IWT in 1960. 

Even at the time of its signing, General Ayub Khan, its chief proponent and the president of Pakistan – who had acted against the advice of his country’s political parties and technocrats – acknowledged that there was “no cause for rejoicing”, only “cause for satisfaction that a possibly very ugly situation had been averted.” That ugly situation was India halting water flows into Pakistan. This eventuality was not founded in science or in any understanding of hydrology or geography – and it still is not.