India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance after the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack was driven by national security concerns, but it also presents an opportunity to correct decades of what many experts regard as an unequal arrangement.
Speaking to StratNews Global, Devendra Sharma, former Chairman of the Bhakra Beas Management Board argued that the treaty had imposed significant costs on India while allowing Pakistan to repeatedly challenge Indian projects through legal and arbitration mechanisms. He said the trigger for the suspension was the killing of 26 civilians by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, which directly affected India’s national security interests.
According to Sharma, the treaty left India with access to only a fraction of the Indus basin’s total water resources while restricting development on the western rivers. He contended that Pakistan frequently used treaty provisions to delay Indian hydroelectric projects, driving up costs and limiting India’s ability to manage sediment in Himalayan rivers.
He also rejected Pakistani claims that India could use water as a weapon. Sharma noted that India already possesses substantial storage capacity on the eastern rivers and has never used it to flood downstream areas. Instead, he argued that Indian infrastructure has helped moderate floods affecting parts of Pakistan, including areas around Lahore.
Sharma highlighted the water stress facing Indian states such as Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, where disputes over relatively small quantities of water have persisted for years. He said groundwater levels in parts of Punjab have fallen sharply even as millions of acre-feet of water continue flowing into Pakistan.
The impact, he argued, has been particularly severe in Jammu and Kashmir. Large areas that could have been irrigated remain unirrigated, while proposed projects faced repeated delays due to treaty procedures and international arbitration. He cited studies estimating substantial annual economic losses to the region because of unrealised hydropower potential.
Sharma also pointed to restrictions that affected local development, navigation and tourism projects in Jammu and Kashmir and water usage in Ladakh. With the treaty now in abeyance, he said India has greater scope to safeguard the interests of its own citizens while remaining within accepted international legal norms.
