abstract

Since 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty has provided the principal legal and political framework governing water relations between India and Pakistan. For over six decades, it has functioned as a stabilising arrangement that helped prevent open conflict over shared river systems. This article critically examines the treaty’s dual role as both a mechanism of cooperation and a framework under increasing strain. It argues that contemporary pressures are steadily undermining the treaty’s foundational principles. These pressures include the strategic deployment of treaty procedures as a form of legal leverage, persistent socio-economic grievances among riparian populations in India, and the accelerating effects of climate change on the Indus basin’s hydrology. Drawing on existing scholarship, legal analyses of disputes such as Baglihar, Kishenganga, and Ratle, and field data from Indian riparian states, the article contends that the treaty’s rigid approach to river division is ill-suited to present-day realities. India’s recent suspension of the treaty signals a shift from conflict management toward coercive hydro-politics. Without a fundamental rethinking of the treaty toward a more adaptive, basin-wide, and environmentally responsive framework, the Indus risks becoming a source of renewed conflict rather than cooperation.