Indus Waters Treaty: A year on, India's case for freezing it and what it plans next

📌 Summary:

• India placed the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 in 'abeyance' via the Cabinet Committee on Security on April 23, 2025, after the Pahalgam terror attack, until Pakistan 'credibly and irrevocably' abjures cross-border terrorism
• India's core argument: a treaty of this nature cannot remain insulated from Pakistan's sustained cross-border terrorism over six decades
• India also argues Pakistan systematically weaponised the treaty's dispute-resolution mechanism to obstruct virtually every Indian project on the Western Rivers, regardless of size or design
• 'New hydrological realities': the IWT reflects late-1950s technology and hydrology; six decades later, climate change and altered flows have fundamentally changed circumstances, strengthening India's case for renegotiation
• Pakistan has escalated rhetoric — an Islamabad seminar on India's 'weaponisation' of Indus waters, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's threat of war over water security, and a Corps Commanders statement (July 6) signalling military readiness
• India's 'water and blood cannot flow together' rhetoric is seen as aimed at a domestic audience, potentially weakening its case before a global audience sympathetic to Pakistan as a lower riparian

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 IR — India–Pakistan relations, transboundary water disputes, treaty law and neighbourhood policy

📝 Prelims Facts:

• IWT (1960) was brokered by the World Bank; India gets the Eastern Rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej), Pakistan the Western Rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab)
• Salal dam is on the Chenab; Pakistan had objected to its construction
• The treaty has a graded dispute mechanism: Permanent Indus Commission → Neutral Expert → Court of Arbitration

🔑 Key Term: Abeyance — a state of temporary suspension; India has suspended, not abrogated, the IWT, keeping its future contingent on Pakistan's conduct.