India placed the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance earlier this week, as part of a raft of diplomatic measures targeting Pakistan over the terrorist attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
But discussions recorded in the parliamentary standing committees on external affairs and water resources over the past nine years show that Indian officials and the executive repeatedly expressed frustration with Pakistan’s approach to the treaty, but also said they “cannot exit” the 1960 pact.
In January 2017, in his testimony before the parliamentary committee for external affairs, then foreign secretary (now Union minister) S Jaishankar questioned the continued acceptance of the treaty simply because of its longevity. “The key issue is the workability of the treaty. It is very easy to say that the treaty has stood the test of time or that we should be a responsible country and we should be careful about the statements we should make. I think we should also be objective about how this treaty is working and how the Pakistanis have handled it and whether we have the courage to deal with that reality, “Jaishankar said.
He further said, “If we decide that because something has lasted 70 years and it goes against us and we put up with it, that may be your thinking, it is not ours. The point I wish to make here is that the Pakistanis have used legal harassment techniques, they have taken minor issues and taken it to Court Of Arbitration with the sole purpose of tying up the treaty. They have not let the commission function. I think a very serious look at the treaty and its working is called for.”
When the same panel inquired whether India could unilaterally withdraw or abrogate the treaty, the foreign ministry officials made it clear that the treaty’s provisions did not allow for unilateral action. The ministry cited Article XII of the treaty, which stated that “the provisions of this treaty may from time to time be modified by a duly ratified treaty concluded for that purpose between the two governments” and that the treaty “shall continue in force until terminated by a duly ratified treaty concluded for that purpose between the two governments.”
The government stated that its “consistent position has been that it remains committed to addressing all matters within the Indus Waters Treaty’s purview bilaterally with Pakistan through appropriate mechanisms in accordance with the treaty, till it is a party to the treaty.” This position effectively acknowledged that any modification or termination would require bilateral agreement through a new treaty.
By 2021, records showed that Indian experts were advocating for renegotiation of the treaty. The standing committee on water resources noted that the pact was “framed on the basis of knowledge and technology existing at the time of its agreement in 1960s” when both nations’ perspectives “were confined to river management and usage of water through construction of dams, barrages, canals and hydropower generation.”
The committee pointed out that “present-day pressing issues such as climate change, global warming and environmental impact assessment” were not considered in the treaty. It recommended that the government “take necessary diplomatic measures to renegotiate the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan” to establish “some kind of institutional structure or legislative framework to address the impact of climate change…”
A year later, the same panel noted that India had the right to create storage capacity of up to 3.6 million acre-feet (MAF) on the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab), no storage capacity had been created. In that same report, concerns were also raised about the maintenance of canals in border states.
The committee urged the government to complete projects such as Ujh and Shahpur Kandi on Ravi river, “expeditiously so as to exploit full potential of the western rivers for irrigation and other purposes” and recommended that “the canal system in Rajasthan and Punjab may be repaired strengthened and properly maintained in order to increase their water carrying capacity.”
In its response to the committee, the government informed Parliament in January 2022 that it was “taking necessary steps for expeditious completion of Ujh and Shahpur Kandi Dam projects” and providing central assistance to the Shahpur Kandi Dam project as a national project. The government also said it was providing central assistance to two main canal systems of Punjab and Rajasthan.