On 23 April 2025, India placed the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance—an unprecedented and unexplained action that shook one of the most durable water-sharing frameworks in modern history. For over six decades, the treaty had governed the distribution of the Indus basin between India and Pakistan, surviving wars, crises, and political hostility. Its sudden suspension marked a dangerous departure from that legacy. This is an open violation of the Vienna Convention on the Laws of Treaties whose terminology only includes words like termination, suspension, or amendments and not abeyance. This also stands in violation of IWT treaty itself which also doesn’t recognize the possibility of putting the treaty under abeyance- and that too unilaterally; both are violations of the treaty framework.
On 8 August 2025, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague responded with precision and authority. In its judgement, the Court ruled in favour of Pakistan while interpreting the general rules of the Indus Waters Treaty. The PCA reaffirmed that India has no legal right to suspend the treaty unilaterally and held that, under the treaty, India remains bound to allow the rivers to flow according to their natural course. The Court further directed those uninterrupted flows of the Western Rivers—the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab—must be ensured for Pakistan’s unrestricted use, as guaranteed under the 1960 Treaty.
Despite a binding ruling, compliance vanished. Political statements and media soundbites about “weaponising the treaty” reduced a grave legal and humanitarian emergency into background noise. Meanwhile, the real violation—documented, measurable, and devastating—continued unchecked.
Between late April and May 2025, India crossed a line that cannot be explained away as diplomacy, technical disagreement, or climate variability. During this period, India deliberately manipulated dam operations on the Chenab and Jhelum rivers, engineering artificial drying of riverbeds followed by sudden, destructive flooding downstream in Pakistan. This was not mismanagement. It was not a seasonal fluctuation. It was a coordinated hydrological assault.
The evidence lies in numbers, not slogans. At Marala Headworks, the first control structure where the Chenab enters Pakistan, inflows stood at approximately 14,800 cusecs on 23 April 2025. By 2 May, flows were throttled to around 8,000 cusecs. On 3 May, water was abruptly released at over 55,000 cusecs, overwhelming canals, eroding embankments, depositing sediment, and destroying standing crops. By 6 May, the river was again choked to below 4,000 cusecs.
This pattern of strangulation followed by shock release repeated throughout the month with a precision that rules out coincidence or error. These are not disputed figures. They are recorded hydrological data.
Satellite imagery provides independent corroboration. Data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel programme shows abrupt changes in water colouration at the Baglihar Dam on 1 May 2025, consistent with reservoir flushing and sediment discharge. Following this, dam gates remained closed for extended periods, manufacturing artificial scarcity downstream, before sudden releases restored flows at damaging levels. Similar operational patterns were observed at the Kishanganga Dam on a tributary of the Jhelum.
These are not normal operations for run-of-the-river hydropower projects. Such projects have limited storage capacity and are designed to minimise flow manipulation. Extreme and repeated fluctuations of this magnitude are neither technically necessary nor environmentally defensible. In engineering terms, this constitutes intentional flow modulation, carried out in a manner that causes downstream harm.
The legal framework governing such conduct is equally clear. Under international humanitarian law, attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population—including water resources and agricultural systems—are prohibited. This principle is embedded in the Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols, and reinforced by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The deliberate manipulation of dams to induce flooding, drought, crop failure, and economic disruption downstream falls squarely within these prohibitions.
The asymmetry between the two countries further underscores the gravity of the situation. India, divided into 22 river basins, enjoys per capita water availability of approximately 1,500 cubic metres. Pakistan depends overwhelmingly on a single basin system, with per capita water availability now below 800 cubic metres—well beneath internationally recognised water-stress thresholds. There is no legal, ethical, or engineering justification for choking or force-flushing rivers under such conditions.
This crisis was not sudden. It was foreseeable. As early as December 2001, following the attack on the Indian Parliament, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security openly discussed revoking the Indus Waters Treaty as part of what it termed “coercive diplomacy.” The logic was explicit: water could be used as a pressure mechanism capable of inflicting economic distress and food insecurity without resorting to open warfare.
That doctrine reached its logical conclusion on 23 April 2025, when India formally suspended the treaty. The groundwork had been laid for years.
Water has always been central to India-Pakistan relations, shaping the region’s economic, civilizational, and geographical realities. Since partition in 1947, disputes over river control have carried existential stakes. The Indus Waters Treaty, negotiated in 1960 with World Bank mediation, was widely regarded as one of the most durable agreements between two adversarial states. It divided the rivers into Eastern and Western systems and clearly defined rights and obligations under Articles 2, 3, and 4, prohibiting either party from altering natural flows or causing material damage to the other.
India’s unilateral abeyance of the treaty—announced in the aftermath of the 22 April Pahalgam attack, despite the absence of evidence and Pakistan’s offer to cooperate in investigations—stands in open violation of that framework. The treaty contains no provision for abeyance, and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties recognises only termination or suspension through established procedures.
For Pakistan, whose National Security Policy (2021–2026) explicitly links water security to national security, the implications are profound. The unilateral disruption of river flows does not merely threaten livelihoods; it pushes the region toward a new and dangerous frontier of conflict—one where water itself becomes the weapon.
The Author, Muhammad Munib Hamid is a seasoned media and policy professional, the author is the CEO of Monark Media Institute and an anchor at Pakistan Now. He also serve as Director at Policy East, with expertise in marketing strategy and geopolitical analysis.