A senior Indian minister has reignited tensions over the Indus River, warning that not a “drop of its water” would reach Pakistan — a statement that signals a dangerous shift in South Asia’s already fragile security landscape. The comments, made by Chandrakant Paatil on X, come nine years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi first floated the idea of restricting the river’s flow.
Earlier this year, India’s government moved to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a landmark 1960 agreement brokered by the World Bank to ensure water-sharing between India and Pakistan. By placing the treaty “in abeyance,” New Delhi has effectively opened the door to using one of the world’s most crucial rivers as a geopolitical weapon — a precedent that could destabilize other water-scarce regions worldwide.
Weaponizing Water: A Dangerous New Front
Cutting Pakistan off from the Indus River would be an act of hydrologic siege, something rarely attempted even in times of war. For a country where over 90% of agriculture depends on Indus waters, such a move would devastate food security, push millions into poverty, and create waves of climate refugees — a crisis that would inevitably spill across borders and destabilize South Asia.
The ecological consequences would be equally catastrophic. The Indus supports a delicate network of wetlands, mangroves, and fisheries stretching from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. Severing its flow would accelerate desertification in Sindh, salinize farmland, drain aquifers, and likely destroy one of the world’s largest river deltas, home to unique wildlife and vital carbon-storing mangrove forests.
A Civilisation Older Than Borders
This dispute transcends politics: the Indus is not just a river but a cradle of human civilization. Alongside the Nile, Yellow, and Tigris-Euphrates, it birthed one of the world’s earliest urban cultures, flourishing over 4,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization stretched across much of modern-day Pakistan and northwest India, influencing the subcontinent’s cultural and spiritual traditions long before the rise of Vedic culture or modern nation-states.
As historian Wendy Doniger and others have documented, the Indus basin shaped South Asia’s spiritual and cultural heritage far more profoundly than commonly acknowledged. Even the very name “India” derives from this river. Blocking its waters would not just harm Pakistan — it would strike at the shared historical roots of the entire region.
Rivers as Living Beings
Environmental philosophers and writers like Robert Macfarlane have argued that rivers should be recognized as living entities, not just channels of water. In many indigenous and South Asian traditions, rivers are revered as sacred lifelines — the goddess Sarasvati herself was once a river, celebrated in Vedic texts before drying up around 1900 BCE.
Novelist Mustansir Tarar’s work Bahao (“Flow”) and political theorist James C. Scott’s In Praise of Floods similarly emphasize that rivers are complex ecosystems, intertwined with human culture and survival. To dam or divert them recklessly is not just environmental destruction; it’s an assault on a living, breathing system that sustains civilization.
What’s at Stake
The Indus River sustains nearly 250 million people, most of them in Pakistan, but also communities in India, Tibet, and beyond. Four-fifths of its basin lies in Pakistan, making it the country’s lifeline. Any disruption would worsen already severe climate pressures in a region that’s facing melting glaciers, unpredictable monsoons, and rising sea levels.
Yet stewardship over the Indus has become a casualty of escalating nationalism. If India follows through with its threats, it will not only violate international law but also set a precedent that could inspire other upstream nations — from Ethiopia to China — to weaponize water, pushing the world closer to resource-driven conflict.
A Call for Shared Stewardship
The Indus predates both India and Pakistan by millennia; its waters are not bound by modern borders. To weaponize it would be a crime against nature and history, deepening animosities and jeopardizing future generations.
The path forward demands collaboration rather than confrontation. The Indus Waters Treaty, long held as a rare example of diplomacy surviving war, must be revived and strengthened — not abandoned. Without shared stewardship, South Asia risks ecological collapse and humanitarian crises on a scale that no military strategy could contain.
