• Indus commissioner says New Delhi ignoring correspondence over fluctuations in Chenab
• Despite India’s insistence on abeyance, Mehar Ali Shah says Court of Arbitration’s recent awards have ‘reactivated the treaty’
• Dar warns neighbour against sowing seeds of war, says treaty facing its ‘gravest challenge’ yet
• Bilawal likens water manipulation to Hormuz closure, calls for whole-of-nation response to Indian threats and actions
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been working single-handedly to keep the Indus Waters Treaty and its allied machinery alive, despite India unilaterally holding the treaty in abeyance, Pakistan’s Commissioner for Indus Waters revealed on Tuesday.
For Islamabad, he said, the treaty is a matter of national security, not mere hydrology, since the livelihoods of more than 240 million people and over 80 per cent of arable land are dependent on the Indus basin.
Addressing “Indus Waters Treaty: An Instrument of Peace and Regional Stability”, an international seminar convened to lay out the treaty’s legal and constitutional framework, Syed Mehr Ali Shah said he had written to his Indian counterpart the previous night over “significant fluctuations” in the flow of the Chenab.
This, he said, was the fourth such letter since last year, and yet another in a long line of communiques that have gone unanswered.
Pakistan, he said, had spent the past year single-handedly providing required data, requesting meetings, inspections and project information, and seeking consultations under Article 9, none of which have drawn a reply.
Terming the fluctuations in river flows a “strategic hazard”, he argued that India’s refusal to share operational data had left Pakistan unable to tell whether it faced nature or “the upstream operation”.
Mr Shah also revealed that India had begun reopening low-level outlets at the Marala Barrage — a move he said would let it empty, refill and repeat reservoir manipulations “to the detriment of Pakistan”.
The Indus commissioner also flagged the planned Chenab-Beas link project, which he said would divert 1.9 million acre-feet of water out of a river whose waters belong to Pakistan.
The fluctuations are not an isolated occurrence. Variations in the Chenab’s flow have been reported repeatedly since India announced, in April last year, that it would place its treaty obligations in abeyance — following an attack in India-held Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad without presenting evidence. An Indian minister has since gone on record saying that India was working to stop the flow of water into Pakistan.
Guessing without data
Calling for an immediate meeting of the Indus Commission, the full restoration of data-sharing and the resumption of inspections, the commissioner warned that continued silence from New Delhi “increases the risk of avoidable escalation”.
The last meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission was held in May 2022, he noted, with regular correspondence outstanding since August 2023.
Data-sharing, he said, was “the line between natural risk and manufactured vulnerability”, and the recent swings were precisely the kind of event the Indus Commission existed to examine. No responsible downstream commissioner, he argued, would treat them as routine and move on.
“Without data, the downstream state is forced to guess,” he said, describing hydrological information as an “operational necessity” rather than a “diplomatic courtesy”.
On the legal front, Mr Shah said a recent Court of Arbitration decision had effectively “reactivated the treaty” and resolved any legal uncertainty India had created around its status.
He recalled that India began work on projects planned for the western rivers as far back as 2000, and that in 2016 Pakistan sought a general interpretation of the provisions governing Indian development on those rivers — a process that has since produced two awards, one in 2025 and a second in May 2026.
On Pakistan turning to international forums for recourse, he said, “We are taking the matter to the world not to internationalise a quarrel… but to prevent a treaty breakdown from becoming a security crisis.”
India shouldn’t ‘sow war’
Earlier, in his address, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar warned India against sowing the seeds of war, saying Pakistan had consistently sought to resolve all issues through diplomacy and dialogue.
The minister, who also holds the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, said transboundary rivers should bring nations closer through cooperation rather than divide them through confrontation.
But, Mr Dar said, it was “deeply regrettable” that this landmark treaty was now facing its “gravest challenge”.
“We reject India’s unilateral and illegal announcement to suspend the treaty. The IWT remains valid, binding, and fully operative. No party can unilaterally suspend or terminate its obligations under a treaty that contains no such provision,” he stated.
“Any attempt to deprive Pakistan of its waters, rightfully allocated under the IWT, would have profound consequences for regional peace and security,” he maintained.
Terming the recent closing of the Straits of Hormuz the “weaponisation of a waterway”, former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said that no peace or ceasefire between the US and Iran could be achieved with the strait closed.
“Similarly, how can any ceasefire between India and Pakistan hold without the Indus Waters Treaty being restored… A strait may carry the oil of nations; the Indus carries the life of nations,” he said.
He called for a whole-of-the-state response, including a military response, to Indian threats and actions.
Calling the IWT a “remarkable example” of the rule-based international order, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the 1960 treaty occupied a “unique place in international relations”.
“The weaponisation of water or attempts to unilaterally alter established arrangements undermine not only regional peace and stability but also the broader framework of international law. International agreements cannot be suspended or disregarded at convenience,” he concluded.
Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2026