On December 29, 2025, India marked another blow on the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) through the approval of the Dulhasti Stage-II hydropower project on the Chenab River in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). This move is highly condemned by Pakistan as a blatant violation of the spirit of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 as it is not merely another development in the history of Indo-Pak water disputes but it also marks a significant shift in the hydropolitics of the region. Water, a shared resource, has been widely weaponized in South Asia as a major geopolitical tool to gain strategic leverage. Besides the element of power projection involved in hydropolitics, it has far-reaching consequences for agriculture and food security, regional peace, and the very survival of downstream communites.
India’s decision to approve the 260-megawatt hydropower project comes amid the worsened tensions over the IWT in recent times. Pakistan emphasizes that this approval comes in the wake of illegal suspension of the treaty by New Delhi in the aftermath of the Pahalgam incident, a terrorist attack allegedly attributed to Pakistan. According to the verdict by Permanent Court of Arbitration, the IWT cannot be suspended or revoked unilaterally by a single party as the agreement is an internationally guaranteed one, supported by dispute-resolution mechanisms. Pakistan’s leadership stance is clear on this situation where any attempt of unilateral suspension or revokation of the treaty’s provisions is a direct violation of its water rights. For Pakistan, the water of the Indus basin is not mere the pawn in the geopolitical chess of the region, rather they are the lifeline of the country’s agrarian economy and of the population dependent on it. Specifically, the Chenab river contributes to hydropower generation, provides sustainance to communities, and feeds major irrigation networks. Any interference by the upper riparian state, India, would have dire consequences for the food security and livelihoods of inhabitants downstream.
New Delhi’s stance on the issue is to project these initiatives as part of legitimate actions to use the hydropower potential in IIOJK in order to address the electricity deficit in the region. However, in the wake of alleged suspension of the treaty, these measures, without effective treaty mechanism, data-sharing, and third-party oversight, become the tools of hydropolitics as uncertainty and distrust prevail.
The way forward for Pakistan on this issue is to strongly defend its water rights and pursue diversified water diplomacy.
Pakistan’s political leadership, particularly Senator Sherry Rehman, has characterized this project as “weaponization of power” and a coercive tool to exert strategic pressure on Pakistan. She further warned that such a move is “neither sane nor acceptable” especially in a nuclearised neighborhood characterized by mutual distrust and a region already under the havoc of climate change.
As far as the story of the Indus Water Treaty is concerned, it is a deal that was brokered by the World Bank in 1960. It equitaby divided the waters of six rivers: the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) were mostly allocated to Pakistan, and the eastern rivers (Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas) were allocated primarily to India. India retained only limited rights for irrigation and non-consumptuve uses on the western rivers, provided that the projects do not affect the downstream flows. Despite the ambiguites and recurrent technical disputes, the treaty survived major wars, crisis, and even diplomatic breakdowns. However, 2025 has witnessed a reversal of this legacy. According to Pakistani officials, India recent attempts to suspend the treaty and approve multiple hydropower projects goes beyond the normal treaty disagreements and marks a shift towards weaponization of water resources to leverage political goals.
Pakistan has repeatedly called the recent steps taken by New Delhi as illegal and stressed that disputes should be resolved through the treaty mechanism which includes the Indus Waters Commission, Neutral Expert determinations, and arbitration when required. Yet, legal steps alone cannot guarantee water security. Without genuine dialogue, transparency, and mutual interest to resolve the dispute, the legalistic method would only further the political posturing of the issue rather than genuine conflict resolution.
The way forward for Pakistan on this issue is to strongly defend its water rights and pursue diversified water diplomacy. It includes not only strengthening domestic resilience mechanisms to counter any potential threat from the upper riparian state but also to persuade multilateral institutions to uphold international law and enforce the compliance of Indian actions with the existing treaty provisions. It also requires Islamabad to engage with New Delhi to create a system of transparency, trust, and mutual dialogue, where unilateral actions are discouraged. However, such cooperation cannot come along with the politicization of these steps for electoral gains by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The path towards conflict resolution is difficult but important as water dispute if not resolved timely could have profound consequences for million of lives. Cooperation rather than conflict, over the shared water resources, is the ultimate solution to ensure sustainable peace in the region.
The writer is an IR scholar with south asian politics and regional security as his area of expertise. He can be reached at [email protected]