Pakistan’s warning at the UN over India’s unilateral move to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance must be read against a much graver backdrop than a routine bilateral disagreement. It coincides with a sobering global assessment by a UN research institute that the world is entering an era of ‘water bankruptcy’ – a stage where water systems are being depleted faster than nature can replenish them, with damage so severe that recovery may no longer be realistic. In such a world, the weaponisation of water is not just reckless but potentially catastrophic. Addressing a Global Water Bankruptcy Policy Roundtable hosted by Canada and the United Nations University on Tuesday, Pakistan’s representative Ambassador Usman Jadoon, rightly framed India’s actions as creating an unprecedented crisis for Pakistan’s water security and regional stability. New Delhi’s ‘deliberate weaponisation of water’, as put by Pakistan, does indeed reflect a rather disturbing shift away from the cooperative spirit that has sustained the Indus Waters Treaty for over six decades.
The treaty, signed in 1960, has survived wars, political ruptures and diplomatic freezes precisely because it insulated water from geopolitics. That resilience is now under strain. According to Pakistan, India has not only declared the treaty in abeyance unilaterally – something the treaty itself does not permit – but has also disrupted downstream flows without notice and withheld critical hydrological data. This strikes at the core of predictability and transparency on which downstream survival depends. The Indus Basin supplies over 80 per cent of the country’s agricultural water and supports the livelihoods of more than 240 million people. For a semi-arid, climate-vulnerable, lower-riparian state already grappling with floods, droughts, glacier melt and groundwater depletion, uncertainty in river flows is an existential crisis. And the implications extend well beyond Pakistan. The UN University report’s concept of water bankruptcy captures a global reality in which rivers, lakes and aquifers are being overdrawn and polluted at unsustainable rates. In such a scenario, India’s water weaponisation risks triggering a dangerous domino effect. If one major power can unilaterally suspend a landmark treaty without consequence, what prevents others from doing the same elsewhere?
The fact is that water scarcity is no longer just an environmental concern. It is strongly linked to food security, energy stability, public health and human security. And so transboundary water governance is actually one pillar of international peace. Pakistan, for its part, has emphasised that it is not relying on diplomacy alone. Initiatives such as Living Indus and Recharge Pakistan reflect an effort to build domestic resilience through ecosystem restoration, flood protection and groundwater replenishment. But even the most ambitious national reforms cannot compensate for instability in shared river basins. No downstream country can adapt its way out of upstream coercion. This is where the international community’s role becomes crucial. The erosion of the Indus Waters Treaty would not only imperil Pakistan’s water security but also weaken international water law at a time when cooperation is more urgently needed than ever. Water, as the UN report reminds us, is already being driven into bankruptcy by human excess and climate stress. Turning it into a geopolitical weapon will only accelerate that collapse. South Asia, home to some of the world’s most climate-exposed populations, cannot afford such a trajectory. Nor can the rest of the world.
