Can India Really Turn Off the Tap? What Jaishankar’s Remarks Mean for the Indus Waters Treaty

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s remarks at IIT Madras earlier this month, echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion that “blood and water cannot flow together”, have once again brought the Indus waters into the centre of India–Pakistan discourse. The comments underline India’s anger over decades of cross-border terrorism, but they also raise a harder question: how much leverage does India actually have over the rivers that flow into Pakistan?

The treaty behind the rhetoric

The “water-sharing arrangement” Jaishankar referred to is the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), signed in 1960 after nearly nine years of negotiations facilitated by the World Bank. The treaty governs the Indus Rivers System — the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — rivers that originate or flow through India and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir before entering Pakistan.

Under the treaty, India retained full rights over the eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — while Pakistan was allocated the western rivers — Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. In effect, India kept control over only about 20 per cent of the total waters of the system, while Pakistan received the remaining 80 per cent. For Pakistan, whose agrarian economy depends heavily on these rivers, the treaty became a cornerstone of national water security.

Why Pakistan feared India — and why those fears were misplaced

From the outset, Pakistan feared that India, as the upper riparian, could choke off its lifeline. In practice, geography and hydrology sharply limit India’s capacity to do so. The Indus flows through narrow, mountainous terrain in Ladakh before entering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, making large storage dams or meaningful diversion virtually impossible. Similar constraints apply to the Jhelum, where large reservoirs cannot be built.

The Chenab offers more scope, particularly for run-of-the-river hydropower projects, but even here the treaty restricts storage capacity. India can generate electricity and use limited water for irrigation, but cannot construct dams with large pondages that would allow it to control seasonal flows.

What India can — and cannot — do

India can fully utilise the waters of the eastern rivers, but these account for only a fifth of the total Indus system. On the western rivers, its options are modest:

• Run-of-the-river hydropower on the Chenab and Jhelum.
• Limited irrigation and navigation projects.
• Completion of projects such as the Tulbul Navigation Project, stalled for decades due to Pakistani objections.

What India cannot realistically do is “turn off the tap” to Pakistan in any large or sustained manner. Terrain, treaty provisions and existing infrastructure make large-scale diversion or withholding of western river waters unfeasible.

Why India has held the treaty in abeyance

Following the Pahalgam terror attack last year, India placed the IWT in abeyance. This came after earlier efforts in 2024 to seek renegotiation of the treaty, arguing that circumstances — especially power generation needs and climate variability — had changed since 1960. Pakistan insisted that any discussion be routed through the Indus Waters Commission, a position India rejected, seeking instead a broader political commitment to renegotiation.

Pakistan has warned that restricting water flows would be an “act of war”, but such statements are as much about signalling vulnerability as deterrence. Pakistan is now a water-scarce country, a consequence less of Indian actions than of decades of poor water management and inefficient irrigation practices.

Why Pakistan wants the treaty to survive

Pakistan’s desperation to preserve the IWT rests on two concerns. First, even marginal reductions in water availability could hurt its agriculture, especially during peak sowing seasons. Second, predictability matters: the treaty ensures that India cannot disrupt flows suddenly, even if it cannot do so on a large scale.

There is also a school of thought in Pakistan advocating cooperation on sub-surface water, arguing that India and Pakistan share aquifers. This view seeks to expand the scope of the IWT beyond rivers to groundwater management.

Why India should draw clear red lines

India should resist any attempt to extend cooperation to sub-soil or aquifer waters. Given Pakistan’s obstructive approach to even the existing treaty mechanisms, widening the scope would create new vulnerabilities without commensurate benefits.

India’s position is further complicated by the fact that it is not only an upper riparian state, but also a lower riparian one — notably in the case of the Brahmaputra vis-à-vis China. This dual status reinforces the need for consistency, restraint and legal clarity in India’s water diplomacy.

Clarity over symbolism

The Indus Waters Treaty has long been unpopular in Jammu and Kashmir, where it is seen as constraining local development. Yet, six decades on, it remains one of the most durable water-sharing arrangements in the world.

That durability, however, should not obscure reality. India’s ability to “punish” Pakistan through water is limited. Symbolic rhetoric may satisfy domestic anger, but it risks creating public confusion about what is technically and legally possible.

What is needed now is transparency. A clear public accounting of how much water India forgoes under the IWT — and how much it can realistically use even if the treaty is suspended — would ground the debate in facts rather than emotion.

Water, unlike rhetoric, follows geography. And on an issue as vital as rivers, clarity is not just desirable — it is essential.