Indus Waters Treaty

The Indus River basin and its drainage network.

Indus Waters Treaty, treaty, signed on September 19, 1960, between India and Pakistan and brokered by the World Bank. The treaty fixed and delimited the rights and obligations of both countries concerning the use of the waters of the Indus River system. It gave control of the waters of the western rivers—the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab—to Pakistan and those of the eastern rivers—the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—to India.

The Indus River rises in the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region of China and flows through the disputed Kashmir region and then into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to drain into the Arabian Sea. It is joined by numerous tributaries, notably those of the eastern Punjab Plain—the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers. The Indus River system has been used for irrigation since time immemorial. Modern irrigation engineering work began about 1850. During the period of British rule in India, large canal systems were constructed, and old canal systems and inundation channels were revived and modernized. However, in 1947 British India was partitioned, resulting in the creation of an independent India and West Pakistan (later called Pakistan). The water system was thus bifurcated, with the headworks in India and the canals running through Pakistan. After the expiration of the short-term Standstill Agreement of 1947, on April 1, 1948, India began withholding water from canals that flowed into Pakistan. The Inter-Dominion Accord of May 4, 1948, required India to provide water to the Pakistani parts of the basin in return for annual payments. This too was intended as a stopgap measure, with further talks to take place in hopes of reaching a permanent solution.

Negotiations soon came to a standstill, however, with neither side willing to compromise. In 1951 David Lilienthal, former head of both the Tennessee Valley Authority and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, visited the region for the purpose of researching articles that he was to write for Collier’s magazine. He suggested that India and Pakistan should work toward an agreement to jointly develop and administer the Indus River system, possibly with advice and financing from the World Bank. Eugene Black, who was then the president of the World Bank, agreed. At his suggestion, engineers from each country formed a working group, with engineers from the World Bank offering advice. Political considerations, however, prevented even these technical discussions from arriving at an agreement. In 1954 the World Bank submitted a proposal for a solution to the impasse. After six years of talks, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani President Mohammad Ayub Khan signed the Indus Waters Treaty in September 1960.

The treaty gave the waters of the western rivers—the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab—to Pakistan and those of the eastern rivers—the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—to India. It also provided for the funding and building of dams, link canals, barrages, and tube wells—notably the Tarbela Dam on the Indus River and the Mangla Dam on the Jhelum River. These helped provide water to Pakistan in the amounts that it had previously received from the rivers now assigned to India’s exclusive use. Much of the financing was contributed by member countries of the World Bank. The treaty required the creation of a Permanent Indus Commission, with a commissioner from each country, in order to maintain a channel for communication and to try to resolve questions about implementation of the treaty. In addition, mechanisms for resolving disputes were provided, including a neutral expert mechanism to resolve technical issues and a court of arbitration mechanism for broader and binding adjudications. Numerous disputes were peacefully settled over the years through the Permanent Indus Commission.

In a significant challenge to the treaty, in 2017 India completed the building of the Kishanganga dam in Kashmir and continued work on the Ratle hydroelectric power station on the Chenab River despite Pakistan’s objections and amid ongoing negotiations with the World Bank over whether the designs of those projects violated the terms of the treaty. After facilitation by the World Bank failed to bring about an agreement between the two governments, the World Bank in 2022 appointed both a neutral expert (at India’s request) and a court of arbitration (at Pakistan’s request) to help settle the dispute. The matter escalated in 2023 when India invoked a provision in the treaty to request a bilateral modification of the treaty, which Pakistan refused. In 2024 India called off all meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission, insisting the two countries meet and discuss the treaty’s modification.

By early 2025 the treaty appeared close to unraveling. In April gunmen carried out the deadliest attack against civilians in decades in India-administered Kashmir. Responsibility was claimed by a Telegram-based group known as The Resistance Front (TRF; also called Kashmir Resistance), whose commanders, according to Indian security officials, were associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, believed to have plotted previous terror attacks in Kashmir as well as the 2008 Mumbai attacks. India announced that it would hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance in response to the attack. India accuses Pakistan of supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba and other insurgents in Kashmir. In recent years, amid international pressure, Pakistan claimed to have made some efforts to curtail Lashkar-e-Taiba and other separatist groups known to operate in Pakistan, but India maintained that Pakistan continues to provide covert support and cover for the militants to orchestrate attacks in India-administered Kashmir. India’s announcement marked the first time that tensions between the two countries had disrupted the treaty, which observers had previously hailed for its durability, despite war and conflict, as one of the oldest surviving water-sharing agreements in the world.