The blood spilled in Pahalgam was the final drop that made the river overflow. Once again, Hindu pilgrims and families, symbols of India’s pluralistic civilisational soul, were targeted and slaughtered by jihadi terrorists. But this time, Bharat did not merely condemn. It chose action—not the noisy, reactive kind that makes headlines for a week, but the silent, unyielding kind that redefines a nation’s strategic posture for generations.
The abrogation of the Indus Waters Treaty by India is not merely a technical withdrawal from an outdated agreement; it is a profound civilisational response to decades of terror, betrayal, and strategic naivety. It marks the end of India’s tolerance—not just for bloodshed, but for a lopsided moral burden it carried for far too long.
Ever since the announcement, a chorus of doubters has risen—academics, media pundits, retired bureaucrats—asking, “How will India implement it? You cannot change river courses overnight.” Some, in their eagerness to appear pragmatic, have even floated bizarre fantasies about giant pumps emptying rivers. What they fail to grasp is a fundamental truth about the Modi doctrine: India does not speak first and act later. In this government’s playbook, action precedes announcement, and execution precedes publicity.
The seeds of this moment were sown much earlier, perhaps even in 2016, when in the aftermath of the Uri terror attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated with chilling clarity: “Blood and water cannot flow together.” Those who dismissed this as rhetorical flourish failed to see the groundwork being laid, brick by strategic brick, across India’s river systems.
Projects like the Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant, operational since 2018, were not mere infrastructural additions—they were geopolitical tools. The revival of the long-stalled Ratle Hydro Project on the Chenab, the reactivation of the Tulbul Navigation Project to regulate Jhelum’s flow, the expedited construction of the Shahpurkandi Dam, and the ambitious Ujh Multipurpose Project were all steps in a silent chess game where India repositioned itself as the true master of its rivers. These projects were not just about hydroelectricity or irrigation; they were about reclaiming sovereignty over resources that history, bad diplomacy, and misplaced idealism had frittered away.
To truly grasp the magnitude of this moment, one must revisit the original sin: the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. Brokered under the World Bank’s watchful eye, it was hailed as a model of cooperation. Yet, for India, it was a colossal strategic miscalculation. Jawaharlal Nehru’s government, in a bid to appear magnanimous on the world stage, handed over control of 80% of the Indus Basin waters to Pakistan—despite being the upper riparian state, despite the bloody Partition that had just unfolded, despite clear warnings that geography must never be surrendered to sentiment.
For decades, India lived with this burden, adhering to the treaty’s terms even during the wars of 1965, 1971, and 1999, even as Pakistan exported terror and mayhem across the border. India kept the water flowing, even as blood flowed in Kashmir, Mumbai, Delhi, and countless other places. But no longer.
Critics, clinging to their familiar scripts, ask: “Where will India store this water?” It is a question that misses the forest for the trees. First, India doesn’t need to store all the water—it simply needs to use its rightful share, something it has criminally underutilized for decades. Despite having the legal right under the treaty to use 20% of the western rivers’ waters, India has historically tapped a paltry 3–4%. This was not due to technical incapacity, but political inertia born out of fear—fear of international censure, fear of conflict, fear of being seen as ‘aggressive.’ That era of hesitation is over.
Second, Bharat is a water-stressed nation. From the drought-prone fields of Rajasthan to the parched valleys of Ladakh, from Punjab’s depleting groundwater table to the semi-arid tracts of Himachal Pradesh, there is a desperate thirst that these waters can quench. Engineering ingenuity, whether through inter-basin transfers, lift irrigation, or river interlinking, can put these diverted waters to work for Bharat’s own people. Water that once sustained Pakistan’s terror factories can now breathe life into Indian agriculture, industry, and homes.
Third, the deeper point is strategic—not hydraulic. Even if India never diverts every drop, even if every canal is not built tomorrow, the abrogation changes the geopolitical calculus irreversibly. It strips Pakistan of one of its few strategic guarantees and places its internal stability at the mercy of Indian discretion. When your neighbor uses terrorism as state policy, turning off the tap is not aggression—it is self-defense by other means.
The abrogation also serves a powerful internal purpose. It signals that India, under Modi, is unshackling itself from colonial-era treaties and assumptions. No longer will New Delhi subordinate its sovereign interests to imagined notions of ‘world opinion’ or misplaced guilt. A Bharat that can reach the Moon, host the G20, and build Digital India can surely reimagine its water future as well.
This decision must become a catalyst for national renewal in water management—an awakening that accelerates the building of the National Water Grid, the embrace of climate-resilient infrastructure, and an aggressive drive toward rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharging, and desalination where necessary. The question is no longer whether India can store every drop, but whether India has the vision to transform every challenge into opportunity. History suggests it can.
Meanwhile, Pakistan stands on the brink. Its agricultural heartland—Sindh and Punjab—faces an existential threat. A country that failed to invest in water conservation, that allowed politics and terror to override policy and governance, now confronts an unthinkable future. Food shortages, social unrest, and political chaos are not distant possibilities—they are visible on the horizon.
This is not revenge. It is realism. It is the cold assertion of India’s national interest after decades of provocation and restraint. It is the manifestation of a new Bharat Doctrine: maximum effect, minimum cost, zero apology.
The Indus waters rise from Indian mountains, flow through Indian lands, and sustain Indian people. It is fitting, then, that their destiny should finally be determined in New Delhi—and not in Rawalpindi, not in Washington, and certainly not in Geneva.
Bharat has turned a page. The river has changed course. The future will flow differently now.
(The author had presciently analyzed the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty as a turning point in India’s strategic response to jihadist terror in a widely discussed Organiser article.)
*Shri Siddhartha Dave is an alumnus of United Nations University, Tokyo, an eminent columnist and a former Lok Sabha Research Fellow. He writes on Foreign Affairs and National Security.
