When India suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 in the aftermath of the April 2025 Pahalgam incident and the subsequent military exchanges of Operation Sindoor, it did something far more dangerous than another round of border posturing. It turned water—the most elemental source of life for more than 240 million Pakistanis—into a weapon of war. Pakistan’s Parliament was right to declare the move an act of aggression. The government has moved on every available legal and diplomatic front: the World Bank, international arbitration, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and appeals to the United Nations and major capitals. Yet, as someone who has spent years advocating on Kashmir and who has recently met diplomats, UN officials, water experts, and civil-society leaders, one question keeps coming back: where are Pakistan’s farmers, industrialists, political parties, religious parties, environmentalists, and ordinary citizens on this issue?

This is not a criticism of the state’s legal strategy. It is a warning that no international legal case can be won without a visible, organized, and united national movement behind it. The Indus is not merely a diplomatic file; it is the jugular vein of Pakistan. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s description of Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein was, above all, a hydrological truth. The rivers that sustain Pakistan’s agriculture, its cities, its deltas, and its biodiversity originate in or flow through Kashmir. If those waters are choked, Pakistan suffocates. That is why the suspension of the IWT cannot be left to government officials alone.

The Legal Case Is Strong—But It Needs a People’s Voice

The Indus Waters Treaty is one of the most durable water-sharing agreements in modern history. Brokered by the World Bank and signed by India and Pakistan in 1960, it allocated the three western rivers—Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab—to Pakistan, while allowing India limited, regulated uses such as run-of-river hydroelectric projects. The treaty survived the 1965 and 1971 wars, the Kargil conflict, and countless crises. Its survival was not accidental; it reflected the international community’s recognition that water in this region is too dangerous to be politicized.

India’s decision to place the treaty “in abeyance” and to accelerate projects that could divert, store, or delay the western rivers is a fundamental breach of international law. Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, pacta sunt servanda—treaties must be performed in good faith—and a state cannot unilaterally suspend a treaty because of a political dispute, especially one unrelated to the treaty itself. The UN Charter, in Articles 2(3) and 2(4), requires states to settle disputes by peaceful means and prohibits the threat or use of force. Cutting off or constricting the water supply of a downstream nation of 240 million people is not a routine diplomatic sanction; it is a threat to civilian life and regional peace.

The 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses reinforces the principles of equitable and reasonable utilization, the obligation not to cause significant harm, and the duty to cooperate and notify before undertaking projects that affect co-riparians. Even though India is not a party to that convention, many of its provisions reflect customary international law. The International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts make clear that a state that commits a wrongful act must cease that act and provide full reparation.

There is also the human-rights dimension. In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized the right to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. The Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I prohibit the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and protect objects indispensable to civilian survival, including water installations. Any deliberate action to deprive a civilian population of water is not just a treaty violation; it touches the threshold of serious international crimes.

Pakistan’s legal team is right to take these arguments to the World Bank, to international arbitration, and to every available forum. But law does not operate in a vacuum. Judges, arbitrators, diplomats, and foreign parliaments look at whether a state’s own people treat the issue as existential. If Pakistani streets remain quiet, if political parties stay focused on domestic quarrels, and if farmers and industrialists do not visibly mobilize, the world will conclude that the government is exaggerating.

The Silence of the Stakeholders Is Deafening

Pakistan has no shortage of mass movements. Farmers have blocked highways over fertilizer prices and electricity tariffs. Industrialists have lobbied aggressively for tariff relief and energy subsidies. Political parties have brought cities to a standstill over elections, judicial appointments, and inflation. Religious parties have mobilized hundreds of thousands on issues they define as matters of faith and national honor.

Yet when the very water that feeds the country is placed in jeopardy, these same forces are largely absent. There have been seminars by think tanks and a parliamentary resolution, but that is not enough. Parliament’s declaration that the IWT violation is an act of aggression was an important step, but resolutions must be followed by nationwide, non-partisan, sustained mobilization.

Farmers should be at the forefront. The Indus irrigates the breadbasket of Pakistan. Any reduction in water flows threatens wheat, rice, cotton, and sugarcane, and with them the livelihoods of tens of millions of rural families. Agriculture-related industrialists—textile mills, food processors, fertilizer manufacturers, and exporters—should understand that a water crisis is not an environmental issue for NGOs; it is a direct threat to their factories, their workers, and their markets.

Environmentalists and scientists should speak louder. The Indus delta is already dying. Sea intrusion, mangrove loss, and the displacement of coastal communities are accelerating. Any further diversion of water would turn an ecological tragedy into a catastrophe. Religious leaders, across sects and schools, should remind the faithful that water is an amanah—a trust from the Creator—and that allowing a people to be deprived of it is a moral failure.

Political parties, especially those in opposition, must recognize that this is not the moment to settle scores with the government. The Indus belongs to no single party. A unified national narrative, conveyed through peaceful rallies, parliamentary forums, media campaigns, and international delegations, would multiply the government’s diplomatic leverage many times over.

What Needs to Be Done

Pakistan needs a National Water Solidarity Forum that brings together farmers’ organizations, industrial federations, bar associations, student unions, women’s groups, religious leaders, environmental NGOs, and Kashmir activists. This forum should not replace the government’s legal strategy; it should complement it.

It should organize peaceful mass awareness campaigns in every province, produce policy papers for foreign embassies and parliaments, hold seminars with international water experts, and send delegations to the World Bank, the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and major capitals. The Pakistani diaspora must be activated to explain to the world that this is not a South Asian border dispute but a threat to global water security and human rights.

The media has a special responsibility. Water diplomacy is complex, but its message is simple: no country can be allowed to starve another of water. Documentaries, town halls, and social-media campaigns should explain the Indus system, the IWT, and the consequences of its collapse.

Conclusion

India’s decision to weaponize water after the military and diplomatic setbacks of 2025 has made one thing clear: the next great conflict in South Asia may not be fought with missiles alone, but with dams, canals, and hydroelectric projects. Pakistan’s legal case is robust, grounded in the Indus Waters Treaty, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the UN Charter, the UN Watercourses Convention, and international humanitarian law. But law without a people is just paper.

The Indus is Pakistan’s lifeline. Its defense cannot be outsourced to officials in Islamabad, lawyers in foreign capitals, or diplomats in New York. It must become a people’s cause. The farmers, industrialists, political parties, religious groups, environmentalists, and civil-society leaders of Pakistan must step out of their silos and onto the streets, into the media, and onto the world stage. If they do not, they will have allowed the slow strangulation of the very nation they claim to speak for. The time for silence is over. The Indus must roar.

The writer is the Chairman of Kashmir Institute of International Relations and can be reached at: X @sultan1913, and Email : chairman@kiir.org.pk