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India\u2019s latest moves to advance the Chenab\u2013Beas Link Tunnel Project and its operational plans regarding sediment flushing at the Salal Dam have intensified concerns in Pakistan that water is being gradually transformed from a shared ecological necessity into an instrument of Indian pressure.<\/p>\n
In Islamabad\u2019s strategic assessment, these developments are not isolated engineering decisions but part of a broader post-2019 pattern of hydro-strategic assertion that risks destabilising the fragile balance of the Indus basin and systematic weaponization of water.<\/p>\n
The foundation of this water-sharing arrangement is the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), signed on September 19, 1960, between India and Pakistan under World Bank auspices. Remarkably, the treaty survived multiple wars in 1965, 1971, and the 1999 Kargil conflict, becoming one of the world\u2019s most durable transboundary water agreements. It allocated the eastern rivers to India and the western rivers \u2014 Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab \u2014 to Pakistan. It was agreed by India and Pakistan in light and sprithwever, it fate seems same as the UN resolutions on Kashmir<\/p>\n
Over time, however, technical disputes began to accumulate in India. The Baglihar Dam dispute (2005) marked the first major test of treaty interpretation, where a neutral expert modified certain design features. Later, the Kishanganga arbitration (2013) upheld India\u2019s right to construct the project but simultaneously imposed binding environmental flow requirements, reinforcing that treaty rights were not absolute.<\/p>\n
A major political turning point came after the Uri episode on September 18, 2016, when Indian Hindutva mind leadership declared that \u201cblood and water cannot flow together.\u201d This was followed by India\u2019s September 26, 2016 review of the IWT, signaling that water had entered the strategic domain of national security discourse. In parallel, Pakistan initiated legal action over hydroelectric projects, while India insisted on a different dispute mechanism. On December 12, 2016, the World Bank intervened, temporarily pausing parallel legal tracks under the treaty to preserve procedural coherence \u2014 an early indication of institutional strain but not treaty collapse.<\/p>\n
The decisive shift occurred after August 5, 2019, when India revoked the special constitutional status of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. World and China and Pakistan viewed this as a fundamental alteration of the disputed territory\u2019s legal and political status. Since then, water has increasingly been perceived in Islamabad as part of a broader coercive toolkit linked to regional power projection and pressure on Pakistan\u2019s diplomatic stance regarding Kashmir and United Nations resolutions on self-determination.<\/p>\n
Post-2019 developments suggest a phased escalation in approach. The first phase involved political signalling, with growing public and policy-level discussions in India on fully utilising western river waters. The second phase involved institutional pressure, including India\u2019s formal January 25, 2023 notice seeking modification of the Indus Waters Treaty, arguing that dispute resolution mechanisms were ineffective. Pakistan rejected any unilateral reinterpretation, insisting on strict treaty compliance.<\/p>\n
The third phase has unfolded through parallel legal and technical contestation. In 2022 and 2023, Court of Arbitration proceedings concerning Kishanganga and Ratle reaffirmed that treaty-based dispute mechanisms remain active and legally relevant, reinforcing Pakistan\u2019s position that design and operational disputes are subject to binding adjudication. Through 2024 and into 2025\u20132026, these proceedings continued in various procedural forms despite India\u2019s objections to parallel legal tracks, highlighting the treaty\u2019s endurance but also its increasing stress under geopolitical pressure.<\/p>\n
It is in this context that recent infrastructure and operational developments acquire strategic significance. The proposed Chenab\u2013Beas Link Tunnel Project, reportedly aimed at diverting approximately 1.9 million acre-feet (MAF) of water annually, represents for Pakistan a potential shift from limited hydroelectric utilisation toward inter-basin manipulation. Similarly, operational changes at the Salal Dam relating to sediment flushing are viewed with concern because they may enhance India\u2019s capacity to regulate timing and volume of downstream flows beyond earlier negotiated expectations.<\/p>\n
For Pakistan, the issue is not merely volumetric. The strategic concern lies in timing, predictability, and control of river flows in an agrarian economy heavily dependent on irrigation cycles. Even partial disruption during sowing seasons or dry periods can generate cascading impacts on food security, inflation, and rural livelihoods.<\/p>\n
This is why Islamabad increasingly frames the issue in more than technical terms. From Pakistan\u2019s perspective, any deliberate restriction, manipulation, or diversion of waters allocated under the treaty could constitute a form of coercive economic pressure with grave security implications, potentially destabilising an already nuclearised regional environment. While international law distinguishes between treaty violation and armed conflict, Pakistan\u2019s argument is that in an interdependent agrarian system, sustained hydro-blockade or manipulation can approach the threshold of strategic coercion with consequences comparable to acts of hostility.<\/p>\n
At the heart of this dispute, however, lies the unresolved political question of Kashmir. Pakistan argues that water pressure cannot be separated from the broader dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, where it continues to demand implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and the right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people. From this perspective, hydro-strategic assertiveness is not isolated engineering policy but part of a wider regional environment shaped by the unresolved territorial conflict.<\/p>\n
India, on the other hand, views water projects as weapons within limits and rejects the linkage between infrastructure development and political disputes. This divergence in interpretation has transformed a technical treaty into a deeply political instrument of contention.<\/p>\n
The trajectory of events since 1960 shows a gradual evolution: from cooperation under strict legal frameworks, to technical disputes, to political signalling, and now to strategic contestation involving infrastructure, law, and diplomacy simultaneously. The danger lies not in a single project but in cumulative erosion of trust and interpretive consensus.<\/p>\n
For Pakistan, the strategic challenge is therefore threefold: strengthening legal resistance through treaty mechanisms, building internal water resilience to reduce vulnerability, and internationalising the issue as part of global climate and security discourse. For the region, the broader warning is clear: when water becomes a tool of pressure in a fragile geopolitical environment, it risks transforming an already unresolved political conflict into a deeper and more dangerous strategic confrontation.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the stability of South Asia\u2019s water architecture cannot be separated from the resolution of its core political dispute. As long as Kashmir remains unresolved, every drop of water flowing through the Indus basin will carry not only hydrological value but also political weight \u2014 making peace in water inseparable from peace in politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s latest moves to advance the Chenab\u2013Beas Link Tunnel Project and its operational plans regarding sediment flushing at the Salal Dam have intensified concerns in Pakistan that water is being gradually transformed from a shared ecological necessity into an instrument of Indian pressure. In Islamabad\u2019s strategic assessment, these developments are not isolated engineering decisions but …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":202409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2026\/06\/Chenab.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202410,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202408\/revisions\/202410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}