Washington: The Indus Water Treaty was signed in the spirit of goodwill and friendship, and Pakistan spent half a century dismantling it, India’s envoy to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra said.
In an article published in Newsweek magazine, Kwatra said India’s decision to keep the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in abeyance merely acknowledged what Pakistan’s conduct had already destroyed.
Kwatra’s article came days after Pakistan hosted a conference recently to protest India’s decision to hold the IWT in abeyance on April 23 last year, a day after Pakistan-trained terrorists killed 26 people, most of them tourists, at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir.
“It is worth remembering that the treaty’s preamble declares it was concluded ‘in a spirit of goodwill and friendship’. Pakistan spent half a century dismantling that goodwill and friendship. The abeyance merely acknowledges what Pakistan’s conduct had already destroyed,” the envoy said.
The IWT, signed by India and Pakistan in 1960, gave New Delhi control over three of the six Indus basin rivers that carry roughly 20 per cent of the basin’s water, while Islamabad got rights to rivers that carry roughly 80 per cent.
“That asymmetry stifled development for decades in Indian regions that could have benefited from better water rights. India honoured the treaty anyway,” Kwatra said.
He said Pakistan responded by launching wars against India in 1965, 1971 and in 1999; and through decades of persistent hostility and cross-border terrorism, including an attack on India’s Parliament in 2001, Mumbai terror carnage in 2008, Uri and Pathankot attacks in 2016, the Pulwama attack in 2019 and the Pahalgam attack in 2025.
Kwatra said if Pakistan sincerely wants India’s cooperation on bilateral issues, it must first dismantle the terror infrastructure it has built over the years.
Obstruction and bureaucratic delays have been Pakistan’s principal responses to any India-initiated projects under the treaty, he said.
“Pakistan also consistently blocked India’s initiatives to renegotiate the treaty in light of six decades of technological change, which would have let India develop its hydropower potential,” he said.
“Bit by bit, Pakistan eroded India’s faith that it could exercise its rights under the treaty, or hope for a better one suited to today’s realities,” Kwatra said.
The envoy said those advocating talks between India and Pakistan have not taken note of the history of these initiatives taken in the past or they must believe that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is not insanity.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has clearly voiced India’s stand today: ‘Terror and talks cannot go together… Terror and trade cannot go together… Water and blood cannot flow together’,” Kwatra said.
He said the water scarcity Pakistan faces is a result of mismanagement by the government in Islamabad.
“…the Government of Pakistan would do better to fix its dismal water productivity, than to stage conferences blaming India and issuing threats,” Kwatra said, adding that the habit of pinning every domestic failure on India has grown old.
“The world should say so, unequivocally,” he said.
