View of Baglihal Dam (also known as Baglihal Hydroelectric Project) on the Chenab River flowing from Kashmir, India to Pakistan, May 6, 2025. It is located in Chanderkot, Jammu region.
Stringer | Reuters
A year after the last military clash, tensions between India and Pakistan are rising again, this time over access to water from the Indus River Basin.
Pakistan’s defense minister warned on Friday that water security could become a cause for war if Islamabad deems its national interests threatened.
“The moment we feel that national security is threatened and water is part of national security, we will go to war (with India),” Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in a local media interview on Friday.
However, it added that current developments do not justify military action.
The minister’s comments came as India seeks to end the 66-year-old Indus Water Treaty, which has remained suspended since last year’s conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs announced on June 5 that the treaty would remain suspended “until Pakistan completely stops cross-border terrorism.”
Days later, India’s water resources minister CR Patil hardened the government’s position, saying New Delhi was working to “ensure that the flow of Indus water to Pakistan is stopped” and that “not a drop of water” will be supplied to Pakistan for the next few years.
While India’s ability to immediately “turn off the tap remains technically limited,” Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC in an email that the rhetoric is consequential as it suggests “water could become a tool of coercion.”
So what is this water agreement?
The Indus Water Treaty governs the use of rivers in the Indus Basin, which is shared by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. Under the agreement, India will have unrestricted access to rivers in the eastern part of the basin, while Pakistan will receive rights to rivers in the western part.
The risks for Pakistan are particularly high.
Nine out of 10 Pakistanis live within the Indus Valley, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. The river irrigates more than 90% of the country’s crops and generates most of its hydroelectric power. All 21 hydropower plants in Pakistan are located within this basin.
“These are not marginal dependencies, but burdensome pillars of fragile economies that are already in IMF (International Monetary Fund) rescue territory,” said Arpit Chaturvedi, South Asia advisor at Teneo.
He added that India does not even need to cut off all flows to cause damage. Manipulating the timing of releases from dams on western rivers could flood Pakistan’s farmland during planting season, while cutting off water during critical irrigation periods could be devastating to crops.
“Pakistan has already written to India twice, once in 2025 and once in May 2026, regarding the unusual and sudden changes in flow in the Chenab River,” Chaturvedi said, adding that the scope for resolving the issue through dialogue and diplomacy is narrowing.
