After terrorists killed 26 people in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir, India decided to hold the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 “in abeyance … until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism”.Under the IWT, water from three ‘eastern’ rivers – the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas – was allocated to India, while water from the ‘western rivers’ – the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus – was given to Pakistan with limited use to India. There is no exit clause in the IWT. The treaty can be modified under the provisions in Article XII(3), but cannot be unilaterally abrogated, as Article XII(4) states.It is estimated that around 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and a quarter of the country’s economy rely on the western rivers for water.The agriculture sector consumes around 94% of the country’s total available water, contributes 24% to Pakistan’s GDP and accounts for 37% of the country’s employment.Further, one-third of Pakistan’s electricity comes from hydropower. Pakistan is a water-stressed country, with per capita water availability in 2025 around 800 cubic metres.Pakistan faces drought and flood situations at regular intervals of time. In the country’s over-75-year history, the flood in 2022 is considered the most severe. In the 2022 floods, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, nearly eight million people were displaced and more than 1,700 people died. The total damage from the 2022 flood was around $14.9 billion.Pakistan has largely relied on large, medium and small hydro projects to manage its water resources. The exact number of dams in Pakistan is not known, but according to the Pakistan National Register of Dams published in 2018, the number is around 621, including completed, ongoing, under-construction and proposed ones.The three major hydro structures – the Tarbela Dam, Mangla Dam and Chashma Barrage – have a total combined storage capacity of 18.92 million acre feet.But many of the projects have created troubles, such as inadequate compensation to the affected population and damage to local ecology, and some projects have even added to Pakistan’s debt.For instance, the China-backed Diamer-Bhasha Dam created tensions between the local population and Pakistan’s federal authority. Then, the delay in the execution of and mismanagement in the Dasu Dam project in Kohistan on the Indus River has increased its cost by 240% to around $6.2 billion.The projects have also created tensions between the provinces. For instance, due to opposition from provinces other than Punjab, the Kalabagh Dam on the Indus River in Mianwali was eventually buried in 2008.Inter-provincial water disputes in Pakistan have a long history and often fuel sub-nationalism.In colonial years, to address water disputes between Punjab and Sindh, the British government set up a committee in 1919, the Anderson Committee in 1935 and the Rao Commission in 1941.Yet problems surfaced after Pakistan was created as a result of the partition of British India in 1947. In 1948, when the Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian Canal was constructed, Sindh was not happy. The Akhtar Hussain Committee (1968), the Fazal Akbar Commission (1970), the Anwarul Haque Commission (1981) and the Haleem Commission (1983) were set up to address the country’s internal water disputes.Finally, the Water Apportionment Accord was signed in 1991 between the chief ministers of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).Despite the accord, Sindh and Punjab have intermittently clashed on water-sharing matters. The Sindhis blame Punjabis for their water woes. Currently, Sindh has strongly opposed the construction of six canals, including the Cholistan Canal, to irrigate the arid Cholistan region in south Punjab. Sindh argues that Cholistan and other canals will affect water flow from the Indus River to the province. The Cholistan Canal is a part of the Pakistan army-backed Green Pakistan Initiative.In March, the Sindh assembly unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the construction of the six new canals on the Indus River, including the Cholistan Canal. The resolution called the construction of canals ‘illegal’ and a violation of the 1991 accord. Amidst protests and after India’s measures, the Pakistan government decided to halt the construction of new canals until the Council of Common Interests creates a consensus between the provinces.Also read: Has India’s Suspension of Indus Waters Treaty Caused a New Faultline in South Asia?Pakistan’s fear of India’s decision on the IWT is visible in its countermeasure, which states,“…Water is a Vital National Interest of Pakistan, a lifeline for its 240 million people, and its availability will be safeguarded at all costs. Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty and the usurpation of the rights of lower riparian will be considered as an Act of War and responded with full force across the complete spectrum of National Power.”Although India has not used the word “abrogation”, the conditions attached with holding the IWT in “abeyance” almost mean an end to it, or at least a move towards abrogation unless tensions de-escalate and some development happens on the water front between the two South Asian nuclear rivals where they agree to go back to the earlier position.Pakistani legal experts such as Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a former federal law minister, have spoken about the options the country has regarding the IWT. Aqeel Malik, the minister of state for law and justice, told Reuters about Pakistan’s options, including raising the issue at the World Bank, taking action at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) or at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague and raising the issue at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).The World Bank may not be as effective as it was in the 1950s. Pakistan does not have a strong argument to present in the ICJ or PCA. However, the UNSC may interfere in this case mainly because the five permanent members and Northern Ireland agreed to a statement in 2022 to stop war between nuclear weapons states.India’s actions after the suspension of the IWT, such as reservoir flushing and regulating the flow of waters will certainly affect Pakistan, but the latter’s lack of effective management of available water is also a problem.In his book Hostility: A Diplomat’s Diary on Pakistan-India Relations, Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s former high commissioner to India, writes,“We can blame India for building dams [on transboundary rivers] and stealing our water but that would not help. First, we ourselves are to blame for the intricate mess we have created and, second, there is simply no national strategy on how to deal with the developing water crisis.”He adds: “Issuing statements and holding India responsible for all our problems has become blase and would take us nowhere.”Amit Ranjan is a Research Fellow at Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Genevieve Donnellon-May is a Researcher at Oxford Global Society.