A view of Baglihar Dam, also known as Baglihar Hydroelectric Power Project, on the Chenab river which flows from Indian Kashmir into Pakistan, at Chanderkote in Jammu region May 6, 2025.
Stringer | Reuters
A year after their last military conflict, tensions between India and Pakistan are rising again, this time over access to water from the Indus River basin.
Pakistan’s defense minister warned Friday that water security could become a cause for war if Islamabad believes its national interests are threatened.
“The moment we feel our national security is under threat, and water is part of our national security, we will go to war [with India],” said Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the defense minister of Pakistan, in an interview with a local media outlet on Friday.
He added, however, that current developments do not warrant military action.
The minister’s comments come as India pushes to terminate the 66-year-old Indus Water Treaty, which has remained suspended since last year’s conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
India’s foreign ministry said on June 5 that the treaty would stay suspended “until Pakistan completely stops cross-border terrorism.”
A few days later, India’s water resource minister, C.R. Patil, hardened the government’s position, saying New Delhi was working to ensure “the flow of Indus water to Pakistan will stop” and that Pakistan would not get a “single drop of water” in the coming years.
While India’s ability to immediately “turn off the tap remains technically limited,” the rhetoric is consequential as it suggests that “water could become a tool of coercion,” Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC in an email.
So, what is this water treaty?
The Indus Water Treaty governs the use of the rivers in the Indus basin, which is shared by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. Under the agreement, India has unrestricted access to the basin’s eastern rivers while Pakistan receives rights to the western rivers.
The stakes are particularly high for Pakistan.
According to a report by the Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, nine in every 10 Pakistanis live within the Indus Basin. Its rivers irrigate more than 90% of the country’s crops and generate most of its hydroelectric power. All 21 of Pakistan’s hydroelectric plants are located within the basin.
“These aren’t marginal dependencies — they are load-bearing pillars of a fragile economy already in IMF (International Monetary Fund) bailout territory,” said Arpit Chaturvedi, South Asia advisor at Teneo.
He added that India doesn’t even need to cut all flows to inflict damage. Manipulating the timing of releases from dams on the western rivers could flood Pakistani farmland during planting seasons, while withholding water during critical irrigation windows could devastate harvests.
“Pakistan has already written to India twice in 2025 and once in May 2026 about abnormal, abrupt flow variations on the Chenab,” Chaturvedi said, adding that the window to settle the issue through dialogue and diplomacy is reducing.
