First step post Pahalgam, India scraps Indus Treaty

India on Wednesday took a series of decisions in the wake of the terrorist atrocity in Pahalgam. After a marathon meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), India has decided to hold the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), a water sharing arrangement between India and Pakistan that was signed in 1960.

There are other additional decisions as well: The strength of India’s diplomatic missions in Pakistan will be pared to 30. As these decisions are reciprocal, Pakistan will see its diplomatic presence in India go down as well. Pakistan’s military diplomats have been declared persona non grata and will have to leave India quickly.

Pakistani citizens, who are in India on visas under the aegis of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), will be asked to leave India and these visas are being cancelled. SAARC visas are valid for one-year in the case of citizens of Pakistan.

Finally, the Wagah-Attari border between the two countries in Amritsar district of Punjab is being closed.

These are, in effect, the first steps in India’s response to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on Tuesday where terrorists backed by Pakistan killed 28 Indian tourists and injured another 20. A response was expected and it came after the CCS meeting today.

The “suspension” of the IWT was an expected step. The treaty has a chequered history. Under the IWT, three “western flowing rivers”—the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum were allocated to Pakistan and India cannot use these waters for irrigation and other purposes. Pakistan has used the provisions of the IWT to block Indian hydroelectric projects in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) over time. India’s Kishanganga Project (on the river Kishanganga) and Ratle power project (on river Chenab) have been challenged by Pakistan at various arbitration forums. India had been seeking to renegotiate the IWT but Pakistan was unwilling. The step also makes sense from an ecological perspective: India’s per capita availability of water has gone down significantly. It is under no obligation to share resources with a downstream country that has repeatedly used terrorism as a political tool on Indian soil.

A reduction in diplomatic presence between the two countries is also logical. After 2019, the number of diplomats had been reduced—the two countries have not exchanged High Commissioners for years—and with the attack in Pahalgam, it makes sense to further pare down diplomatic presence. The presence of military attaches especially makes no sense.

India’s response has been measured and compared to the scale of the atrocity on Tuesday, measured.

India-PakistanIndus Water TreatyIslamic terroristsPahalgamterror attack