The fortress of sand: Pakistan’s survival vs. India’s water war crimes

The land between the rivers—the cradle of human civilization—is being transformed, methodically and deliberately, into its grave. History, in its most unforgiving repetition, is circling back to its oldest form of conflict: water wars. Yet this is no return to ancient Mesopotamia armed with primitive tools. This is a modern confrontation involving nuclear-armed states, satellite surveillance, real-time hydrological control, and international law strained to its limits. To ignore this moment is to invite catastrophe.

On Friday, December 19, 2025, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, publicly warned of India’s “weaponisation of water,” finally giving voice to what farmers, hydrologists, and strategic observers had been witnessing for months. The Chenab River—one of the principal lifelines of Punjab’s agriculture and a central artery of the Indus Basin—is being constricted through abrupt, unnatural, and calculated variations in flow. These are not seasonal anomalies. They are engineered disruptions with devastating downstream consequences for food production, livelihoods, and economic stability.

Yet the deeper tragedy lies not merely in the act of manipulation, but in the prolonged silence and strategic negligence that allowed it to mature into a crisis. This is not a sudden breakdown. It is the predictable outcome of a long-gestating strategy that was visible to anyone willing to see it.

More than fifteen years ago, I met the late Barrister Harun-ur-Rashid, former Bangladesh Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. He spoke with a clarity that now seems prophetic. In December 2001, following the attack on the Indian Parliament, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security openly discussed revoking the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 as part of what it termed “coercive diplomacy.” The idea was chilling in its simplicity: water would no longer be a shared resource governed by law, but a pressure valve—a weapon capable of inducing economic distress and food insecurity without a single shot being fired.

That doctrine reached its logical conclusion on April 23, 2025, when India formally suspended the Indus Waters Treaty. While the international community largely looked away, the groundwork for this move had been laid for more than a decade. Since 2013, the erosion of treaty safeguards was occurring incrementally—facilitated not only by Indian policy, but also by a dangerous naivety within Pakistan itself.

For years since 2013, a group of self-styled experts—retired diplomats and media-friendly commentators with little understanding of hydraulic engineering or treaty law—called for “revisiting” the treaty under the banner of climate change. They failed to grasp a basic strategic truth: flexibility favours the stronger riparian. Their rhetoric, however well-intentioned, became the very language later used by India’s Ministry of Jal Shakti to justify suspension, citing climate variability and exceptional circumstances. In any state serious about survival, such intellectual recklessness would have prompted institutional correction. In Pakistan, it was normalised.

While Pakistan debated abstractions, India invested in infrastructure and data dominance. Through the Central Water Commission and the National Water Informatics Centre, India operates the India-WRIS platform, integrating real-time river discharge data, glacier melt trends, reservoir operations, and basin-wide rainfall analytics across the Upper Indus system. India sees every drop. The self-styled experts never once demanded that India share this data with Pakistan, despite claiming to be serious about studying climate-change variability in IHK, Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh—the very regions where the Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum rivers originate. Pakistan, by contrast, sees the dust when the flow is choked.

What followed between late April and May 2025 was not mismanagement. It was a coordinated hydrological assault. At Marala Headworks—the first control point where the Chenab enters Pakistan—the data is unambiguous. On April 23, the outflow stood at approximately 14,800 cusecs. By May 2, it had been reduced to around 8,000 cusecs. On May 3, the flow surged violently beyond 55,000 cusecs, overwhelming downstream systems and depositing sediment, before being throttled back to under 4,000 cusecs by May 6. This cycle repeated throughout the month, with spikes and strangulations timed to maximize downstream damage.

Satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel program confirms deliberate reservoir flushing at the Baglihar Dam on May 1, visible through abrupt changes in water coloration consistent with sediment discharge. Gates then remained closed for days, manufacturing an artificial drought downstream, followed by sudden releases. Similar patterns were observed at the Kishanganga Dam on the Jhelum tributary. For run-of-the-river projects with limited storage capacity, such extreme fluctuations are neither operationally necessary nor environmentally defensible. They are tactical.

The asymmetry underlying this conflict is stark. India has divided its territory into 22 river basins and enjoys per capita water availability near 1,500 cubic meters. Pakistan depends overwhelmingly on a single basin, with per capita availability now below 800 cubic meters—well beneath internationally recognized water-stress thresholds. There is no legal, ethical, or logical justification for force-flushing or manipulating the Chenab and Jhelum under these conditions.

Under international humanitarian law, the deliberate targeting of civilian survival systems—including water and food infrastructure—constitutes a war crime. This principle is well established under the Geneva Conventions and reinforced by evolving environmental war crime jurisprudence. The manipulation of dams to induce flooding, drought, or agricultural collapse downstream is not a technical dispute; it is prohibited conduct and a war crime.

India can no longer plausibly deny responsibility. The hydrological data, satellite evidence, reservoir operation logs, and precise temporal correlation between dam operations and downstream harm establish intent, pattern, and effect. These are verifiable facts. With this body of evidence, India cannot shield itself behind denial or procedural delay.

That reality was underscored in late May 2025 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly boasted of using water to bring “adversaries to their knees.” Such an admission, paired with documented downstream devastation, collapses any remaining pretence of technical necessity and establishes a prima facie case for international adjudication before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and potential individual accountability under the International Criminal Court (ICC)

I have been playing this chess game with India for over three decades. I know very well that India can never become Israel. It cannot afford the geopolitical insulation that allows selective compliance with international rulings. India’s aspirations—economic growth, global investment, leadership in the Global South, and credibility as a responsible power—depend on adherence to international law. Open rejection of binding rulings would carry costs India is ill-positioned to absorb.

It must also be said plainly: this confrontation does not represent the will of the Indian people. The vast majority within India desire peace, stability, and coexistence. Weaponising water benefits no population; it destabilizes an entire region and risks escalation between nuclear-armed neighbors.

Where Pakistan must now be uncompromising is in its own resolve. Water security is the mother of all securities. It precedes food security, energy stability, economic sovereignty, and national cohesion. If the Government of Pakistan fails to immediately file a case before the ICJ and ICC and pursue all relevant international legal avenues, 250 million Pakistanis will rightly view that failure as a compromise on their most fundamental right: access to water and survival itself. No state can claim legitimacy while remaining passive in the face of such existential harm. Tragically, building a credible case before an international court requires a rare combination of deep expertise in engineering, international law, hydrology, and watershed health—an area in which Pakistan remains severely deficient, leaving much of the media-driven rhetoric unsupported by legal or technical substance.

History offers warnings. In 1976, Maulana Bhashani mobilized two million people in the Farakka Long March against the diversion of the Ganges. Today, Pakistan stands at a similar crossroads—but with stronger tools: satellite imagery, hydrological science, treaty law, and international courts. Delay is not neutrality; it is surrender by neglect.

Eight months have passed since India committed a documented war crime in May 2025, yet the state remains paralyzed. As a professional engineer with three decades of expertise in hydraulic strategy, I am not submitting a grievance; I am filing a forensic indictment. My analysis of real-time hydrological discharge, satellite telemetry, and reservoir operations confirms an engineered execution of our national foundation.

The data is conclusive: this was not a technical anomaly, but a coordinated hydrological assault. By weaponising the Chenab and Jhelum to strangle our agriculture and dry our hydropower, India has moved beyond treaty violations into the realm of international war crimes.

The window for diplomatic pleasantries has slammed shut. Every hour this Government surrenders to silence and rhetoric is an hour stolen from the survival of 250 million people. We are not facing a battlefield defeat; we are witnessing the irreversible dissolution of the state itself.

A fortress rarely falls to a foreign sword; it collapses when its leaders permit its people to perish of thirst and hunger. History will not remember your speeches. It will record only this: whether you had the courage to defend this soil with the technical evidence I have provided, or whether you presided over its silent surrender. The evidence is irrefutable. The delay is inexcusable. Act now.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026