Pakistan’s Lower Riparian Anxieties on the Indus and Indian Assurances

Abstract

This paper analyses Pakistan’s lower riparian anxieties on the Indus and Indian assurances by elaborating the differing perspectives of the two states on different projects pursued by India on the western rivers; the rivers allotted to Pakistan by the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. It argues that the water supply has reduced drastically in the last fifty years, which has resulted in a water crisis in India and Pakistan. India has started constructing different hydroelectric projects on western rivers in Jammu and Kashmir, which the treaty allows under certain conditionality. Pakistan objects to these projects as against the treaty. Pakistan considers the Indian projects a threat to its national integrity and the agriculture-based economy, as they could be used as a weapon to the detriment of downstream Pakistan. India assures Pakistan of no such intentions and defends the projects as in conformity with the Indus Water Treaty. This trust deficit between the two arch-rivals has made water disputes between them intractable.