Opinion | Rivers Flow, Memories Remain: On Calls Upon India To Revive Indus Treaty With Pakistan |
Apr 23, 2026 11:56 am IST
Opinion | Rivers Flow, Memories Remain: On Calls Upon India To Revive Indus Treaty With Pakistan
Today marks a year since India suspended the treaty after the Pahalgam massacre. Those urging its revival today must remember the extent of what India had to absorb to keep it alive in the first place.
Syed Akbaruddin Syed Akbaruddin Columnist
Syed Akbaruddin Columnist
April 23 marks a year since India placed the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance after the Pahalgam attack. In that time, a familiar argument has resurfaced in international discussion. A recent Chatham House article is the most polished expression of a restorationist approach that seeks to restore water cooperation first and let politics catch up later.
Its appeal lies in the language of prudence. Even hostile states, the argument runs, need narrow channels of cooperation to prevent wider instability. That sounds sensible. But prudence cannot mean insulating cooperation from the conduct that made it untenable. This is not really about management. It is about memory.
A Reminder On What The Treaty Really Was
The real problem is that the treaty is being treated as something it never was. The Indus arrangement is often treated as though it were a technical system that should keep running, whatever happens around it. It was never that. It was a political bargain between adversaries who agreed to preserve a protected space.
The treaty itself was framed in........