MAY 9 — The Indus River System comprises six major rivers — the Indus, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — flowing through the territories of both India and Pakistan. The system sustains drinking water, agriculture and electricity generation across the Indus Basin, supporting hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the border.
When British India was partitioned in 1947, the Indus River System was also divided between the two successor states. The geographic reality was stark: India, as the upper riparian state, held the headwaters of most rivers, while Pakistan’s agricultural heartland — the heavily irrigated Punjab plains — depended critically on continued water flows from the east. India, meanwhile, required access to the system for its own development needs in Punjab and Rajasthan, while also seeking stability and normalised relations with its new western neighbour.
Despite its own domestic pressures, India concluded a water-sharing agreement with Pakistan on 19 September 1960, facilitated by the World Bank.
Negotiations — India paid the price for rationality:
Pakistan’s strategy of delay and the 1954 World Bank proposal
The trajectory of negotiations was shaped by an asymmetry between India’s constructive approach and Pakistan’s maximalist demands — an imbalance that anchored outcomes more in Pakistan’s favour than equity would suggest.
The World Bank’s first substantive proposal of 5 February 1954 illustrates this clearly. Even at this early stage, it required significant concessions from India: all planned Indian developments along the upper reaches of the Indus and Chenab were to be abandoned, with benefits accruing to Pakistan; India was required to forgo diverting approximately 6 MAF from the Chenab River; no Chenab waters at Marala (now in Pakistan) would be available for Indian use; and no water development would be permitted in Kutch from the river system.
Despite these impositions, India accepted the proposal in good faith. Pakistan, however, delayed formal acceptance until 22 December 1958. During this period, India faced binding restrictions while Pakistan continued developing new uses on the Western rivers without equivalent constraints. The dynamic reinforced a structural lesson: obstruction yields leverage, cooperation incurs cost.
What India lost: the scale of sacrifice:
Water allocation
Under the Treaty, India received exclusive rights to the Eastern rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — while Pakistan received the Western rivers — Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. India was permitted limited non-consumptive use of the Western rivers, primarily run-of-river hydropower, subject to strict design constraints.
In volumetric terms, the Eastern rivers carry approximately 33 million acre-feet (MAF) annually, while the Western rivers carry approximately 135 MAF. Pakistan thus controls roughly 80% of the system’s water, while India received about 20%. Importantly, India did not gain new water under the agreement; it formalised access to flows already within its territory while relinquishing claims to the larger Western system.
Financial concession: paying to give away water
The Treaty also included a financial provision under which India agreed to pay approximately £62 million (about $2.5 billion in present value) to support water infrastructure in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. This remains a rare precedent in international water agreements: an upstream state relinquishing the majority share of a river system while also financing downstream infrastructure as part of the settlement.
The Treaty’s structural imbalance:
Asymmetric restrictions on India
The Treaty imposes a series of unilateral restrictions on India’s use of the Western rivers: limits on irrigated cropped area (ICA) within Indian territory; restrictions on water storage capacity on the Western rivers; and strict design and operational constraints on hydropower projects, including pondage limits.
These obligations are one-directional. They constrain India’s development within its territory while imposing no equivalent transparency or restriction regime on Pakistan, embedding structural asymmetry in the framework itself.
*P. K Saxena is the Former Indian Commissioner for Indus Waters.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail
