New Delhi: Pakistan, the country that never misses a chance to provoke India, is now gasping for breath or rather, for water. After playing with fire in Pahalgam by sponsoring a bloodbath that left 26 innocents dead, Islamabad is now discovering the hard truth of New Delhi’s blunt message: “Water and blood cannot flow together.”
India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty has pushed Pakistan to the brink of an existential water crisis – a slow and humiliating collapse that it brought upon itself.
The Chenab River, once a lifeline for Pakistani farmers, has been choked at its source by India. Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan’s most fertile provinces, are now watching their fields crack under a merciless sun. In Mangla and Tarbela, the country’s two main dams, water levels have plummeted by nearly 50% – slashing irrigation and power generation.
According to the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), 21% of the overall water flow has already dried up. The early kharif (summer sowing) season is a disaster. Even rabi (winter crops) are expected to fail unless India restarts water sharing – which it clearly will not unless Pakistan “credibly and irreversibly” stops aiding cross-border terror.
Pakistan Begging Behind Closed Doors
As per sources, Pakistan has written four desperate letters to India in the past month – pleading for the restoration of the Indus Waters Treaty. It even knocked on the World Bank’s doors, only to be coldly turned away.
But this is not the 1960s. India is done playing benefactor while bleeding from Pakistan-backed terror.
In a masterstroke, Indian engineers sealed all leakages at Harike Pattan and Hussainiwala Headworks – shutting down water that previously seeped into Pakistan through the Sutlej. Now, Pakistan’s canal-fed farming regions in Punjab have started to wither, as the Sutlej dries up inside Pakistani territory.
“Even the leaks are not leaking anymore,” one Indian official quipped.
Farmers in Ferozepur and border villages who once complained about water shortage are now receiving abundant canal water, while Pakistan is screaming famine.
Desperation in Islamabad
Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif, rattled by the crisis, chaired a high-level emergency meeting on Thursday. His remedy? Build new dams fast. A committee led by Deputy PM Ishaq Dar has been given just 72 hours to chart out funding plans.
But with just 11 operational dams and over 32 still under construction, Pakistan is far from ready. Its dam capacity stands at just 15.3 million acre-feet, woefully inadequate for its 240 million people. And the only “strategy” it seems to have is blaming India.
In an address full of empty bravado and tired anti-India rhetoric, Shehbaz Sharif claimed, “India is threatening our water. But we will face this together with full strength and unity.”
Really? A country that cannot manage its own reservoirs is now talking about unity – while begging its neighbour to turn the tap back on.
Meanwhile, India has begun reimagining its own water strategy. Plans are underway for a 130-km canal linking the Beas to the Ganga canal, and a tunnel linking the Indus to the Yamuna – projects that will benefit Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi.
The message is loud and clear – India will use its own rivers for its own people.
It all began with 26 Indian lives lost in Pahalgam, and now, it is Pakistan’s turn to pay – not with bullets, but with barren fields and empty taps. The Indus Waters Treaty, once seen as a symbol of diplomatic civility, has become a pressure point India is no longer afraid to use.
No terror. No treaty. No water. This is the new doctrine New Delhi has made unmistakably clear, and Islamabad is finally waking up to the price of its proxy wars.
