The Indian Supreme Court vs. New Delhi: the legal case against weaponising the Indus

By Lt General Ghulam Mustafa (Retired) and Engineer Arshad H Abbasi

Peace is not merely a political choice; it is a sacred moral responsibility. History has shown us this truth time and again. The recent easing of tensions between the United States and Iran stands as a powerful testament to what patient diplomacy can achieve. When two adversaries choose dialogue over confrontation, the entire world breathes easier. International observers have rightly credited regional actors for this breakthrough. Pakistan’s military and diplomatic leadership played a vital and critical role in promoting restraint and maintaining open communication channels. They helped prove that complex disputes yield to persistent engagement, not ultimatums. We salute this achievement. It reinforces that stability benefits everyone, while conflict harms all.

Yet even as we celebrate peace elsewhere, an existential crisis is unfolding in South Asia. At its core is water—the most fundamental lifesource on Earth. Water is not a commodity. It is the bedrock of food security, energy security, economic security, and human security. Rivers sustain agriculture. They power industries. They give life to millions. When water security falters, entire societies collapse. Today, two nucleararmed rivals—India and Pakistan—are heading toward a global disaster. This is not speculation. This is a documented reality unfolding before our eyes.

The chronology is clear and damning. On April 22, 2025, a terrorist attack occurred in the tourist town of Pahalgam in Indianadministered Kashmir, claiming 26 lives. We condemn this attack without reservation. We are against the killing of innocent people anywhere in the world. But what followed was not a measured response. It was a premeditated escalation. On April 23, 2025, India announced it was holding the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in “abeyance” with immediate effect. The treaty—brokered by the World Bank and signed on September 19, 1960—had survived three wars and decades of tension. It allocated the three eastern rivers to India and the three western rivers—Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab—to Pakistan. India’s stated justification was the Pahalgam attack. But the evidence tells a different story. Before the blanket suspension, India had formally issued modification notices to Pakistan in January 2023 and August 2024. The suspension was well planned. It was not a reaction. It was a strategy.

And then came the words that should alarm every conscience on Earth. India’s Water Resources Minister, Chandrakant Raghunath Paatil, declared that his government would ensure “not a single drop of water from the Indus River reaches Pakistan.” Prime Minister Modi himself proclaimed from the Red Fort on August 15, 2025: “India has now decided, blood and water will not flow together. The Indus Waters Treaty is unjust.” Let us be absolutely clear about what this means. Making zero water flow to the western rivers is a death sentence for 260 million Pakistanis. It means the collapse of cheap hydroelectricity. It means the destruction of food security. It means economic devastation. It means millions of people facing starvation and thirst. This is not climate action. This is water warfare.

India’s central argument for revisiting the treaty has been climate change. They cite altered glacial melt, landslides, and severe climateinduced water stress across the Indus Basin. They claim the treaty must be renegotiated because of modern environmental crises. But India’s own Supreme Court has demolished this argument. On September 23, 2025, a Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan delivered a landmark order. They attributed the major causes of destruction in the Himalayan region to hydropower projects and massive unhewn development—not to climate change alone. The Court noted that the Bara Shigri glacier in Lahaul Spiti has retreated by almost 2 to 2.5 kilometres. It pointed to the 2023 disasters: land subsidence in Joshimath, a mega hydropower dam washed away in Sikkim by a glacial lake outburst flood claiming around 100 lives, and an underconstruction road tunnel collapse in Uttarakhand that trapped 41 people. The Court’s warning was stark: “If things proceed the way they are as on date, then the day is not far when the entire State of Himachal Pradesh may vanish in thin air from the map of the country.” The Bench said it plainly: humans, not nature, are responsible for the recurring landslides, collapsing buildings, and sinking roads. India’s own highest court has confirmed that the very hydropower projects India is using to justify treaty suspension are causing ecological devastation.

The Indian Government did not merely lose this case before its own Supreme Court—it was humiliated. Its entire narrative of climate-driven necessity was stripped bare and exposed as a fabrication. The Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan dismantled every argument New Delhi manufactured to justify treaty suspension. They confirmed what the world now knows: the devastation across Indian-held Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and the greater Himalayas is not nature’s wrath—it is the direct consequence of human greed, reckless construction, and hydropower obsession.

India sought validation. It received a monumental rebuke. The Court ruled that the very projects India wields as weapons against Pakistan are destroying its own territories. Glaciers are vanishing. Land is sinking. The Court warned that Himachal Pradesh could soon disappear from the map. This was not climate change as an act of God. This was climate change as an act of human folly.

Well done, Indian Supreme Court. You have spoken truth to power. You have placed science above propaganda and justice above expediency. But now the world watches. When will the Himalayas—including Indian-held Kashmir—be declared a protected zone? When will a buffer zone be established to shield these fragile, life-giving mountains from further destruction?

All eyes are fixed on the Indian Supreme Court. The same Bench that so brilliantly exposed the government’s flawed logic must now take the final step. Declare the Himalayas a protected zone. Declare a buffer zone. Stop the madness before the mountains fall silent forever. The Court has shown courage. Now it must show finality. The people of the subcontinent—and the world—are waiting.

Yet India continues building. The ChenabBeas Link Tunnel—an 8.7kilometre bore and 113kilometre canal —is designed to move Chenab water permanently into the Beas basin. The treaty nowhere permits this transfer. The Ranbir Canal is being expanded from 1,000 cusecs to a proposed 5,300 cusecs—nearly five and a half times the treaty limit. The Permanent Indus Commission has been shuttered. Data exchange has been suspended. Pakistan is operating blind, unable to verify diversions or anticipate releases. And what of international law? The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that the treaty does not allow for unilateral suspension. The World Bank has firmly rejected India’s claims, stating that no single party has the power to halt or withdraw from the agreement. India has rejected these rulings. It has called the tribunal “illegally constituted” and its awards “null and void.” This is lawlessness. This is a threat to global peace.

We must also address the uncomfortable truth about how we arrived here. Since 2013, a campaign has been waged—using economic espionage tools—to renegotiate the treaty. NGOs in Islamabad, fronted by pseudo climate change experts and retired diplomats, have aggressively marketed the idea of revision. They produced no serious research, no engineering blueprints—only donor reports and conference appearances. What Pakistan’s NGOs used as donor bait became New Delhi’s policy tool. India took the idea forward and weaponized it. This exposes the hollowness of Pakistan’s socalled “climate champions.” They have been little more than career opportunists. Their campaign to renegotiate the treaty—based on flawed arguments and foreign funding—has now been used against Pakistan itself. But let us be clear: India cannot claim moral high ground either. Its fixation on hydropower has created a humanitarian and ecological time bomb. The rivers that sustain millions have been mutilated by dams, reservoirs, and unregulated tunnelling. The Indian Supreme Court has spoken. Its verdict is, in effect, an ecological reinstatement of the Indus Waters Treaty. By emphasizing the fragility of rivers and mountains, the Court reminded both nations that water is not a weapon but a shared lifeline. Yet India continues to ignore its own highest court.

We are two advocates for peace and human prosperity. We are strong believers in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace—grounded in trust, solidarity, and universality. These are not abstract ideals. They are survival imperatives. Trust enables negotiation. Solidarity transcends borders. Universality acknowledges that no nation can stand alone. Pakistan has demonstrated these principles in practice. Its military and diplomatic leadership played a vital and critical role in the USIran peace deal. It proved that even bitter rivals can find common ground through patient diplomacy. Now it is the responsibility of the global community to guide and mentor India’s leadership. The stakes could not be higher. If water stops flowing to Pakistan’s western rivers, 260 million people will face an existential threat. No military—not Pakistan’s, not any combined force in the world—can stop desperate people from crossing borders in search of food and water. This is not a threat. This is a prediction based on simple human survival.

Our plea to the global community is urgent. To the United Nations: Act now. To the European Union: Speak out. To the World Bank: Enforce the treaty you brokered. To all peaceloving people everywhere: Raise your voices before it is too late. Show India the virtues of its own Supreme Court. Show India how it has built flawed arguments to suspend a treaty—arguments that its own highest judicial authority has rejected. Pakistan played its role in peace negotiations between Iran and the United States. Now it is the responsibility of all 192 nations to guide India back to the path of law, reason, and peace. History will not forgive silence. The Indus Waters Treaty has endured for over six decades. It has survived wars, crises, and profound mistrust. It stands as a monument to what is possible when nations choose cooperation over conflict. But treaties are only as strong as the commitment of the parties who sign them. And international law is only as powerful as the willingness of the international community to enforce it. We are at a crossroads. One path leads to dialogue, restoration of the treaty, and peace. The other leads to water warfare, humanitarian catastrophe, and potentially nuclear confrontation. The choice is clear. The time for action is now. Peace is our mission. It must be everyone’s mission.