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INDIA’S latest move to advance the Chenab-Beas Link Tunnel Project and its plan to flush silt from the Salal Dam reservoir clearly exposes the real motive behind its illegal, unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. New Delhi plans to divert about 1.9 MAF of water annually from the Chenab basin to the Beas basin. The project violates both the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, as well as principles reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. Likewise, Indian plans to flush silt from the reservoir of the Salal Dam would provide India with a degree of water-flow control not permitted under the IWT framework or the 1978 Salal Agreement. As a Foreign Office spokesman said, the move reinforces Pakistan’s concerns that India is seeking to weaponise water. This also shows that India has no respect for the broader principles of international water law, let alone the bilateral transboundary water treaty. The fact that India’s plans to breach the treaty will have lasting consequences for Pakistan’s agriculture and economy shows that the Narendra Modi administration is using water resources as a strategic tool against Islamabad.
