♤ Given that water is J&K’s main natural resource and essential for economic development,

the there. gifting of its river waters to Pakistan by treaty has fostered popular grievance.

1.4.6. Increasing Questions on the Treaty

♤ In the context of terrorism being used as an instrument of state policy by Pakistan

questions have been raised about the treat

♤ In 1960, India accepted the treaty as a goodwill gesture trading water for peace. Within five years of the treaty’s entry into force, Pakistan launched a war to grab the Indian part of J&K in 1965.

♤ Pakistan insists on rights without responsibilities. Many argue, that use of state-reared terrorist groups can be invoked by India, under Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, as constituting reasonable grounds for withdrawal from the Indus treaty. The International Court of Justice has upheld the principle that a treaty may be dissolved by reason of a fundamental change of circumstances.

♤ As argued by David Lilienthal “No Armies with bombs and shellfire could devastate a land so thoroughly as Pakistan could be devastated by simple expedient of India’s permanently shutting off the source of water that keeps the fields and people of Pakistan green.”

♤ If Pakistan wishes to preserve the Indus treaty, despite its diminishing returns for India, it will have to strike a balance between its right to keep utilising the bulk of the river system’s waters and a corresponding obligation (enshrined in international law) not to cause “palpable harm” to its co-riparian state by exporting terror.