Union Home Minister Amit Shah has firmly stated that India will never reinstate the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan. In a recent interview, Shah asserted that India intends to fully utilize the water that rightfully belongs to it and emphasized that Pakistan will no longer receive waters it has been accessing "without justification." He also revealed that India plans to divert these water flows by constructing a canal in Rajasthan.
The move follows the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. In response, India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty — a landmark agreement brokered by the World Bank that governs the distribution of the Indus river system between India and Pakistan. Shah confirmed that the suspension will continue until Pakistan "credibly and irrevocably" ends its support for cross-border terrorism.
While acknowledging that international treaties cannot be unilaterally annulled, Shah maintained that India is within its rights to suspend the treaty, citing the violation of its core principles of peace and cooperation.
Under the original terms of the treaty, India received exclusive control over the eastern rivers (Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej), while Pakistan was granted rights over the western rivers (Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum), with limited exceptions allowing for specific uses by either side.
With the treaty now suspended, India has ceased all cooperative mechanisms — including data exchange and joint oversight — and has begun taking concrete steps to redirect river flows for domestic use, with a focus on addressing water needs in Rajasthan.