Pakistan’s sovereignty is draining away—not through war or invasion, but through the silent suffocation of its rivers.
The eastern rivers—Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—once nurtured fertile plains and sustained millions.
Today, they’ve been choked upstream by India’s unchecked diversions and turned into toxic streams carrying industrial waste and sewage.
This isn’t just an environmental breakdown; it’s a direct blow to Pakistan’s right to secure life, health, and livelihoods within its borders.
Under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, India was granted “exclusive use” of the eastern rivers, while Pakistan was left with the western rivers.
But that clause was never meant to let India dry up rivers completely or poison what little water flows downstream.
Holding back water is one thing—sending down untreated waste is another.
The Ravi, which once supported thriving communities in Punjab, now runs black through Lahore.
The Hudiara Drain, fed by effluents from Indian cities like Ludhiana and Amritsar, dumps over 1,200 million litters of untreated waste daily, contaminating Pakistani soil and aquifers.
Communities downstream are bearing the brunt.
People have no choice but to draw water from what’s left—polluted rivers, shallow wells, or tanker supplies.
This has triggered a surge in waterborne diseases.
Hepatitis A and E, typhoid, skin infections, and gastrointestinal illnesses have shot up.
In southern Punjab, hospitals are struggling to cope.
According to local health departments, nearly 70% of diseases reported in Kasur and La-hore’s outskirts are linked to poor water quality.
This burden of disease is not a local crisis—it’s a sovereignty issue.
A nation that cannot protect its people from poisoned water and dying rivers is being pushed around.
India’s behaviour goes against not only the spirit of the treaty but also international law, which requires states to prevent transboundary environmental harm.
It has failed to clean up its act, and in doing so, it’s letting down both its own environmental obligations and the rights of millions across the border.
What’s more, India’s diversions aren’t delivering on their own promises.
Large volumes of eastern rivers’ water are being pumped into Rajasthan to “green” the desert, but studies from India’s own Ministry of Jal Shakti show these efforts have barely scratched the surface—less than 1% impact on cultivable area.
Much of the water is lost to evaporation, seepage, or salinization.
Meanwhile, on the Pakistani side, the water table is collapsing, wetlands are drying up, and agriculture is withering.
Pakistan can no longer sit back.
It must take up the case internationally, demand the restoration of environmental flows, and push for a revision in the treaty that reflects today’s climate and health realities.
Allowing rivers to die and diseases to spread is not just a water crisis—it’s a slow erosion of national dignity.
Rivers don’t just carve landscapes—they uphold sovereignty.
Letting them slip away is letting our future slip with them.
If India seeks peace and prosperity in the region, it must let the rivers flow—not only in accordance with treaties, but in the spirit of neighbourly equity.
—The writer is a political analyst, based in Islamabad.(riaz.missen@gmail.com)
