“Getting Out of the Indus Trap”, Open the magzine, January 23, 2026
“It is becoming clear that India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in “abeyance” after the massacre of 26 people at Pahalgam on April 22 last year is part of the Modi government’s bid to extricate itself from the vexatious pact that provides for third-party arbitration of India-Pakistan disputes for good. Those in the know say the matter engaged Prime Minister Narendra Modi early in his first term and he asked officials to evaluate the treaty and its implications. The initial reports followed the traditional thinking in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) along the lines that IWT reflected India’s adherence to international norms and that it had survived the worst of the India-Pakistan relationship. Modi was not particularly impressed by the feedback and the matter rested until the terrorist attack on the Army camp in Uri in 2016 after which the prime minister famously said “blood and water cannot flow together”.
India pulled back on Indus Commission meetings and fast-tracked its hydroelectric projects. The Pahalgam attack proved a turning point and, by all indications, India is in no mood to accept Pakistan’s cynical misuse of the treaty by using mechanisms such as “neutral expert” and the Court of Arbitration to obstruct and delay projects on the Indian side. The view in New Delhi is that the treaty has provided Pakistan with an avenue to insert itself in India’s affairs and thereby raise questions over the status of Jammu & Kashmir. As far as India is concerned, the treaty will have to be significantly revised if it is to retain relevance at all.
Poland is seen as part of “new Europe” that has been relatively less affected by the political correctness of Scandinavian nations and advanced economies such as Germany.. Yet, the traumatic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led the ‘liberal’ Polish government headed by Donald Tusk into taking umbrage of India’s purchase of Russian oil to the extent that it warmed to Pakistan. The public rebuke of visiting Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar saw the Polish minister making a course correction, agreeing that both India and Poland have been at the receiving end of state terrorism…..”
Read full article at openthemagazine.com
