That resilience earned it the reputation of being an example of how practical cooperation could endure even when politics failed. Yet, durability alone does not make a treaty immutable. International agreements derive their legitimacy not merely from longevity, but from the continued willingness of both parties to honour both their letter and their spirit. When either of those foundations begins to erode, the legal and political assumptions underlying the treaty inevitably come under scrutiny.

The Indus basin is not an ordinary river system. Stretching across nearly 450,000 square miles, it supports millions of people and underpins the agricultural, ecological and economic life of both India and Pakistan. The treaty sought to avoid perpetual conflict by allocating the three eastern rivers-the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej-to India while assigning the western rivers-the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab-to Pakistan, subject to carefully negotiated exceptions. More importantly, the agreement established an elaborate institutional framework for resolving disagreements. The Permanent Indus Commission was designed as the first forum for discussion. Only if a technical "difference" remained unresolved could a Neutral Expert be approached. Arbitration was deliberately conceived as the final and exceptional stage, to be invoked only after earlier mechanisms had been exhausted. This layered structure reflected a conscious belief that bilateral engagement, not international litigation, should remain the principal means of preserving the treaty.

Much of the contemporary debate revolves around whether this carefully crafted dispute-resolution architecture has itself been respected. India's position has increasingly been that Pakistan has attempted to internationalise disagreements by simultaneously pursuing a Neutral Expert and a Court of Arbitration over projects such as the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric schemes, thereby bypassing the sequential process envisaged under Article IX of the treaty. India has consistently argued that the treaty distinguishes clearly between a "question", a "difference" and a "dispute", and that arbitration is not available merely because one party chooses to invoke it. This interpretation is not without legal substance. The text of the treaty was intentionally drafted to prevent premature third-party intervention and to encourage negotiated settlement. If either party can unilaterally elevate every technical disagreement into an international legal dispute, the treaty's carefully balanced institutional design risks becoming ineffective. That concern deserves serious legal examination rather than dismissal as political rhetoric.

At the same time, the argument for holding the treaty in abeyance extends beyond procedural interpretation. It increasingly rests on a broader proposition of international law: that a treaty cannot be divorced from the wider conduct of its parties. The preamble to the Indus Waters Treaty repeatedly invokes cooperation, goodwill and friendship as the guiding principles of the agreement. Critics of Pakistan argue that decades of cross-border terrorism fundamentally contradict those foundational assumptions. From this perspective, continued sponsorship or tolerance of terrorism creates conditions fundamentally inconsistent with the cooperative relationship envisaged by the treaty. The concept of a "material breach", reflected in Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and widely regarded as reflective of customary international law, recognises that violation of provisions essential to a treaty's object and purpose may justify suspension of obligations. Neither India nor Pakistan is formally a party to the Convention, and the Indus treaty predates it, but customary international law often influences treaty interpretation. Whether Pakistan's conduct legally satisfies the threshold of a material breach remains open to debate among international lawyers. Yet it is no longer an argument that can be dismissed out of hand.

Nevertheless, any decision to suspend or indefinitely hold the treaty in abeyance should be approached with considerable caution. Water agreements differ fundamentally from commercial or political treaties because they govern shared natural resources on which millions of civilians depend. Actions affecting river flows inevitably carry humanitarian, environmental and diplomatic consequences extending well beyond bilateral relations. India's own long-term interests are also served by preserving its reputation as a responsible power that respects international commitments while firmly defending its national security. The more sustainable approach may therefore lie in recalibrating the treaty rather than abandoning it outright-insisting on faithful adherence to its dispute-resolution framework, fully utilising India's rights under the agreement, modernising provisions that no longer reflect present-day hydrological realities, and making clear that sustained violations of the broader conditions of peaceful coexistence cannot remain entirely divorced from water cooperation. The Indus Waters Treaty has demonstrated extraordinary resilience for over six decades. Whether it continues to survive will ultimately depend not on legal technicalities alone, but on whether both nations remain willing to uphold the mutual trust and good faith that gave the agreement meaning in the first place.