IWT is inviolable

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The dictum is that India cannot unilaterally pull out of a mandatory international commitment, and its shenanigan of suspending the 1960 Indus Water Treaty is ultra vires. New Delhi's decision to suspend the flow of water down to lower riparian Pakistan, on the false pretext of its involvement in Pahalgam tragedy, was followed by aggression leading to a four-day military showdown.

Pakistan's thrust that the treaty is a "binding international instrument remains fully in force and cannot be suspended or violated" has been endorsed by Ajay Banga, President World Bank, who says that the "IWT does not allow for unilateral suspension" and "can only be amended with mutual consent".

This word of law must put India in the dock, and make it rescind its stunt and proceed to address irritants with Pakistan, including the dispute over Kashmir.

The World Bank, which functions as a facilitator in the context of the treaty to regulate water sharing between Pakistan and India, has reiterated that there is "no provision in the treaty to allow for suspension the way it was drawn up. It either needs to be gone, or replaced by another one, and that requires the two countries to want to agree".

This must act as a convention and this episode of water terrorism on flimsy assumptions of interstate mistrust be accounted for. Islamabad is well within its rights to declare it as "an act of war", as it pertains to an existential crisis. As Pakistan and India have agreed for an uneasy peace and a ceasefire is in force, the first and foremost confidence building measure should be to set the IWT back in force, and get talking.

Pakistan's call for a composite dialogue with India and its readiness to war if its territorial integrity is threatened is a doctrine of peace in self-defence. It's high time for India to realise that coercion, intimidation, meddling and provocations are leaflets of a malicious era, and the need of the hour is to rise above petty political considerations to usher in broad-based regional peace and stability. The American mediation that it has agreed to must come full circle, and a good neighbourhood ambience must set in.