New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that India and its farmers hold the exclusive right over the country’s share of Indus river waters, describing the Indus Water Treaty as “unjust and one-sided.”
Speaking from the Red Fort on Independence Day, Modi said the treaty had inflicted severe damage on Indian agriculture and highlighted that the recent terror attack in Pahalgam demonstrated the futility of continuing the agreement.
“India has decided that blood and water cannot flow together,” the prime minister declared, criticizing the treaty for allowing rivers originating in India to “irrigate the fields of our enemies, while the soil of my country and the farmers of my country remain thirsty.”
He added, “The waters that belong to India will be used by India, for India’s farmers alone. We will no longer tolerate an arrangement that deprives our farmers.” Modi noted that Indian farmers had endured “unimaginable losses” under the treaty for decades.
“India has endured this for decades. We will not endure it any longer. In the interest of our farmers and the nation, this agreement is unacceptable to us,” he asserted.
The decision to suspend the decades-old treaty comes in the wake of a terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, which claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly tourists.
Brokered by the World Bank, the Indus Water Treaty has governed the sharing of the Indus river and its tributaries between India and Pakistan since 1960.
