Population Explosion
September 11, 2025
Asad Ali
As the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) sits during its 80th session with the theme of Better Together: 80 Years and More to Peace, Development and Human Rights, the world is beginning to stand at a crossroads. This significant meeting is an opportunity for reflection and renewal, to re-establish the sense of common accountability in a highly divisive world. However, this year, the UNGA is not just another ceremony to Pakistan, but a serious stage to emphasize the emerging danger to peace and stability regarding the weaponization of the shared natural resources, most notably, water by India.
“This was not a calamity of nature. It was a measured step demonstrating how readily a common good can be turned into a weapon of mass destruction.”
World leaders will convene on 9 September 2025 to talk about global collaboration. However, in the most ironic contradiction to such a spirit, one of the oldest and most durable international treaties, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), is being threatened as never before. In May 2025, India suspended its IWT commitments independently, and this is a severe and risky escalation. This action not only threatens the water security of millions of people; it also creates a disturbingly dangerous precedent: the binding treaties may be discarded to create short-term political leverage.
Having been signed in 1960 and having been brokered by the World Bank, the Indus Waters Treaty has endured the test of time and has lived through wars, diplomatic standoffs, and even the unpredictable political nature of two nuclear-armed nations. It has been praised as an uncommon phenomenon of functional cooperation in South Asia. It is not only a bilateral question of India and Pakistan to suspend it, but a worldwide one. It makes international law a sham since it is believed to be sacrosanct and cannot be selectively suspended because of national interest or political expediency.
The move by India to stop the treaty commitments was not multilateral or subject to the due process of the law. It practically transformed water, which is a fundamental human right and a common natural commodity, into a means of political coercion. This is against the spirit of cooperation that is so vigorously espoused by the UNGA and is threatening to destroy international confidence in established international structures.
The effects of such aggression are not imaginary. They are calamitous and short-lived. The Pakistani people rely on the Indus River system to survive, as millions of Pakistanis do. It provides one-quarter of agricultural water in the country and supports close to 68 percent of rural livelihoods. The continuous supply of the Indus River to the irrigation system up to the consumption of drinking water is vital in keeping the food system stable, the economy steady, and human beings developing holistically. Interfering with such a flow not only creates inconvenience but also predisposes famine, displacement, and breakdown of society.
“The Indus Waters Treaty has endured wars and crises, but India’s unilateral suspension undermines international law itself.”
To make the situation worse, on 26 August 2025, India discharged vast amounts of water in its dams into Pakistan border areas without warning- obviously going against both the moral and legal obligations. This mass displacement displaced more than a quarter of a million people, claimed more than 15 lives, and destroyed precious farming acreage in Punjab, as the sudden flooding resulted in the death of over 15 people and the displacement of over 200,000 others. This was not a calamity of nature. It was a measured step demonstrating how readily a common good can be turned into a weapon of mass destruction.
Such environmental aggression is a frontier in warfare, a war in which bullets and bombs are no longer used to fight but manipulated systems of nature. It is a type of hybrid warfare that promises to increase in a world that struggles with climate stress, water shortage, and weak geopolitical equations.
The world community, especially the United Nations, cannot take this as a local dispute and a bilateral affair that can be settled behind closed doors. This is a blatant contravention of standards of international norms and a threat to the very principles on which the UN was established on. When the world does not safeguard the sacredness of pacts such as IWT, it sends a bad signal: that the strength and politics can outweigh humanitarian necessities and judicial obligations.
Pakistan has never failed to honor its IWT commitments, even at the time of high tension with India. Its strict compliance with the treaty is a great testimony to the value attached to international cooperation on a rule-based basis. The world is now being challenged by Pakistan to reciprocate this promise and get no nation, no matter what size, influence, or geopolitical position, to weaponize the essential resources.
“Such environmental aggression is a frontier in warfare, where systems of nature replace bombs and bullets.”
The 80th session of the UNGA cannot go on without a high-profile, solid condemnation of the Indian acts and a stern demand that the IWT be reinstated in its entirety. More generally, the UN must strive to establish a binding global system that would help stop the politicization of common assets such as water, particularly in areas that are likely to end up in conflict.
In case the world is keen on becoming better together, it should understand that the world will never be truly peaceful and developed when the fundamental human needs are used as ransom for political interest. The United Nations is now long overdue to fulfill the promise of its creation: to safeguard the weak, enforce the concept of international law, and forestall conflict, not with words, but with deeds. Silence in this crucial time is complicity. The world should talk loudly and make decisions. Water is something that should not be weaponized.
The writer is a regular Islamabad-based contributor.
