Kashmir's Rivers and Missing Stakeholders

Recent statements from India that it intends to ensure that "not a single drop" of water reaches Pakistan have once again brought the Indus Waters Treaty into the spotlight. While many observers view such remarks through the prism of India-Pakistan rivalry, they also expose a deeper reality: the people whose land gives birth to these rivers remain absent from every major discussion concerning their future. The rivers governed by the Indus Waters Treaty form the backbone of Pakistan's agricultural economy. Any serious disruption in water flows would be perceived as a challenge to food security, economic stability, and national resilience. India asserts upstream rights and control. Pakistan asserts downstream entitlements. Meanwhile, the people whose homeland nourishes these rivers are rarely treated as stakeholders. Since the signing of the treaty in 1960, Kashmir has largely been viewed as territory through which rivers pass rather than as a people with legitimate interests. Any future framework governing the waters of the Indus basin must recognise Kashmiris as stakeholders in their own right. The time has come to place Kashmiris where they belong: not on the margins of the discussion, but at its centre.