30/08/2026
The School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR), Quaid-i-Azam University, held a seminar on the political, geographical, legal, and strategic dimensions of the Indus Waters Treaty and its suspension by India.
Opening remarks by Dr. Arslan Ahmed - Assistant Professor SPIR- framed water as a political, geographical, economic and social issue whose politics play out differently across Pakistan, from dam debates in Gilgit-Baltistan to canal and water distribution concerns in Sindh and KP.
The keynote by Dr. Daanish Mustafa, Professor of Critical Geography at King’s College London, traced the treaty’s 1960 origins and questioned how much control India can realistically exert over Pakistan’s water given geographic and engineering limits. He framed the suspension as an opportunity to move past “pro-dam vs anti-dam” politics toward evidence-based evaluation, likening a dam to a radiator.
Dr. Muhammad Mujeeb Afzal, Assistant Professor at SPIR, called the treaty a rare agreement that survived decades of conflict, warning that its suspension has triggered a serious crisis of confidence in future India-Pakistan agreements.
The seminar closed on a shared note that Pakistan’s water crisis calls for institutional reform, informed public discourse, and governance grounded in science rather than slogans.
