Asif Mahmood
Few are aware of the staggering military presence India currently maintains in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. As of now, India has deployed approximately 750,000 troops in the region — nearly half of its total standing army.
In contrast, Pakistan’s entire military force numbers around 560,000 personnel. This means that India has stationed some 200,000 more soldiers in Kashmir alone than Pakistan has in its entire army.
Consider, for a moment, what this implies. A population of roughly 12 million Muslims in Kashmir lives under the constant shadow of a militarized occupation. Statistically, there is one Indian soldier for every 13 civilians. If we exclude women, children, and the elderly, the ratio becomes even more startling — roughly one soldier for every two adult males of military age.
Such a massive and sustained deployment raises critical questions: What are India’s long-term intentions? What objectives necessitate such a disproportionate use of force in a region it claims as its own?
Recently, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto correctly stated in the National Assembly that if India attempts to block Pakistan’s water, it will be considered an act of war. This aligns with previous statements from Pakistan’s military leadership asserting that obstructing Pakistan’s share of river water would constitute a de facto declaration of war.
India, meanwhile, has made no secret of its intentions. Senior Indian officials have publicly declared their willingness to review or suspend water flows to Pakistan — a move that clearly undermines the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) and threatens regional stability.
Such rhetoric, when combined with troop concentrations in Kashmir and repeated false flag operations like the recent incident in Pahalgam — again unjustly attributed to Pakistan — signals a dangerous trajectory. These allegations, often baseless, serve as preludes to escalation. They cannot be dismissed lightly.
Under international law, Pakistan holds an unequivocal right to its allocated share of river waters. The Indus Waters Treaty remains a binding bilateral agreement that India cannot unilaterally suspend. Even beyond the treaty, customary international law recognizes that an upper riparian state (India) cannot restrict the essential water rights of a lower riparian (Pakistan).
Furthermore, the water India seeks to obstruct does not constitute Indian sovereign property. Rather, it is part of a shared hydrological system, governed by mutual rights and obligations. India, therefore, cannot arbitrarily classify it as its own and deny downstream access.
For Pakistan — an agrarian economy — water is not merely a resource; it is a lifeline. Any obstruction of this flow would threaten national food security and public health, and must be seen as a direct act of aggression.
In such a scenario, Pakistan retains the right, under international law, to take preemptive or retaliatory action, including targeting infrastructure (dams and barrages) constructed in violation of treaty obligations or built to expropriate Pakistan’s share of water.
Multiple legal frameworks affirm Pakistan’s position:
· UN Water Convention,
· Helsinki and Stockholm Declarations,
· Dublin Principles,
· Agenda 21,
· 2016 Political Declaration on Water,
· UN Charter,
· and various human rights instruments.
These instruments enshrine three core principles:
1. No deprivation of potable water for downstream populations.
2. No harm to agricultural livelihoods.
3. No adverse environmental impact.
The UN General Assembly’s 2010 resolution declared access to clean water a fundamental human right. Denying water thus becomes a crime against humanity.
Should India proceed with such violations, conflict would not merely be likely — it would be inevitable.
Similarly, if India uses the recent false flag narrative in Pahalgam to justify another military misadventure, Pakistan would be compelled to respond.
Despite the current ceasefire along the Line of Control, the nature of Indo-Pak relations remains fundamentally adversarial. The war has not ended; it has only changed form.
India is steadily pursuing a hostile agenda, and Pakistan must eventually reply. This confrontation is no longer a matter of if but when.
As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan once noted regarding Ottoman military doctrine:
“If you want to avoid war, you must always be prepared for war.”
This maxim holds true today.
To deter Indian aggression, Pakistan must signal not just readiness, but resolve.