India’s Prolonged Silence on UN Special Rapporteurs’ IWT Queries
India’s continued silence on the United Nations Special Rapporteurs’ queries concerning alleged violations connected to the Indus Waters Treaty is no longer a matter of routine diplomatic delay. More than 155 days after the mid-December response window, the absence of a publicly listed Indian reply has become a political statement in itself. The 16 October 2025 communication raised concerns over India’s military response after the Pahalgam attack and its decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty “in abeyance,” warning of possible implications for rights to life, water, food, livelihood, environment, and development.
The Indus Waters Treaty is not a minor bilateral arrangement. It is one of South Asia’s most consequential legal instruments, negotiated with World Bank involvement in 1960, allocating the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej to India and the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan, with defined usage rights for India on western rivers. The UN communication itself noted that the treaty had survived around 65 years, including periods of war, crisis, and political tension.
To treat such a treaty as a pressure tool after a security incident is to undermine the very logic of treaty law: commitments are meant to restrain states precisely when politics becomes hostile
The Special Rapporteurs did not merely express abstract concern. They asked India to provide information, explain whether it would fulfil its IWT obligations in good faith, clarify measures to prevent human rights harm, and indicate whether it would settle treaty disputes through agreed procedures. The communication also stated that any response would be made public through the UN communications website within 60 days. Yet the OHCHR communications page for IND 10/2025 currently lists the India communication and summary but shows no corresponding reply under that entry. This silence does not automatically prove every allegation against India. It does, however, expose a troubling refusal to engage with a formal international accountability process.
That refusal is inseparable from the ideological climate in which New Delhi now operates. The RSS and BJP are formally distinct, but they are closely linked, and many BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have long-standing RSS ties. Hindu nationalism has moved from the margins into the mainstream of Indian politics under Modi’s decade in power.
In this context, India’s silence appears less like administrative neglect and more like a deliberate assertion that international scrutiny can be ignored when it conflicts with domestic nationalist messaging
This is where the RSS-influenced Hindutva mindset becomes relevant. It privileges civilizational bravado over legal restraint, public spectacle over procedural responsibility, and coercive symbolism over cooperative diplomacy. The IWT issue is being absorbed into a broader political culture that treats Pakistan not as a treaty partner but as a permanent adversary against whom ordinary legal commitments may be rhetorically downgraded. That posture may generate applause in domestic political arenas, but it corrodes the legal architecture that prevents regional crises from becoming irreversible disasters.
The legal implications are serious. The UN communication cited a Permanent Court of Arbitration finding that India’s April 2025 “abeyance” announcement did not limit the Court’s competence, because the treaty does not allow either party to unilaterally suspend ongoing dispute-settlement proceedings. It also noted Article XII(4), under which the treaty remains in force until terminated by a duly ratified treaty between both governments.
In plain terms, unilateral political declarations cannot simply erase international obligations
India’s non-response therefore matters beyond the IWT. If a major state can ignore UN queries on a treaty affecting water, food security, livelihoods, and regional peace, others will notice. Silence becomes precedent. Non-engagement becomes method. Treaty commitments become conditional on political convenience. In a world already strained by wars, climate stress, and weakening multilateral institutions, such conduct damages not only Pakistan or South Asia but the credibility of the rules-based international order itself.
The wiser course for India would be transparent engagement: answer the questions, defend its position if it believes it has one, and recommit to treaty mechanisms rather than political theatrics. Continued silence only deepens suspicion that New Delhi is avoiding legal scrutiny because its conduct cannot withstand it. For a state seeking global leadership, that is not strength. It is a shameful abdication of responsibility dressed up as nationalist resolve.
