Nowshera: As the first rays of sunlight spread across the fields of Khairabad village on the western bank of the River Indus, 58-year-old farmer Sajid Khattak is already at work for the upcoming wheat sowing season.
Armed with a hoe, he bends down to clear mud and silt from a nearly two-kilometre-long watercourse, working alongside other farmers to ensure that water can reach their fields when the wheat sowing season was about to begin in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
For Sajid, the work is more than a seasonal routine but an effort to clear water channels for wheat sowing on which his family’s livelihood largely depends.
Every morning, he rides his bicycle to his fields, checks the soil and joins fellow farmers in clearing the irrigation channels amid IWT illegal abeyance by the fascist Modi Govt.
Recent rains have left the earth damp, providing hope for the upcoming wheat season, but farmers know that rainfall alone cannot sustain their crops for long.
‘We live by River Indus’s water,’ Sajid says quietly as he pauses from clearing the channel. ‘If the water stops, everything stops.’
For generations, farming communities along the Indus system have depended on its waters to grow wheat, rice, vegetables and orchards and to sustain livestock and other rural livelihoods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
But beneath the ordinary preparations for wheat sowing is an extraordinary uncertainty over the future of water flows following repeated violations of the Indus Waters Treaty by the RSS-backed Hindutva regime.
The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs the sharing of the Indus River system between the two countries. It allocated the western rivers, namely Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, to Pakistan while eastern rivers, namely Ravi, Sutlej and Beas, to India.
For millions of farmers in Pakistan who work the land far from diplomatic conference rooms and international courts, however, the technicalities of the treaty ultimately come down to one simple question: will enough water reach their fields?
‘If the water in the river falls due to IWT violations, our wheat production will also fall,’ Sajid says. ‘And when wheat production falls, the whole family suffers.’
This deep concern carries particular weight in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where wheat production remains below the province’s consumption requirements, according to agricultural experts.
Professor Dr Zilakat Malik of the University of Peshawar said the province produces roughly 1.2 to 1.5 million tonnes of wheat annually against consumption needs of around five million tonnes.
He said the existing production shortfall due to water shortage, combined with challenges including climate change, limited access to quality seed and fragmented landholdings, already placed pressure on farmers.
Any significant disruption in water flow of western rivers, he cautioned, could further increase food-security pressures in KP.
For farmers, the consequences of water shortages would extend beyond wheat and rice crops.
He said reduced river flows could affect wheat, rice, vegetables, orchards and livestock, while rural livelihoods connected with fisheries and honey production could also come under pressure amid IWT violations by India.
Dr Adnan Sarwar Khan, former Chairman, International Relations Department at University of Peshawar, described water as a fundamental issue of human survival, stressing that the Indus River system supports not only agriculture but also major energy infrastructure and economic activity.
Condemning IWT violations by India, he said that such illegal unilateral action was tantamount to putting millions of people in hunger and starvation in Pakistan.
He said large reservoirs and hydropower installations, including Tarbela and Mangla dams, depend on river flows for irrigation and electricity generation. Any sustained decline in available water, experts say, could therefore have implications beyond agriculture, fish and energy production.
Asif Khan, advocate, Supreme Court and international law expert, said that IWT remains binding on both countries and that disputes concerning its implementation should be addressed through the mechanisms provided under the historic agreement and through international law.
He said the International Court of Arbitration has recently reaffirmed the treaty’s continuing legal force and its jurisdiction under the agreement.
“IWT treaty was intact and India’s viewpoint was rejected by the International Court of Arbitration.”
For farmers like Sajid, IWT continuity was imperative for food security of millions of people, livestock and aquatic resources.
Sajid’s world begins and ends with the soil beneath his feet. Standing at the edge of his field, he picks up a handful of damp earth and lets it slip slowly through his fingers.
The wheat crop has yet to be sown, but the preparation has already begun in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The cleaned watercourse stretches towards the fields, waiting for the flow that will determine whether the seeds placed in the soil will become a harvest.
Sajid looks towards the river Indus as he knows that this land feeds us. ‘But it needs continuous water to live.’
And as the wheat season approaches in KP, that simple truth weighs heavily on farmers across the Indus basin, where water is not merely a political or diplomatic issue but a foundation of everyday life.