ABSTRACT

The Indus and Brahmaputra River basins are critical freshwater resources and focal points of cross-border cooperation. However, the rapid expansion of hydropower projects in these shared basins both reflects and exacerbates political tensions and weak institutional coordination among riparian states. This study combines the frameworks of hydro-hegemony and hydro-political vulnerability (HHPV) to examine the complex water politics of South Asia. It highlights how the pursuit of renewable energy and unresolved territorial disputes among regional rivals create significant political risks for these key river systems. The study argues that conflicting regional priorities and ambitions are central to low institutional resilience in the region, resulting in increased hydro political vulnerability in the basins.

1 Introduction

In recent decades, hydropower has re-emerged as a major and rapidly expanding source of renewable energy worldwide. In South Asia, however, its development has intensified tensions among riparian countries due to complex hydro political dynamics. Large dam and hydropower projects in the Indus and Brahmaputra River Basins have triggered disputes over water access, raised environmental concerns, and disrupted downstream flows. These tensions are further aggravated by longstanding border and territorial disputes, which continue to shape and constrain regional water governance. This study examines the intricate relationship between hydropower development and transboundary water politics in South Asia. It argues that growing demand for renewable energy and persistent territorial conflicts have increased competition over shared water resources. Upper riparian states, seeking to maximize national interests, often avoid meaningful institutional cooperation—deepening the region’s
hydro-political vulnerability and increasing the risk of geopolitical conflict.

2 Theoretical Framework

There is a wide range of theoretical literature discussing hydropower politics. This section explores three important theoretical frameworks that address the role of power in transboundary water governance. The first is the traditional international relations (IR) theory of realism, which considers power both as a means and an end in the continuous pursuit of security and dominance among self-interested states in an anarchic world (Morgenthau 1948; Mearsheimer 1995). Realists argue that the competition for resources, such as water, can lead to either conflict or cooperation, depending on the nature of the competing interests involved (Demerew 2022). This approach highlights states’ focus on survival and strategic advantage, often employing coercive power to achieve favorable outcomes. However, traditional realism has been criticized for its narrow focus on power primarily as a form of domination rooted in military strength. Power should be understood more broadly as a tool employed to establish and sustain hegemony, rather than hegemony being defined solely by military capabilities (Menga 2016). In other words, power is instrumental in achieving dominance, but it is not synonymous with hegemony itself.

This introduces the second framework, known as the hydro hegemony (HH) approach, which conceptualizes power and power asymmetries as dynamic and continuously contested forces. Its proponents argue that power imbalances do not always result in inequity, as the hydro-hegemon can also lead the basin to a more optimal outcome for all parties (Zeitoun and Warner 2006). Instead of using water cooperation or conflict thesis, they present interaction between hegemon and weaker states as the primary unit of analysis for hydro politics (Cascão and Zeitoun 2010) in transboundary water governance. In contrast to realist’s focus on hard power, the HH framework combines hard (coercion) and soft power (consent) to show how a hegemon uses geographical position, power (economic, military and political), and exploitational potential (the ability to control waters) to achieve regional compliance over shared waters (Menga 2016; Petersen-Perlman et al. 2017).

The third important concept is hydro political vulnerability and resilience of an international basin as introduced by Wolf (2009). It relies on institutional collaboration to build resilience and indicates vulnerability in the face of environmental change and unilateral basin development projects. This latter approach aligns with the hydro hegemony paradigm in providing a comprehensive understanding of transboundary water governance, showing how powerful riparian states exploit institutional weaknesses through hegemonic strategies to undermine a basin’s resilience.

The present study aligns with scholarly works (Mearsheimer 1995; Menga 2016; Qin 2018) that, unlike realists, view power as a relative concept and move beyond a simple conflict versus cooperation framework. Recent theoretical literature on transboundary water governance similarly transcends the traditional conflict/cooperation binary by focusing on concepts such as hydro-hegemony and hydro-political vulnerability. These perspectives emphasize the importance of power dynamics in shaping water resource control and governance. Together, they highlight how power asymmetries influence transboundary water interactions, which often involve complex combinations of both conflict and cooperation rather than being exclusively one or the other. Mark Zeitoun and Jeroen Warner introduced and developed the concept of hydro-hegemony in 2006 (Zeitoun and Warner 2006). It describes how one dominant actor consolidates control over transboundary waters at the basin scale. One frequently cited example of hydro-hegemony is Egypt's unilateral construction of dams, which exemplifies a resource capture strategy typical of hydro-hegemony. This approach underscores the competition over shared water resources between upstream and downstream users, where power relations are central (Petersen-Perlman et al. 2017). Egypt’s hegemonic control is maintained through historical claims, strategic infrastructure like the Aswan High Dam, and political leverage to secure disproportionate water rights, reflecting the relational dimension of power in hydro-hegemony theory (Gebrehiwet 2020). It has also secured international backing and framed Nile water access as a national security issue, reinforcing its dominant role in regional water governance.

The hydro-hegemon, in its position of power, consistently achieves beneficial results for itself by choosing between exploiting its dominance or adopting a more collaborative leadership approach, a decision influenced by both non-hegemon actions and wider political factors. Riparian states aim to maximize their water objectives, which can lead to either some form of cooperation, intense competition or no competition, with the gains controlled by the stronger riparian. Scholarship on hydro-hegemony acknowledges the primary importance of power and its asymmetry in relationship between co-riparian states in each basin (Medzini 2001; Selby 2003; Zeitoun 2008).

The literature also identifies that hydro-hegemony rests not only on geographical position of the riparian but also on political, economic, and military power of each riparian state and its potential for water resource exploitation (Zeitoun and Warner 2006; Hanasz 2014; Cascão and Zeitoun 2010). Institutions like treaties and river basin organizations can potentially balance power among riparian countries but sometimes reinforce existing disparities due to unequal financial and political resources. Power imbalances often involve dominant riparian countries, or hydro-hegemons, which can shape water management mechanisms to their advantage, sometimes coercing cooperation from weaker parties. These hydro-hegemons leverage their relative power, geographic position, and technological capabilities to maintain control over shared water resources.

The third concept focuses on hydro-political vulnerability and resilience in transboundary water governance. Wolf (2009) argues that managing shared water resources involves balancing competing interests, with upper riparian states holding significant political power by controlling headwaters. He defines "hydro-political vulnerability" as the risk of political disputes in shared basins, which increases when rapid environmental changes and weak institutional capacity outpace the ability of governance systems to manage these changes. Strong institutions, such as treaties and river basin organizations, enhance resilience by reducing conflicts. However, scholars like Zeitoun and Warner (2006) caution that treaties alone do not guarantee conflict resolution, as they can be exploited due to poor enforcement and existing inequalities among basin states. Furthermore, treaties may worsen power imbalances by concealing disadvantages faced by weaker states (Zawahri 2008). Institutional resilience is challenged by existing disputes over water sharing and proposed infrastructure, especially when major projects like dams are implemented without adequate cross-border frameworks (Wolf et al. 2003; Zawahri 2008). The hydro-hegemony framework supports the notion that upstream control grants substantial political power, which Wolf (2009) identifies as a crucial element in hydro-political vulnerability and conflict risk.

Combining the hydro-hegemony with political vulnerability (HHPV) frameworks provides a deeper insight into how power imbalances influence basin vulnerability and institutional strength (Tawfik 2015; Hayat et al. 2022). Both frameworks converge on the importance of institutional structures in mediating water conflicts but diverge in their treatment of power. Hydro-hegemony exposes how power asymmetries perpetuate control, while hydro-vulnerability provides tools to assess whether institutions can mitigate resulting vulnerabilities (Zeitoun and Warner 2006; Cascão and Zeitoun 2010; Petersen-Perlman et al. 2017). Together, they offer a holistic view of power dynamics in transboundary water governance.

This research seeks to integrate the hydro-hegemony and political-vulnerability (HHPV) frameworks for a reappraisal of the hydro politics of South Asia, where climate change and unresolved territorial conflicts between regional adversaries have created political risks for two major basins in the region. The rapid environmental and institutional changes in the Indus (i.e., Indian unilateral withdrawal from the Indus Waters Treaty) and Brahmaputra basins are illustrative of the declining resilience in the face of growing political vulnerability as witnessed by competing and conflicting hydropower dam building drive by India, Pakistan and China in the shared basins. 

3 Unraveling the Geopolitical Dimensions of Hydropower Development in the Indus and Brahmaputra Basins

The Indus River basin, connecting China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and the Brahmaputra River basin, connecting China, India, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, face challenges in maintaining hydro-political resilience. Both basins are increasingly vulnerable to rising geopolitical tensions and environmental pressures, impacting their ability to manage shared water resources effectively. Both the basins have become subject to conflicting renewable energy strategies of their riparian states who seek to avoid institutional cooperation. These basins, shaped by colonial-era border redefinitions, remain hotspots for disputes—such as India-China tensions over South Tibet and India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir—where water resources serve as both a bargaining tool and a driver of political conflict. The ongoing stalemates in these territorial disputes are deeply tied to the control of transboundary waters. Drawing upon the concepts of hydro- hegemony and hydro- political vulnerability (HHPV), this study argues that the territorial conflicts between the upper and lower riparian states are both drivers and outcomes of power maximization by stronger riparian(s) resulting in reduced institutional resilience in Indus and Brahmaputra basins.

3.1 Hydro-political resilience in Indus River Basin

In 1947, the partition of the previously unified Indus Basin canal irrigation system divided it between India and Pakistan, leaving the headwaters of the Indus within Indian territory (Figure 1). This sowed the seeds of hydro-political rivalry between riparian states in the post-British subcontinent. The free flow of water into Pakistani territory, passing through Indian controlled Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), became critical due to the latter’s location in the Karakoram and Western Himalayan mountains, which are major sources of water for the Indus River and its tributaries. The flow of water through Indian-administered Kashmir also bestowed India with the status of an upper riparian country vis a vis the Indus basin, shaping regional hydro-politics in the years to come.

Figure 1 Indus basin canal irrigation system.

In 1948, India's East Punjab government halted water flow to West Punjab's Lahore and Dipalpur canals, citing the absence of a formal agreement. This move, aimed at preventing West Punjab from gaining legal water rights and avoid setting a precedent that could harm East Punjab's future interests (Simha 2016) caused significant crop losses in Pakistan. The action heightened political tensions and prompted international mediation, leading to the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in 1960, which established a framework for water sharing between India and Pakistan. The treaty was crucial in resolving future water disputes and allowed for equitable governance of the Indus basin's resources. Imagining the Indus without IWT would have meant allowing both the countries to proceed with their competing and conflicting river diversion projects, starting as early as the 1950s.

Both India and Pakistan have given close attention to the development of surface water resources in the Indus Basin in the post-IWT period. Both actively started planning and constructing important hydropower dams and reservoirs on western and eastern rivers of the Indus. Mangla and Tarbela were two major dams constructed by Pakistan in 1967 and 1976 in the immediate post-IWT period for irrigation and renewable energy objectives. India began constructing her first post-IWT hydro power project—Salal in the 1970s. Salal and many other later Indian hydro power projects on the western rivers of the basin, such as those on the Chenab and Jhelum rivers, were modified by India after receiving objections from Pakistan for their negative operational impacts on water flow downstream. 

The Indus Basin rivers—Ravi, Beas, Sutlej, Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum—offer India significant hydropower opportunities, though the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) limits India's use of the Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum. Recent Indian plans to build seven dams in Kishtwar, Jammu, and Kashmir, have raised ecological concerns for local communities (Nabi 2022). While the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej are saturated with projects, India is now focusing on the Western Rivers, where it has a 20% allocation under IWT (SANDRP 2011; Sile 2016). Pakistan has recently begun expanding their utilisation of the 80% share of the basin’s renewable energy under the IWT and has identified a hydropower potential of 60,000 MW. However, as of 2018, hydropower accounted for only 29% of installed capacity nationally. To develop renewable energy and reduce reliance on imported fuels, the Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) 2018-40 aims to increase hydropower's share to 40% by 2040 (NTDC 2019). Additionally, under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, the Pakistani government plans to operationalize 23 hydroelectric projects by 2030 (Hashmi et al. 2022). Such Pakistani plans on western rivers of the Indus basin are a direct threat to India’s own renewable energy targets in the shared basin.

The IWT has been an institutional check on competing national objectives of India and Pakistan in the shared basin. As a bilateral institution, it has increasingly become subject to growing environmental changes and rising water disputes in the region (Table 1). In the words of Sharma and Sahni (2024), “indeed, India has adopted an ‘issue-linkage’ strategy and linked the issue of IWT to Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. On April 23, 2025, India unilaterally suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) after a terrorist attack near Pahalgam, Kashmir killed 26 people. Citing Pakistan’s alleged involvement, the Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri declared the treaty ‘held in abeyance’ until Pakistan ends support for cross-border terrorism” (Al Jazeera 2025). India followed this move by blocking Chenab River flows from the Baglihar Dam and carrying out reservoir flushing to increase capacity at Indian dams. The suspension has sparked a severe water crisis threat in Pakistan, prompting political condemnation, calls for dialogue, and preparations for legal and diplomatic responses (Pakistan Today 2025) marking a major blow to institutional resilience in the Indus basin. Earlier in 2016, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for a unilateral abrogation of the IWT, declared “blood and water can’t flow together at the same time” (The Indian Express 2016). Pakistan responded with the statement that “the revocation of the Indus Waters Treaty by India can be taken as an act of war against Pakistan” and pointed towards her regional ally China for following the precedent by proclaiming that such a move could provide China “a justification to consider of suspension of waters of the Brahmaputra River” (Dawn 2016). Pakistan has raised objections to a chain of dams planned and undertaken by India on the Jhelum and Chenab rivers in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) including Wullar, Salal, URI II and Chutak, Baglihar, Kishanganga, Dul Hasti, Pakal Dul, Bursar, Dumkhar, Rattle and Sawalkote (Dar 2011; Ranjan 2020a). Amongst these, the Rattle and Kishanganga are the recent most and the only water disputes involving the twin processes of an appointment of the neutral expert and a court of arbitration under the IWT’s legal dispute resolution mechanism. Pakistan blames India for violating the IWT by altering water flows through multiple dam constructions on the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. Rejecting Pakistan’s objections, India issued a formal notice on August 30, 2024, seeking government-level negotiations under Article XII (3) of the treaty, which allows modifications through mutual agreement. India cites demographic changes, environmental concerns, clean energy goals, and cross-border terrorism as reasons for revisiting the treaty (Gupta 2024). In Pakistan, this move is seen as a strategic effort to advance India's hydropower projects through political negotiations and shifting the debate away from the institutional scale of the IWT (Siddiqui 2025). With annual Indus Water Commissioners’ meetings on hold and IWT suspended, hydro-political tensions are escalated as both nations grapple with competing renewable energy ambitions, and security concerns. India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is indicative of her hegemonic strategy by leveraging its political influence and geographic position as the upper riparian state in the Indus basin to assert and maximize her historical claims over the Indus waters, in the wake of rising energy needs. Under the HHPV framework, the basin faces high political vulnerability and diminished resilience, making it susceptible to political instability and reducing its capacity to recover from shocks.

Table 1 Changes affecting institutional resilience in the Indus basin.

Sources: Text of IWT, World Bank 1960; Al Jazeera 2024; Reuters 2025.

Water governance in the Indus basin is deeply intertwined with national interests and security dynamics, framing water issues as crucial to national survival. This securitization has significantly weakened the hydro-political resilience of IWT in the face of emerging environmental and geopolitical challenges. One important evidence of threatened institutional resilience of IWT is the inability of India and Pakistan to invoke Article VII, on Future Co-operation. Zawahri and Michel (2020) have suggested using the memoranda of understandings (MOUs) to address climate change and water quality issues without reopening questions of rights and allocations. MOUs could be important for increasing hydro-political resilience in the basin by addressing existing and emerging vulnerabilities including climate change and disaster managements. These MOUs also could be used to include non-signatory riparian states, i.e., China and Afghanistan, to strengthen institutional resilience in the basin and enabling states to collaborate on emerging challenges such as water scarcity, renewable energy needs, declining water quality, aquifer depletion, and fluctuating environmental flows.

3.2 Hydro-political resilience in Brahmaputra River Basin

The Brahmaputra River or the Yarlung Tsangpo as it is known in China is one of the largest, most contentious of the several trans-boundary rivers shared by China and India (Figure 2). The Brahmaputra River basin (BRB) is a remote region, highly sensitive to climatic and anthropogenic drivers of change with a high potential for hydropower generation, irrigation, navigation, and livelihood opportunities. The impact of climate change on the hydrology and river flows in the BRB is expected to be greater than other basins in the region (Gain et al. 2011). The river is crucial for the natural-resource dependent livelihoods of the people in this region (Vagholikar and Das 2010). Despite the high development potential of this region, the region remains relatively underdeveloped, as it is fraught with disputes and contestations among the river-sharing nations (Barua et al. 2025; Liu 2015).

Figure 2 Brahmaputra River Network shared between India and China.

Hydro-politics and territory disputes are deeply intertwined in the BRB region (Feng et al. 2019). The hydropower race of sorts, involving China and India, has not only emerged to gain control of the basin’s hydropower potential but also to boost border infrastructure and gain strategic dominance in disputed borderlands. China is the upper riparian for all trans-boundary rivers shared with India (Zhang 2016). Since the British exit from the subcontinent, India and China have rival territorial claims to the state of Arunachal Pradesh, referred to as South Tibet by China. China does not recognise any British formal inclusion of the territory to the latter’s imperial empire. In the Yarlung-Tsangpo Basin, an area of almost 90,000 km² known as South Tibet or Arunachal Pradesh, is a disputed borderland between China and India. Tensions between India and China have flared since the 1962 conflict, especially along India’s far north-eastern border, in the state of Arunachal Pradesh (Zulfiqar Rahman 2014). The more powerful state often leverages strategic control of the hydropower resources. For example, the Tibetan plateau is the source of the Indus, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween, and Mekong rivers. But in refusing to sign the 1997 Convention, China asserted that it had “indisputable territorial sovereignty over those parts of international watercourses that flow through its territory” (Sharma and Sahni 2024). China’s withholding of hydrological data during the 2017 Doklam dispute, where India and China engaged in a military standoff near the tri-junction between India, Bhutan, and China (Baruah et al. 2022) is another example of China using its status as an upper riparian. Over the past two decades, the bilateral relations between India and China over the Brahmaputra have fluctuated between episodes of deterioration and cooperation (Barua et al. 2025). Table 2 details the major events pertaining to the ever evolving and changing transboundary engagement between India and China in the BRB.

Table 2 Major events marking the fluctuating bilateral relations between India and China in the Brahmaputra basin.

Sources: Barua et al. 2025; Feng et al. 2019; Ministry of External Affairs of India 2023

The massive number of hydropower dams planned across the Indian Himalaya and upstream Brahmaputra River basins represents an example of the significant pressure on the region’s water resources (Grumbine and Pandit 2013). Both countries are constructing a series of hydropower dams in the Brahmaputra basin to augment energy production. China is interested in both diverting the waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo and tapping the hydropower potential to provide water and energy to its relatively underdeveloped South Tibet region. After completing its first mega hydro project (the 510 MW Zangmu dam) in Tibet in 2015, China proposed three other dams in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo in its 12th five-year plan (2011–2015), which are currently at different stages of construction and operation (Ranjan 2020b). More recently, in its 14th five-year plan (2021–2025), China has proposed a 60 gigawatt (GW) mega hydro project in Medog county, where the Yarlung Tsangpo River takes a great bend and descends about 2000 m, making it an ideal location for hydroelectric power generation (Jie and Xiaoyi 2020). India also has several hydropower plans at different stages, including a ‘pre-feasibility’ report for a 10-gigawatt (GW) project in the Upper Siang district of the state of Arunachal Pradesh (Koshy 2023). According to Grumbine and Pandit (2013), if India constructed all the proposed dams in the targeted area of the Indian Himalaya, it would result in the highest density of dams in the world. The measurement of dam density in the Indian Himalaya, as discussed by Grumbine and Pandit (2013), is based on spatial analysis of proposed and under-construction dams in the region. They assessed 292 dams, with detailed public data on 132 dams ranging in size from 7 to 11,000 MW. The density was calculated as the number of dams per length of river channel and per unit area of the river basins. Specifically, the study found that if all proposed dams were constructed, the Indian Himalaya would have one dam for every 32 km of river channel, which is 1.5 times higher than dam densities reported for U.S. rivers.

China has consistently maintained that all its planned hydropower development are run-of-the-river projects which will not affect the river flow downstream, but India is concerned about the downstream environmental implications of China’s upstream construction in the Brahmaputra River basin (Deka et al. 2023). Despite repeated assurances from China that its hydropower projects on the Brahmaputra will not have a significant impact on India, the issue has remained a bone of contention between the two countries.

China’s ambitions and plans to augment its hydroelectric power are producing chains of pressure on downstream riparian countries. For example, India is countering China’s water infrastructure development in the Brahmaputra River Basin by investing in gigantic dams and linkage bridges to continue to claim both water and territory in southern Tibet (Kotoky and Bipindra 2018). Such Indian water diversion plans in the Brahmaputra are a cause of concern for the downstream country of Bangladesh. Further military standoffs between India and China along the Line of Actual Control became a key hindrance to renewing bilateral MoUs on the Brahmaputra, which expired in 2023.

4 Recommendations and Conclusion

The hydro-political changes in both the Indus and Brahmaputra basins are marked by historical distrust and suspicion among the river-sharing countries, and prioritization of vested national interests, resulting in low institutional engagement and cooperation. The rapidly changing climate and growing energy demands in each riparian state are increasing pressure on the region’s already stressed water resources, resulting in increased competition over these resources. This has made the two basins highly vulnerable to political conflicts with far reaching impacts on bilateral water institutions besides significant ecological consequences for both the basins. While recent years have seen escalating tensions between China and India, specifically with the planning of new hydropower projects and military standoffs near border areas, the nature of the pending MoU renewal will determine whether a status quo will be maintained between the countries. Prior research has looked at the role that unofficial dialogue and non-state actors can play in paving the way towards cooperation on transboundary water issues (Barua et al. 2025).

This research compared the declining institutional resilience of major transboundary basins in South Asia, highlighting how growing energy needs and national security concerns have heightened their vulnerability to political conflicts and weakened institutional frameworks. To enhance institutional resilience in the Indus and Brahmaputra river basins, a multi-faceted approach integrating technical cooperation, co-financing joint projects, depoliticization of data sharing, and non-state actor engagement is critical. Success hinges on sustaining multi-track engagement and aligning short-term actions with long-term climate adaptation goals, such as setting up a joint mechanism for early disaster warning through neutral platforms including International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), and International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) can be extended to include community groups across borders, as local solutions to complex problems of energy demands are critical for reducing political fragility in shared basins. In sum, this research underscores the urgent need for collaborative governance strategies to bolster institutional resilience in South Asia's transboundary basins, mitigating the intertwined risks of environmental degradation and hydro-political vulnerability for mutual benefits.

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