Melting Glaciers, Moving People: Nepal’s Climate-Induced Migration – Analysis



November 12, 2025 

Observer Research Foundation
By Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Sreedipta Roy

Recent protests in Nepal reflected youth anger over political stagnation, soaring living costs, and deepening mistrust in governance, with corruption at the core. Yet, an even graver threat looms large: climate change, already evident through erratic weather, melting glaciers, and rising natural disasters that endanger the fragile Himalayan ecosystem and the livelihoods it supports.

For a country that is among the ones to contribute least towards global emissions, Nepal faces a disproportionate burden of climate change as Himalayan glaciers face the imminent threat of disappearing, and an increase in natural calamities plagues the nation’s fragile ecosystem and vulnerable communities. Almost 80 percent of the Himalayan glacial reserve faces a risk of extinction by 2100 if global emissions continue to increase. Even with efforts to keep the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, up to 30 percent of glaciers would still be lost. In the last twelve years, 44,000 reported incidents of floods, landslides, and storms have taken place in Nepal, claiming the lives of 5,667 individuals and resulting in US$367 million in losses.

With a fragile and unpredictable environment at play, many people turn to migration as the only pathway to a stable and secure life. For instance, indigenous communities continue to shrink in the village of Dhye, as several members out-migrated when water became too scarce. Between 2001 and 2021, the Panchakanya village in Terhathum district witnessed a 40 percent reduction in its population, while the Thoklung village lost 42 percent of its population. It is estimated that the loss of glaciers in the future can lead to severe water shortages for the 250 million people living in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, affecting another 1.6 billion people downstream. This doesn’t just impact the trajectory of Nepal but also of South Asia, especially as densely populated countries like India and Bangladesh face the imminent threat of mass migration and a threat to the livelihoods of billions who depend on the glacial system for several reasons.

In this context, this essay seeks to examine how climate change influences migration patterns in Nepal, and to analyse better how climate change in the Himalayas impacts indigenous communities. By situating it within the broader discourse on climate-induced displacement, this essay emphasises the urgent need for collaboration at the regional level to protect at-risk communities and to enhance the climate resistance of the Himalayas.
Factors Driving Migration

It is important to understand the ways in which climate change disrupts the everyday lives of ordinary people, forcing them to relocate. Over 60 percent of the population in Nepal depends on agriculture as their means of income, with the Terai region being the most agriculturally productive. Due to the late arrival of monsoons, droughts have become more frequent, particularly in the winter months and in the western Terai plains. The average annual rainfall has decreased by 3.7 mm per month every decade since 1960.

In the coming years, the number of rainy days will likely decline along with an increase in the intensity of rainfall. This, in turn, will impact water, agriculture, health, livelihood, energy, biodiversity, disaster management, and urban planning. An estimation in 2015 suggested that due to the impact of climate change on agriculture, Nepal’s GDP will drop by 0.8 percent each year by 2050. The study also associated changes in crop production with changes in precipitation patterns during the period, affecting Nepal’s water resources availability and variation. Too little rainfall will reduce rice and maize cultivation, which are the main food crops for much of the country’s population, while high-intensity rainfall will destroy crops and increase topsoil erosion.

In Nepal, there is a direct link between climate change, farming, and migration. The indigenous Tibetans of the upper Himalayas, who have long adapted to one of the world’s harshest environments, are now being compelled to migrate. The people of Upper Mustang remain among the few preserving the remnants of traditional Tibetan spiritual culture. Upper Mustang’s economy has collapsed as grazing lands erode and rivers dry, with a 4.3 percent loss of plant cover over 30 years, causing severe soil erosion. In villages like Samdzong, once fertile lands now face drought, erratic water, and migration. Despite emission cuts, glacial retreat persists, threatening Nepal’s high-altitude communities with displacement and loss.
The Effect of Out-Migration

This migration often takes place to urban cities, which means a tougher life for many. The absence of social networks and marketable skills funnels individuals into low-paying, unstable jobs, making them susceptible to repeated cycles of exploitation and poverty. Overseas labour migration is increasing, especially among the youth. Although remittances help strengthen rural economies, migrants often face hazardous working conditions, long periods of family separation, and inadequate protection. Even greater challenges are faced by women and indigenous peoples alike, and these groups represent sections of society that are often ignored in decision-making, while they also bear the burden of waiting for food and water security to be restored in their homes. The resultant impacts clearly indicate that the impacts of climate-related migration must be managed not only from an environmental perspective but from a social one as well. If affected families do not receive proper support and investment for climate adaptation, they will continue to suffer. Creating sustainable livelihoods and helping displaced families is essential. Without these efforts, migrants from the Nepali Himalayas will gradually lose their dignity and sense of identity as they struggle to survive away from their mountain homes.
Addressing Policy Gaps and the Need for Regional Coordination

Even as Nepal has begun to recognise and include climate-induced mobility in its national framework, its integrated mobility response still faces significant policy implementation gaps. These gaps are compounded by the absence of cohesive cross-border cooperation in the South Asian region. While Nepal’s National Adaptation Plan draws attention to climate-induced migration, loss of livelihoods, and the need for adaptation tracking data systems, issues pertaining to funding, fractured mandates across tiers of government, and the absence of migration-specific legislations (such as social protection and planned relocation frameworks) render the implementation of such proposals ineffective.

Gacial systems, climate change, and human mobility are transboundary issues and thus should be addressed at the regional level. However, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) collaboration is sporadic; experts cite stalled projects, insufficiently funded joint projects, and a tendency to “securitise” climate challenges, which hinders productive collaboration on shared river basins, climate services, and early warning systems.

At the eighth edition of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held in June 2025, a high-level event was organised by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Nepal’s Home Secretary Gokarna Mani Duwadee called for the establishment of a cohesive BIMSTEC disaster mechanism that would synchronise risk evaluations, supervise Sendai Framework enforcement and the formation of a specific regional Disaster Risk Reduction fund. Climate action takes priority for BIMSTEC as it hosts a workshop in Kathmandu, thereby highlighting the necessity of climate policies rooted in principles of gender equality and social inclusion.

Because of the direct effect on water security and cross-border displacement, changes in glacial flow and snow will require coordinated action in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. The Glacier and Snowassessments of the Hindu Kush Himalaya mandate cooperation across the entire Hindu Kush region through open data, harmonised risk monitoring, and planning across entire basins. Recent reports highlight the urgency in dealing with floods and infrastructure breakdowns that are hampering trade and energy networks in a manner that no single country can combat.

To address these issues, climate-induced displacement should be incorporated into both national and local budgets, as well as social protection strategies, aligning actions in the NAP with earmarked funding and voluntary, rights-based relocation guidelines. Planning should be based on policy-relevant, open climate risk and migration data, and regional platforms should be reinvigorated with periodic data exchange agreements and shared drought management, early warning, and GLOF (glacial lake outburst floods) risk reduction funds. With international agreements still non-binding, a regional soft-law instrument (or protocol) to protect cross-border environmental migrants by clarifying their rights to assistance, employment, and admission should be put in place. If these steps are ignored, the forecasted climate displacement in Nepal will trigger a sequence of crises affecting the South Asian labour markets, waterways, and urban centres, resulting in irreparable damage to the region’s economy and livelihood.

About the authors:Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury is a Senior Fellow with the Neighbourhood Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation.

Sreedipta Roy is an Intern at the Observer Research Foundation.

Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.


Observer Research Foundation

ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.

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4.3 The Multitude against Empire. 393. Notes. 415. Index. 473. Page 11. PREFACE. Empire is materializing before our very eyes. Over the past several decades, as ...

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India's Neocons Celebrate Donald Trump’s Humiliation: Why It Matters – OpEd

October 12, 2025 

By M.K. Bhadrakumar


I still miss the inimitable tag line, Tukde Tukde Gang, literally meaning ‘fragments’, after all these eleven tumultuous years of Indian politics. It was the political catchphrase invented by India’s ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party, revelling in the sheer exuberance of its magnificent 2014 election victory to storm the citadel of power in Delhi, which it is still occupying, to mock at India’s neocons who blindly imitated the liberal international globalist agenda in the West, principally America, and were manifestly out of touch with Indian realities but nonetheless wielded a larger than life presence in urban India primarily due to their fluency and felicity of expression in English language and their communication skills and social connections — plus lavish western patronage, of course.

India’s neocons are far from an extinct species. They come out of the woodwork to present their antithesis at defining moments. The arrival of foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi from Kabul on a five-day official visit currently has been one such moment, as they come out to show their irritation that Modi government is according virtual recognition to the Taliban government in Afghanistan while women folk in the Hindu Kush do not enjoy the sort of ‘freedom’ that is in there in America.

Their argument is that unless women’s rights are recognised by the Taliban, it is premature to accord recognition, little realising that by such a yardstick, India too may have a problem of legitimacy even after seven decades of independence where the centuries-old Hindu caste system still prevails, which is, we all can agree, the apogee of man’s cruelty to man.

India’s neocons are celebrating as joyfully as Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be doing in North America that President Donald Trump lost the race for the Nobel Peace Prize to an obscure Venezuelan agitator. The Nobel panel has once again placed politics over peace, true to its tradition. Indeed, the Swedish Committee cannot claim a single instance in its history of honouring a left-wing socialist battling autocratic / fascist regimes anywhere in the world.

In a curious twist to the tale, in this case, Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado, to celebrate her Nobel, acknowledged truthfully in an X post: “I dedicate the prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support to our cause!”

Machado qualifies as the candidate of the Deep State in the US. She was at the forefront of the CIA’s attempted coup in 2022 against Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro (which almost succeeded) and subscribed to the so-called Carmona Decree dissolving overnight the country’s constitution and every public institution.

She is an ardent supporter of Trump’s ongoing regime change project in Venezuela under the pretext of ‘combatting narcotrafficking’; she advocates US military intervention in her country; she fully backs the US sanctions to cripple her country’s economy that brought untold hardships to the poor people; she recommends the reopening of the Venezuelan embassy in Jerusalem; she argues for the ‘privatisation’ of Venezuela’s oil industry so that Big Oil can return (Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves exceeding Saudi Arabia’s).

Plainly put, Machado is a blind supporter of Trump’s obnoxious, illegal, futile regime change project aimed at overthrowing the elected socialist government of Maduro where he and the Deep State are on the same page. By the way, Trump has also imposed 50% tariffs against Brazil to undermine the progressive politics of President ‘Lula’. Both Maduro and Lula are charismatic figures and their countries’ lodestars in the vicious class struggle under way in Latin American society. They symbolise the rise of the working class to the corridors of power in Caracas and Brasília. Madura was a truck driver by profession; Lula honed his political skills as a tough trade union leader.

India’s neocons probably never heard of Maduro or Lula, or couldn’t care less. It is another matter, though, that the Nobel Committee’s choice of Barack Obama in 2009 thrills India’s neocons although it remains ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’, to borrow Winston Churchill’s phrase to describe a situation that is difficult to comprehend.

Can anyone tell what contribution Obama, who is qualified to enter the Guinness book of world records as the statesman who resorted to maximum number of missile strikes against foreign countries, to world peace? He didn’t even keep his electoral pledge during his 8 years as president to shut down the infamous Guantanamo detention camp where prisoners are kept in horrible sub-human conditions, including the common use of bell and chains as a correctional strategy, with no hope on earth for justice or even the milk of human kindness.

The stony silence of the neocons, be it in India or North America, vis-a-vis Guantanamo Bay, or the regime change projects in Venezuela and Brazil, only underscores the depth and intensity of their ideological dogmatism and moral depravity to mouth values they themselves do not practice. Why wouldn’t the Nobel Committee take a look at what is happening in Moldova currently — how the country’s president Maia Sandu manages to remain in power? Because, she’s an American citizen and an American proxy in a strategically important country which is to be ripened as Ukraine 2.0 in the Black Sea region?

Now, one may argue that Trump is no different than Machado. But that is not true. The cardinal difference is, Trump holds power and leads a superpower which is still the world’s number one military power. And he is a mercurial personality known to be capable of making wild swings in his public stance and policies. Machado’s main virtue, in comparison, is that she is a consistent right-wing reactionary who is a camp follower of the US in her politics.

In sum, Trump may use his power between now and January 2028 to strengthen peace or push the world situation even more into anarchical conditions than they are today. To my mind, a Nobel would have served the noble purpose of shackling Trump, so to speak — imprisoning him, making him captive as an apostle of peace, a cause he espouses at times. The world desperately needs such a Trump, since the US’ decline is irreversible but its obsessive desire to hold on to its hegemony is all too evident.

Unfortunately, the Nobel Committee has exposed its prejudices and confirmed all over again what many suspected all along, namely, that its decisions carry the imprimatur of the US Deep State. For, make no mistake, this is not only an insult to Trump but a retaliation against his politics — being overlooked in favour of a minion of the US Deep State.

As an embittered man who would know by now that he will never get the Nobel in his life, Trump can be more dangerous than a woman scorned going forward. Such a mindless decision with no sense, logic or merit should not have been taken in Oslo behind closed doors by a clutch of people without assessing its potential impact on the world situation at such a critical juncture when international security is at a crossroads with no certainty which way it leads to — a catastrophic Armageddon or, peace and a readiness to live and let live.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The neocons, in their deep, visceral hatred towards Trump, are missing the woods for trees. Warts and all, Trump has been a man of peace, the best ever after Dwight Eisenhower, and the White House is unlikely to get another one like Trump for a very long time to come.

M.K. Bhadrakumar

M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat.

 

Pakistan As A Consequence Of The Partition Of British India In 1947 – Analysis

 October 6, 2025

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Pakistan as a country

Pakistan is a country located in the northwest of the Indian sub-continent. It borders Iran on the west, Afghanistan on the north-west, China on the north-east, and India on the east, with the direct exit to the Arabian Sea. 

Physically, from the rest of Asia, Pakistan is separated in the north by the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and the Himalaya high ring of mountain chains. Other mountain ranges are going down on the Pakistani western side to the Arabian Sea. Below them is the long and broad valley of the Indus River. The Province of the North-West Frontier contains the strategically very important Khyber Pass, which is very high. Toward the south is the Punjab plateau. It is watered by the tributaries of the Indus River, where wheat is grown. However, to the east is the Thar Desert. It is important to stress that between the Sind Desert, which covers part of the Indus delta, and Baluchistan in the western hills, there are large reserves of natural gas and, to a certain extent, oil, which is also found in Punjab.  

Pakistan has a predominantly agricultural economy. The focal export goods are raw and processed cotton, cotton fabrics, and rice. Other agricultural products include sugar cane, wheat, and maize. Livestock-raising is important too. Textiles are an important part of the Pakistani industry and are substantially contributing to Pakistani exports. Other industries include chemicals, cement production, fertilizer, and food processing. 

Population

The inhabitants of Pakistan are about 88% Pakistani Muslims, while there are about 11% Indians (Hindi). Of all the other ethnic groups, Baluchistanis are the most numerous. Baluchistan, as a province, is the least populated. With the partition of British India in 1947 into Pakistan and India, Pakistan received a predominantly Muslim population as well as a larger number of Indians, and vice versa. In the period from 1947 to 1950, population exchange between Pakistan and India, including ethnic cleansing, reached the scale of several million inhabitants in both directions. In Pakistan, the official language is Urdu (the Muslim variant of the Hindi language), which in 1972 replaced English as the official language. However, several other local/regional languages ​​are in use. In 1970, 80% of Pakistan’s inhabitants were illiterate, which caused a lack of professional and educated staff, and this was especially felt in the administration and economy. 

For the sake of more comprehensive education and the reduction of illiteracy, in September 1972, 176 private colleges were nationalized. There were three universities in Pakistan then. About 15% of the population lived in cities, while there were 10 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants. The capital of Pakistan was Rawalpindi from 1959, while today it is Islamabad. Until 1959, the largest city in Pakistan was Karachi. Today, Pakistan has a population of 251 million in an area of ​​881,913 sq. km. The GDP is 373 billion dollars, while the GDP per capita is almost 1500 dollars.

State organization

With the division of the British colony of (British) India into two states, India and Pakistan, on August 15th, 1947, Pakistan received the status of dominion, and according to the constitution of February 29th, 1956, it became a republic – the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, composed of two federal units: West and East Pakistan.

By the military coup of October 1958, the constitution was abolished, and a new one was adopted in March 1962. This new constitution provided for a federal system of government, a presidential system of government (the president must be a Muslim and is elected for 5 years), a National Assembly of 156 deputies (78 deputies from each of the two federal units) and two capital cities: Islamabad in West Pakistan (seat of the central government) and Dhaka in East Pakistan (seat of the National Assembly). However, the constitution from 1962 was repealed on March 25th, 1969, and only partially reinstated on April 4th, 1969. 

A turning point in Pakistan’s history was the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan in December 1971, when East Pakistan declared itself an independent state under the name Bangladesh. Thus, the new state of Pakistan included only the territory of the former West Pakistan. In January 1972, Pakistan left the British Commonwealth.

A modern history of Pakistan up to the Partition in 1947

Pakistan is a country that came under British colonial control in the first half of the 19th century, when it became part of (a Greater) British India. Interestingly, its name is derived from the word “pak” (ritually pure) in the Urdu language. In other words, it means “Land of the Pure”. However, it is as well as an acronym for its most important component peoples: Punjabis, Afghans, Kashmirs, Sindhis, and the peoples of Baluchistan.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only a several moves towards independence. One of the reasons was that those people living in the north in Punjab and Kashmir have been great beneficiaries of the British Raj, and occupied important posts in the administration and army of British India. It was among the more disadvantaged Muslim minority in north-central India that a Muslim cultural and political identity began to form, mainly due to several reformers and organizations like the Muslim League, a party founded on December 30th, 1906, in Dacca. Originally, the party fought for separate Muslim representation at all levels of government. The party claimed to represent the grievances and demands of the entire Muslim community within British India. 

Under its leader, Jinnah, the Muslim League issued several requirements for greater rights of Indian Muslims in a vast country of British India in which Muslims at that time accounted for some ¼ of the total population. Nevertheless, this political demand became all the more urgent with the increasing momentum of the Indian National Congress (the INC) under M. Gandhi, which made self-government or even independence under a Hindu-dominated government all but inevitable during the 1930s. In the first decades of its existence, the Muslim League pursued the dual aim of winning greater rights of self-government from the British colonial power and of winning greater rights for Muslims within such a British system. In order to achieve the first aim, the Muslim League cooperated with the INC, with which it allied itself in the Lucknow Pact of December 1916. However, the League was largely ineffective in the 1920s, when it claimed to have some 1.000 members in the whole of British India. This led to a decade in the 1930s of a major revision of the political goals of the Muslim League and the organization itself for the sake of appealing to the disparate Muslim community. 

The League, in 1930, addressed its annual conference to demand, for the first time, a separate Muslim state in the western portion of British India. This demand became gradually accepted, particularly after the Muslim League’s catastrophic showing in the 1937 elections, when it gained only 104 out of 489 Muslim seats. Therefore, its leader, Jinnah, now sought to broaden its popular base. On March 23rd, 1940, the requirement for a separate Muslim state became accepted as the official party’s policy in the coming years. It was known as the Pakistan Resolution or the Lahore Resolution, which, in fact, warned that if conditions for Muslims, especially in areas with a Muslim minority, did not improve, Muslims would lay claim to separate states as their homelands. The very idea of separate Muslim states referred to the western provinces of British India and East Bengal. The Muslim League in 1944 claimed over 2.000.000 members. The League got in the 1945−1946 elections 75% of the Muslim vote. Therefore, the Muslim League got a popular mandate for the creation of a separate Muslim state in the western regions of British India. This task was finally achieved by the creation of an independent Pakistan on August 15th, 1947. However, initially dominant in Pakistani politics, after the death of its party’s leader, Jinnah, the Muslim League lacked an integrative force and soon dissolved into various groups in the coming decade.  

All the countries of South Asia have been troubled by the special position of minorities and of regional groups. The Indian government’s attempt to foster Hindi was soon faced by demands for a new structure of states on linguistic lines, and from the 1950s onward, state boundaries have been rearranged. However, the linguistic feeling remained strong, especially in South India in Madras State, which was renamed Tamil Nadu. Before 1947, Pakistan formed part of British India, but following the British withdrawal from the Indian sub-continent in 1947, Pakistan was created as a separate state, comprising the territory to the north-east and north-west of ex-British India in which the population was predominantly Muslim. In Pakistan, linguistic and regional demands were initially resisted, and the separate provinces of West Pakistan were amalgamated as One Unit. However, regional loyalties forced a return to the old provinces, representing linguistic regions, in 1970. In East Pakistan, the strength of Bengal culture and grievances against the dominant West Pakistan elite fostered a demand for autonomy and later for independence.  

The Partition in 1947

For the reason that no agreement could be reached on a unified form of independence, a decision was required about the partition of the Indian sub-continent. The areas in the northwest with a Muslim majority were allowed to choose separation and the formation of a new state of Pakistan. The provinces of British India, which were affected, voted either through their elected representatives or by plebiscite. The rulers of the princely states within British India chose whether to join the independent state of India or where their boundaries marched with the new partition line, Pakistan. Punjab and Bengal were separately partitioned. Independence came to India and Pakistan in August 1947, to Burma in January 1948, and to Ceylon in February 1948. 

In India, it was fraught with problems from the beginning. The major part of the Indian sub-continent wished to remain united under the leadership of Nehru and the Indian National Congress. However, the explosive situation and the impossibility of securing agreement between Congress and the Muslim League led by Jinnah forced the hand of the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, and on August 14th, 1947, the sub-continent became partitioned and the new state of Pakistan (physically composed of two parts) came into existence. The princely states (500+) have been left to the individual decisions of their rulers, who could, in effect, join either India or Pakistan if their boundaries marched with the new partition lines.

For both India and Pakistan, the first question was the delimitation of frontiers between the new states. However, this question particularly affected the provinces of Punjab and Bengal, where the populations were so mixed that partition seemed the only feasible solution (like in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s). But the boundary award cut through areas which in Punjab were occupied by rich farmlands populated by Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus as neighbors.   

Nevertheless, the partition of British India soon led to the high rank of violence between Hindus and Muslims as communal riots followed, and a two-way exodus started, with Muslims moving west and Sikhs and Hindus moving east, with more than 1 million people killed. Around 7.5 million Muslim refugees fled to both parts of Pakistan from India, and around 10 million Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan for India. The partition of Bengal produced similar results. Overall, some 500.000 people lost their lives. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, President of the Muslim League, became Pakistan’s first governor-general (President). The new state was composed of the western provinces of Baluchistan, Sind, Punjab, and North-West Frontier (or known as West Pakistan). Separated by Indian territory was the eastern half of Bengal, which also belonged to the newly proclaimed independent Pakistan (or known as East Pakistan).

In addition to the resettlement of the refugees, the governments had to integrate the 500+ princely states. Most princes were persuaded to accede, promptly, to either India or Pakistan. Hyderabad resisted and became absorbed only after the action by the security forces (police). The ruler of Kashmir as well as hesitated, and an invasion of tribesmen from the Pakistani North West Frontier Province followed. The Maharaja then acceded to India, subject to a plebiscite of the Kashmir people, but Pakistan supported the tribal invaders. The situation was only stabilized by the mediation of the UN in 1949. 

The new state of Pakistan was, from the very beginning, confronted by plenty of problems. The most immediate of these was extensive migration (around 17.5 million people), as a consequence of the partition of British India into a Hindu and Muslim state. In addition, Pakistan contested its borders, as it competed with India over control of Kashmir. This confrontation has led to hostile relations with India up to today and the conduct of three Indo-Pakistani Wars. Moreover, Pakistan suffered as well from the tension between the majority of the population living in East Pakistan and the important posts in government, administration, and the military being occupied by officials from the wealthier and better-educated West Pakistan. These problems have been compounded by the total lack of any tradition or history as a single, unitary state. On one hand, East Pakistan (or East Bengal) was relatively homogeneous, but on the other hand, West Pakistan was composed of regions with widely different economies and ethnicities and with different degrees of religious observance. Some tribes of the North-West Frontier had devout observance of Islam and a history of autonomy within the former British colonial system. They have been contrasted with the more secular elite of Punjab, which had been well integrated into the British colonial administration.   

A contemporary history of Pakistan since the Partition in 1947 up to 9/11

The problem of finding a compromise that would create a viable, integrated, and constitutional entity bedeviled Pakistan during its existence. Pakistan continued to be formally ruled by the 1935 Government of India Act until 1956. The country’s liberal constitution became opposed by the fundamentalist Muslims, and in 1951, the Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated by an Afghan fundamentalist. In 1954, a state of emergency was declared, and a new constitution was adopted in 1956. However, the new political settlement failed to stabilize the country sufficiently to prevent the 1958 army coup, led by Ayub Khan. It was an attempt to adopt a multiparty system, but it failed, and consequently, Ayub Khan imposed martial law in 1958. He, in fact, abolished the recently established democracy but without much resistance, and devised a second constitution in 1962. 

On the other hand, Ayub Khan’s decade of power produced economic growth, followed, however, by political resentment as the two parts of the Pakistani state have been physically separated by a thousand kilometers of the territory of the independent and hostile Republic of India. Allegations by the Bengalis in East Pakistan against West Pakistan’s disproportionate share of the state’s assets led to demands by the Awami League, led by Mujibur Rahman, for regional autonomy. Nonetheless, in the following civil war in 1971, the Bengali dissidents defeated the Pakistani army, with help from India. It resulted in the establishment of the new state of Bangladesh in the same year. 

In 1965, Pakistan attempted to infiltrate troops into Kashmir. In the fighting which ensued, India made some gains, but in the agreement afterward reached in Tashkent under Soviet auspices, both countries agreed to return to the status quo. His precipitation of a costly and unsuccessful war with India over Kashmir in 1965, and increasing economic difficulties in Pakistan, finally led to his resignation in 1969. Relations between Pakistan and India continued to be tense, however, and rapidly worsened in 1971 when Pakistani military President, Yahya Khan, cruelly repressed the demands for autonomy in East Pakistan (East Bengal, later Bangladesh), which led to 10 million refugees crossing over into India. 

In 1970, the first-ever general democratic election has been organized, which brought to power in Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. However, these elections were won by the Awami League in East Pakistan. Therefore, the West Pakistani political establishment, led by Yahya Khan, refused to hand over power and sent military troops to secure control in East Pakistan. This action caused a short but extremely violent civil war, and led, after Indian military intervention in December 1971, which supported the Bangladesh guerrilla with powerful military forces, which defeated the Pakistani army within two weeks, to the independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. Zulfikar Bhutto, as the new President since 1971, created a populist and socialist regime. His program of nationalization, public works, and independence from US financial help failed to overcome the negative effects of the oil price shock of 1973, leading Pakistan into an economic crisis. He introduced constitutional, social, and economic reforms, but in 1977 was deposed in an army coup led by Zia-ul-Haq and later executed.   

Zia-ul-Haq improved Pakistani relations with the USA after the Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan in 1979, when Pakistan came to host up to three million Afghan refugees, followed by bases for Afghan guerrillas. US military and civilian assistance led to high economic growth in the 1980s. However, Zia-ul-Haq died in a 1988 plane crash. His successor, Ishaq Khan, supervised the transition back to democracy, with the 1988 elections won by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto. She failed to establish control over the country and was dismissed by Khan in 1990 on charges of corruption. However, she became re-elected in 1993, but once again struggled to maintain control in a country plagued by crime, the international drugs trade, and the growing assertiveness of some of the Pakistani provinces (Baluchistan and Sind) and tribes (North West Frontier Province). 

Benazir Bhutto became dismissed by President Leghari once again on formal charges of corruption and mismanagement in 1996 and was finally succeeded by Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (leader of the Islamic Democratic Alliance) in 1997, who proceeded to strengthen his position by changing the constitution, which limited the power of the Prime Minister (the PM). Nevertheless, he as well as confronted the judiciary, which he sought to conciliate towards his policies. Ultimately, in 1999, he sought to introduce Islamic law in Pakistan, but this attempt led to widespread demonstrations, while at the same time, the deteriorating economic situation had already eroded Sharif’s popular support, and for the reason of his pro-Western position during the First Gulf War/Desert Storm, 1990‒1991. His order to the army to withdraw forces from Kashmir and his dismissal of Musharraf led to a successful army coup, headed by Musharraf himself, who suspended the constitution, moved to put Pakistani political and judicial institutions under military control, and tried to stabilize the economy to placate international creditors. After establishing control, Musharraf’s regime became more liberal. However, it happened only after 9/11 (in 2001) that his regime became welcomed in the Western international arena. His decisive support of the US War on Terrorism brought great foreign policy benefits and enabled him to gain very much-needed Western international loans. Nevertheless, his pro-US stance was criticized by many Islamic fundamentalists and radicals in Pakistan, so that needed to temper by a moderate stance towards radical Islamist groups in Kashmir. In 1998, Pakistan carried out a series of underground nuclear tests in response to a similar program by the focal regional enemy – India. 

The political situation in Pakistan remained turbulent, including intra-ethnic violence in Karachi, followed by national economic problems. Pakistani industrial expansion emphasized the private sector and consumer goods. Nonetheless, unemployment rose more rapidly than new production, and up to 70% of the population is still dependent on agriculture. Both governments of India and Pakistan have been putting greater emphasis on better yields from the soil. Though the rate of growth remains slow, both India and Pakistan have succeeded in attaining self-sufficiency in food. Yet some 40% of the rural population remains undernourished because their income is very low.  

Finally, from 1947 up to 1971, there were three Pakistani-Indian Wars: the First (1947‒1948); the Second (September 1st‒23rd, 1965); and the Third (December 3rd‒16th, 1971). These Pakistani-Indian wars were the result of unresolved issues, but especially border-territorial ones, between Pakistan and India that appeared after the British division of the Indian subcontinent, i.e., of British India, in August 1947 between these two states. As a consequence of the Third War, Pakistan lost its eastern territories, on which the new state of Bangladesh was formed. After the war, the general balance of power on the Indian subcontinent changed in India’s favour. India, also improved its strategic and geopolitical position. Nevertheless, the region of Kashmir has been left to be he apple of discord between Pakistan and India to our da

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic is an ex-university professor and a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade, Serbia.

Pakistan will have to adapt to floods as the new normal, says expert

Dialogue Earth speaks to water resource management expert Muhammad Ehsan Leghari on how severe flooding can be better managed even as the country remains vulnerable to it.

Farahnaz Zahidi 

Published September 20, 2025
DAWN

With millions displaced and close to a thousand people dead, the Pakistan floods that have been ongoing since June are worryingly reminiscent of the floods that devastated the country in 2022.

As the country fights to keep its head above the rising floodwaters, many questions abound. Could the damage so far have been contained? How has climate change contributed? Has India’s release of floodwater — which it had warned about — exacerbated the loss and damage of its lower riparian neighbour? Have the floods been down to bad governance, or a lack of preparedness?

To understand these matters, Dialogue Earth spoke to Muhammad Ehsan Leghari, an expert on water resource management and member for the Sindh province at the Pakistani water regulator, the Indus River System Authority. He discussed the factors that have contributed to the unprecedented floods in Pakistan, what has and hasn’t worked for flood control, and how the country can manage future floods effectively. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What are the main natural and human-made factors that cause recurrent floods along the Indus River and its tributaries, particularly the massive inflows in the Punjab rivers?

As the geographer Gilbert F. White noted in 1942, “Floods are ‘acts of God’, but flood losses are largely acts of man”. Human choices in building and managing floodplains can turn natural hazards into disasters. The world, including Pakistan, has been slow to adopt behavioural adjustments alongside engineering, often implementing solutions poorly or unnecessarily.

There are some key factors, generally, regarding the exacerbation of flood impacts. Weak governance turns emergencies into disasters, as seen in recent deaths from floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of Pakistan. Lack of rational spatial or land-use planning exacerbates urban and riverine flooding. Top-down planning ignores real issues and experiences for most Pakistanis. Political and bureaucratic elites prioritise “brick-and-mortar” development that increases flood and hazard impacts.

Intense monsoons with 200 to 300mm rainfall that had been forecasted, glacial melt and storms, predicted amid northern heatwaves, are natural factors that caused the floods. But human-made factors cannot be ignored: deforestation increases runoff, and urbanisation and encroachments block natural flows. Similarly, the Ravi Urban Development Authority’s paving of floodplains along the Ravi River in Punjab turned absorbent areas into concrete, inviting devastation by turning them into river paths.

Reports like Pakistan’s 2025 Monsoon Prediction, the National Adaptation Plan and the updated Climate Change Policy highlight reduced river capacity from bridges and encroachments. They’ve urged resilience through wetlands and habitat restoration, but have been ignored.

The 2025 inflows have been a result of exceptional upstream rains, Himalayan melt, and India’s dam releases amid heavy rainfall that overwhelmed Punjab’s flatlands, displacing over 2m people and impacting more 3.6m, with millions more at risk as waters reach Sindh. This exposes systemic issues: encroached plains displace water onto communities, costing billions. Enforced zoning is needed to break the cycle.
How do glacial melt and changing monsoon patterns contribute to flooding in Pakistan?

They drive unpredictability. Accelerated melting in the Himalayan, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges due to warming heightens during heatwaves, synchronising with erratic, concentrated rains that overload the Chenab and Sutlej rivers in Punjab. The province faces riverine overflows, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh see flash and urban floods.

With Pakistan contributing to less than one per cent of global emissions, it’s an unjust hit when the country suffers from climate extremes, and in turn, $2 billion in losses. Pakistan will have to adapt to this new normal via basin monitoring, integrating it into development paradigms.

How effective are barrages, embankments and canals in managing floods? Do they worsen downstream flooding?

Controlled systems often increase downstream floods and droughts. Punjab mostly managed its headworks (structures at waterway diversion points) and barrages well during 2025 peaks, ensuring safely passing overflows. But Head Panjnad, a barrage where five rivers converge, faced aggressive flood waves, as forecasts by the Flood Forecasting Division had forewarned us. Punjab has rehabilitated most of its barrages; Sindh is upgrading its Guddu and Sukkur barrages.

However, these hydraulic structures can cause bottlenecks, blocking river paths and causing breaches, shifting burdens without adequate warning. Our infrastructure is old and inadequate, fostering a false sense of security for nearby developments. The solution is to shift strategy: live with floods, remove bottlenecks, let rivers flow and nourish floodplains. In addition, we must combine nature-based solutions — such as restoring floodplains — and controlling overflows with modern technology like automated barrage gates and AI forecasting.

What role does silt and sediment buildup in rivers and barrages play in increasing flood risks?

It raises riverbeds. Sediment buildup has elevated the River Indus riverbed, reducing the river’s flood handling capacity by 17.75pc. Research has shown that over a 24-year period, this issue, combined with diminished water flow, has decreased the river’s capacity to manage high water levels by nearly half. Without management, sediment buildup causes spills, erosion, breaches and waterlogging.

It’s a cyclical issue: earlier deforestation upstream caused more soil to wash into the river, and the continued failure to manage this sediment has made recent floods, such as those in 2025, much worse, costing billions and impacting thousands of people. We need basin-wide sediment strategies such as integrated watershed management for the Indus, involving India and Afghanistan.

How is climate change expected to alter the intensity and frequency of floods in the Indus River basin over the next 20–30 years?

Climate change will increase the intensity and frequency of floods in the basin over the next few decades. This will mainly be caused by more intense monsoon rains, surging glacier melt and rising sea levels that block drainage in Sindh. It will lead to a new normal of more severe flooding, such as that seen in the 2010, 2022 and 2025 events. That means increased losses and vulnerability, with models predicting even more economic and human damage. Research from the World Weather Attribution supports the overall trend of rising flood vulnerability.

To counter this, a combination of nature-based solutions like restoring wetlands to help absorb floodwaters and engineering solutions are needed, along with improved governance across the entire river basin.

Which groups or regions in Punjab have been most vulnerable to floods, and what local strategies could reduce their risk?

In my opinion, with around 4m people affected, the low-lying districts along the Sutlej, Chenab, Ravi and Indus rivers, especially Multan, Jhang, Layyah, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Bahawalnagar, have borne the brunt of recent floods. Urban risk zones include cities like Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Chakwal and Lahore; they face serious flood threats due to drainage and planning challenges.

If we seriously want to safeguard these regions, several measures will have to be taken, such as rebuilding and maintaining concrete embankments, in addition to offering seasonal relocation incentives for local people, deploying mobile and veterinary health units, and mobilising elder-led evacuation plans that draw on ancestral knowledge. Also, empowering communities through bridging skills gaps [in disaster preparedness] can lower risks drastically.

Are flood warning systems in Pakistan good enough, and if not, how can they be improved?

While flood warning systems have gotten better since 2010, they still need improvement. There is a definite lack of preparedness. Currently, one of the main problems is poor communication. Warnings don’t always reach rural areas, and sometimes they aren’t broadcast in local languages or communication channels. We also have accuracy issues: the information is not always reliable or delivered in real time. This is occasionally made worse by a lack of shared data between countries, as seen in the 2025 events involving India, particularly the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty in April.

To improve these systems, we need to take steps such as using 24/7 monitoring and expanding communication through community radio and text message alerts, and ensure better coordination between all groups involved, especially at the community level. Most importantly, we need to shift from a top-down, reactive approach, to a bottom-up, community-driven one that empowers local people, especially the most vulnerable.

Did India release water that caused Punjab’s floods, and if so, was Pakistan warned?

India released excess dam water — including from the Bhakra dam upstream of Pakistan’s Punjab province — worsening monsoon surges. Under the Indus Water Treaty, India should have restored effective communications mechanisms. Pakistan implies that India may have used water as a weapon; however, warnings came earlier through diplomatic channels — the first since the Indus Waters Treaty suspension — on humanitarian grounds.

What should Pakistan prioritise in order to mitigate floods?

Pakistan should prioritise rainwater harvesting, urban water reuse, developing green building codes, restoring its wetlands and floodplains, watershed management and forestation, which together can cut flood peaks by 10-20pc. A 2023 Dutch white paper also stresses integrated resilience through three methods: water “reuse” (spreading so as to recharge groundwater) and “retention/reduction” (via cross-drainage and flood channels), as well as the concept of “removing”, or making space for the river through bridge redesign and bund removals, rather than resort to mega-dam projects.

Dams are not the solution. They bring high costs, ecological damage, displacement, and can even worsen floods. We saw this in 2025, when water was released from India’s full dams on the Ravi and Sutlej rivers into encroached plains, and the part of the Chenab river without dams surged to 1m cusecs (cubic flow per second). Dams are widely seen as anti-poor, anti-environment and unjust.

Which province has suffered the most in the floods of 2025?

Nationwide, since late-June, there have been over 900 monsoon-related deaths, and as of September 11, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has had the most fatalities (504) from flash floods, landslides and cloudbursts. From August 14 to 16, cloudbursts triggered flash floods in the province. Buner, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was worst hit, with at least 380 deaths. Shangla, Swat and Swabi, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saw similar destruction. Intense rain, deforestation, valley blockages and unregulated construction turned debris deadly, showing an urgent need for mountain-area planning and regulation.

Punjab faces the biggest infrastructure and agricultural losses. Sindh has suffered the longest inundation and displacement due to its flat [and poorly draining] terrain. The terrain drives impacts; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s slopes are deadly, while Punjab and Sindh bear economic and geographically spread-out damage [due to being relatively flat]. The whole country is in need of multidimensional recovery.

What are the risks to Sindh, as the lower riparian province?

Sindh’s lower riparian status exposes it to unmanaged upstream floods. But despite that, it lacks input on water releases or land use. In the province, rains amplify to become disasters due to its flat terrain with no flood escape routes, forcing river flows to reclaim floodplains through devastating breaches and prolonged inundation.

What are the biggest governance or policy gaps preventing effective flood management in Pakistan?

The main obstacle is weak governance. More than 400 flood path obstructions were identified in 2011 in a government report I worked on, which mapped over 350 coordinates. Flood responses are often fragmented and reactive, while agencies like the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and its provincial counterparts remain disconnected from communities.

Irrigation departments are under-resourced and politicised, and the 10-year Flood Plan IV has stalled. Spatial planning rules are poorly enforced, and elite development projects by the Ravi Urban Development Authority tend to overshadow public safety. Mandates remain unclear, with overlapping institutions and unresolved inter-provincial disputes. To move forward, Pakistan needs clearly defined roles — who is responsible, when, how and at what cost.

Header image: Flooding in the Lasi Goth area of Karachi, Sindh province, in September 2025 (Image: Pakistan Press International / Alamy)

This article was originally published by Dialogue Earth and has been republished with permission.