Pakistan, Sept. 19 -- A river is an inconvenient thing for nationalism. It does not stop at a checkpoint, recognise a Line of Control or alter course because two capitals have stopped speaking. Long before India and Pakistan existed, the Indus was descending from the mountains, gathering tributaries, feeding plains and building a civilisation around water.

That is worth remembering on World Rivers Day, observed this year on September 27. The occasion normally produces appeals for conservation and reminders that rivers sustain communities across borders. For South Asia, the message in 2026 is more urgent: rivers transcend political boundaries, but the institutions governing them can still be damaged by politics.

Nowhere is that contradic...