In tit-for-tat strikes this week, India and Pakistan have entered a strategic standoff following Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted within the deaths of at least 26 people.
On Wednesday, India downgraded ties with Pakistan, asserting a series of steps, a very powerful of which is a call to droop its participation within the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which might critically limit Pakistan’s water provides.
India has additionally closed its foremost land border with Pakistan and given some Pakistani nationals presently in India a deadline to depart the nation.
On Thursday, Pakistan retaliated with related steps towards India, and in addition threatened to droop its participation in all bilateral agreements between the 2, together with the 1972 Simla Settlement, a peace accord drawn up following their battle the earlier 12 months that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
Pakistan is especially angered by the menace to the IWT and has warned India that any disruption to its water provide could be thought of “an act of battle”, including that it was ready to reply, “with full drive throughout the entire spectrum of nationwide energy”.
The IWT, a transboundary water settlement that enables the 2 nations to share water flowing from the Indus basin, has survived armed conflicts and near-constant tensions between India and Pakistan over the previous 65 years. Whereas India got here near suspending the treaty in 2019, it didn’t undergo with it.
Why has India taken motion towards Pakistan?
An armed group known as The Resistance Front (TRF), which calls for independence for Kashmir, has claimed accountability for Tuesday’s assault in Pahalgam, considered one of Indian-administered Kashmir’s hottest vacationer locations. Indian authorities have beforehand claimed that TRF is an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, an armed group primarily based in Pakistan.
India has lengthy held that Pakistan backs the armed rise up in Kashmir, a cost Islamabad denies. On Wednesday, India claimed that the Pahalgam assault had “cross-border” linkages, blaming its western neighbour.
Throughout a particular briefing by the Indian Ministry of Exterior Affairs on Wednesday, International Secretary Vikram Misri mentioned that the Cupboard Committee on Safety (CCS) had been known as to debate the assault during which males armed with rifles killed 25 Indian vacationers and one Nepalese vacationer, all males.
“Within the briefing to the CCS, the cross-border linkages of the terrorist assault had been introduced out,” Misri mentioned.
Misri added: “The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 can be held in abeyance with speedy impact till Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its help for cross-border terrorism.” For a treaty to be in abeyance implies that it’s quickly suspended or on maintain.
Earlier on Thursday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India would establish, observe and punish each “terrorist” and their backers.
What’s the Indus Waters Treaty?
Signed in 1960, the origins of the IWT hint again to August 1947, when British colonial rule over the Indian subcontinent ended and India and Pakistan turned two separate sovereign states. India is the higher riparian (situated upstream) whereas Pakistan is the decrease riparian, which implies India has management over how the river flows.
As a result of each nations depend on the water from the Indus basin’s six rivers for irrigation and agriculture, they signed an settlement known as the Standstill Settlement to proceed permitting the circulation of water throughout the border. When the Standstill Settlement expired in 1948, India stopped the water circulation in direction of Pakistan from its canals, prompting an pressing want for negotiations on water sharing.
Following 9 years of negotiations mediated by the World Financial institution, former Pakistani President Ayub Khan and former Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru signed the IWT [PDF] in September 1960. The treaty offers India entry to the waters of the three japanese rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.
Pakistan, in flip, will get the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.
India can use the western rivers to generate hydroelectric energy and for some restricted agriculture, however can’t construct infrastructure that restricts the circulation of water from these rivers into Pakistan or redirects that water.
What would the suspension of this treaty imply for Pakistan?
It represents a menace from India that it might, if and when it chooses to, limit the circulation of water from the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab into Pakistan.
It doesn’t imply that India plans to restrict that circulation instantly.
Even when it needed to, it’s unlikely that India might instantly cease the circulation of water regardless that it has suspended its participation from the treaty.
It’s because India has upstream reservoirs constructed on the western rivers, however their storage capability can’t maintain sufficient volumes of water to carry again water completely from Pakistan. Additionally it is high-flow season when ice from glaciers melts between Might and September, preserving water ranges excessive.
“The western rivers allotted to Pakistan carry very excessive flows, particularly between Might and September. India doesn’t presently have the infrastructure in place to retailer or divert these flows at scale,” Hassaan F Khan, assistant professor of city and environmental coverage and environmental research at Tufts College in the USA, instructed Al Jazeera.
Nonetheless, if India had been to attempt to cease – or minimize – the water circulation, Pakistan may really feel the results in seasons when water ranges are decrease. Pakistan depends closely on the water from the western rivers for its agriculture and vitality. Pakistan doesn’t have different sources of water.
Pakistan has a largely agrarian financial system, with agriculture contributing 24 p.c to the nation’s gross home product (GDP) and 37.4 p.c to employment, in accordance with Pakistan’s most up-to-date financial survey printed in 2024. The nation’s statistics bureau says that almost all of the inhabitants is straight or not directly depending on the agriculture sector. In accordance with the World Financial institution, the nation’s present inhabitants is about 247.5 million.
Does India have the ability to droop this treaty?
Whereas India has declared abeyance from the treaty, authorized specialists say that it can’t unilaterally droop the treaty.
“India has used the phrase abeyance and there’s no such provision to ‘maintain it in abeyance’ within the treaty,” Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a Pakistani lawyer, instructed Al Jazeera. The treaty can solely be modified by mutual settlement between the events.
“It additionally violates customary worldwide legal guidelines regarding higher and decrease riparian the place the higher riparian can’t cease the water promise for decrease riparian,” Soofi mentioned.
Anuttama Banerji, a political analyst primarily based in New Delhi, instructed Al Jazeera that the treaty may proceed, however not in its current kind. “As an alternative, it is going to be up for ‘revision’, ‘assessment’ and ‘modification’ – all three which means various things – contemplating newer challenges corresponding to groundwater depletion and local weather change weren’t catered for within the authentic treaty,” Banerji mentioned.
“In precept, a unilateral suspension of a bilateral treaty could be challenged as a breach of worldwide regulation,” Khan, the Tufts College assistant professor, instructed Al Jazeera.
Nonetheless, the enforcement of that is sophisticated, Khan added. “The Indus Waters Treaty is a bilateral settlement and not using a designated enforcement physique. Whereas the World Financial institution has a job in appointing impartial specialists and arbitrators, it’s not an enforcement authority.”
Khan defined that if Pakistan needed to pursue authorized recourse, it will probably be by way of worldwide boards such because the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ). “In follow, the primary prices for India could be reputational and strategic: undermining its picture as a rules-based actor, particularly given its personal standing as a downstream riparian on different transboundary rivers.”
Khan mentioned that the broader strategic objective of the IWT suspension appears to be a renegotiation of the treaty. “India has been signalling its want to revise or renegotiate the treaty for a while,” he mentioned, explaining that India had requested to renegotiate the treaty in January 2023 and once more in September 2024, citing local weather change and implementation challenges. Pakistan has up to now refused.
“The latest announcement seems to be an try to use stress and drive a renegotiation on phrases extra beneficial to India. Whether or not this technique succeeds stays to be seen, nevertheless it marks a major departure from six many years of treaty stability.”
What different steps is India taking in response to the assault in Kashmir?
Apart from the abeyance of the IWT, Mirsi introduced different steps, together with:
- The primary land border crossing between the 2 nations, the Built-in Examine Publish Attari, or the Attari-Wagah crossing, can be closed with speedy impact and those that have crossed over with “legitimate endorsements” should return by way of the route earlier than Might 1.
- Any SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) visas granted to Pakistanis have been cancelled and any Pakistani presently visiting India on the SVES visa has to depart inside 48 hours of the assertion issued on Wednesday.
- The army, naval and air advisers within the Pakistani Excessive Fee in New Delhi are thought of personae non gratae and have every week to depart India, whereas Indian army, naval and air advisers can be pulled again from the Indian Excessive Fee in Islamabad. To be persona non grata in a rustic means to be unwelcome.
- 5 help employees members can even be pulled from every Excessive Fee.
- The staffing for every Excessive Fee can be lowered from 55 members to 30 by way of additional reductions by Might 1.
How has Pakistan responded to India’s measures?
On Thursday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif known as a high-level assembly of the Nationwide Safety Committee (NSC).
A press release launched by Sharif’s workplace on Thursday mentioned: “the Committee reviewed the Indian measures introduced on 23 April 2025 and termed them unilateral, unjust, politically motivated, extraordinarily irresponsible and devoid of authorized advantage”.
The assertion provides: “Pakistan vehemently rejects the Indian announcement to carry the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance … Any try to cease or divert the circulation of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty … can be thought of as an Act of Conflict and responded with full drive.
“Pakistan shall train the fitting to carry all bilateral agreements with India, together with however not restricted to Simla Settlement in abeyance, until India desists from its manifested behaviour of fomenting terrorism inside Pakistan; trans-national killings; and non-adherence to worldwide regulation and UN Resolutions on Kashmir.”
The Simla Settlement was a peace treaty signed between Pakistan and India in 1972, which emphasised resolving battle between the 2 nations peacefully and thru bilateral negotiations.
On the identical day, Pakistan additionally introduced the closure of the Wagah border, suspended all visas underneath the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) issued to Indian nationals and declared Indian military and navy advisers in Islamabad personae non gratae.
Pakistan has additionally closed its airspace “with speedy impact” for all Indian owned or Indian operated airways. It has additionally suspended all commerce with India “together with to and from any third nation by way of Pakistan” – in impact saying that it gained’t enable India to export to Afghanistan by way of its territory.
Previously, Pakistani officers have warned that India’s interference in water circulation to Pakistan could be deemed an act of battle, prompting retaliation.
In 2016, the then-chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, Raza Rabbani, mentioned: “Interference with Pakistan’s water provide can be tantamount to an act of aggression and aggression can be met by aggression.”
Does this spell a serious escalation in tensions between the 2 nations?
The suspension of the IWT is critical. Whereas India has threatened to droop it earlier than, it has by no means truly gone by way of with its menace.
In 2016, suspected insurgent fighters killed 17 Indian troopers within the Uri space in Indian-administered Kashmir. 4 suspected rebels had been additionally killed by the Indian military throughout this assault. Within the aftermath of the Uri assault, Modi mentioned: “blood and water can’t circulation collectively” when discussing the IWT with authorities officers. Nonetheless, the IWT was not suspended after this.
In 2019, a suicide bomber killed 40 paramilitary police in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pulwama. This assault was claimed by Jaish-e-Muhammad, an armed group primarily based in Pakistan. Within the aftermath, Indian Water Assets Minister Nitin Gadkari threatened to droop the circulation of water to Pakistan. Nonetheless, this menace didn’t materialise.
Therefore, India’s latest suspension of the treaty is the most important escalation of its variety within the hydropolitics of the Indus basin.
