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In a turn of events that lays bare the enduring proclivity of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus for perfidious adventurism, the subcontinent has once again been plunged into the vortex of tragedy and retribution. On 22 April, the scenic tranquillity of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir was shattered by a heinous act of terror—an attack carried out by assailants of Pakistani provenance, leaving in its wake a trail of innocent blood, most of it that of unsuspecting tourists.
This egregious violation of human sanctity provoked an unequivocal and resolute response from New Delhi. In a swift Cabinet Sub-Committee review chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 23 April, the Indian government charted a bold course of action, announced by India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. Among the arsenal of retaliatory instruments under consideration, it was the suspension of India’s obligations under the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) that emerged as the most telling—and symbolic—rebuke to Islamabad.
This abrupt departure from what has long been a pillar of regional diplomacy signals a watershed moment—both literally and metaphorically—in South Asia’s geopolitical tapestry. For more than six decades, the IWT has served as an improbable exemplar of bilateral cooperation, a rare artefact of amity amidst a chronically discordant relationship. That India should now suspend this treaty reflects a fundamental recalibration of its strategic posture, particularly vis-à-vis Pakistan’s sustained dalliance with proxy terrorism. But before one delves into the ramifications of this audacious move, one must first examine the edifice of the Indus Waters Treaty—its origins, its operational architecture, and the significance it has come to assume in both geopolitical and existential terms.
A Riverine Pact Forged in Discord
Conceived in the crucible of Cold War anxieties and brokered under the watchful eyes of the World Bank, the IWT was inked in 1960 after an arduous nine-year negotiation. At the heart of the agreement lay the equitable distribution of the six rivers of the Indus basin—the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab in the west; and the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej in the east.
In what can only be described as an act of magnanimous restraint, India ceded exclusive control over the three Western rivers—comprising nearly 70% of the total water volume—to Pakistan, while retaining dominion over the three Eastern ones. This asymmetry, while glaring, was accepted in the spirit of regional stability and the hope that water, the most elemental of life’s resources, might also irrigate the parched soil of subcontinental peace. But alas, that noble aspiration has withered. Successive regimes in Islamabad have weaponised non-state actors, cultivating a cottage industry of jihadist terror that has repeatedly spilled across the Line of Control and stained Indian soil with blood. And yet, even amidst war and vitriol, India abided by the treaty, honouring its commitments with a stoic discipline that belied the provocations it endured. This forbearance, however, is not inexhaustible.
The Cost of Generosity
To understand the magnitude of India’s concession, consider the numbers. The Eastern rivers—Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—over which India has unfettered rights, collectively yield about 41 billion cubic metres of water annually. The Western rivers, gifted to Pakistan, deliver nearly 99 billion cubic metres—more than double the volume under Indian control. This hydrological largesse has become the very artery of Pakistan’s survival. In a nation where agriculture constitutes over 25% of GDP and sustains approximately 70% of the populace, water is not a mere resource—it is an existential imperative. The Indus basin fuels its farms, powers its turbines, and feeds its people. To perturb this flow is to imperil the nation’s economic equilibrium and societal cohesion.
And yet, Pakistan’s security establishment has long treated this precious accommodation as a given—immutable, untouchable, and immune to the vagaries of geopolitical conduct. This misplaced confidence has emboldened it to pursue a duplicitous doctrine—of nurturing militant proxies even as it benefited from the benevolence of Indian water diplomacy.
The Straw That Broke the Canal
By suspending the IWT, India is sending a message steeped in symbolism but not lacking in substance. This is not merely an outburst of indignation—it is a calibrated policy shift. The message is unequivocal: India shall no longer subsidise its adversary’s antagonism with strategic concessions. If Pakistan insists on fomenting unrest through insidious means, it must also be prepared to forfeit the privileges accorded to it under treaties predicated on good faith.
One may argue, with some justification, that India’s current water infrastructure lacks the immediate capacity to divert or fully harness the Western rivers. The requisite reservoirs, barrages, and canal systems for such a hydrological overhaul are still under development. But in geopolitics, perception often precedes practice. The very act of invoking the treaty’s suspension has rattled the strategic calculus in Islamabad and laid bare the fragility of its assumptions.
For decades, Pakistan has operated on the belief that India’s strategic restraint—especially in the hydrological domain—was sacrosanct. It misread India’s civility as weakness. That illusion has now been spectacularly shattered.
A Faustian Bargain That Failed
What, then, has Pakistan gained from its Faustian pact with terror? Has its strategy of bleeding India through a thousand cuts yielded dividends? On the contrary, the costs have been profound and self-defeating.
Far from “liberating” Kashmir or coercing India into negotiations on its own terms, Pakistan finds itself internationally isolated, diplomatically suspect, and economically anaemic. Worse still, the terror groups it once mentored have now metastasised, turning their guns inward and threatening the cohesion of the Pakistani state itself. The logic of proxy warfare—premised on the deniability of violence and the expendability of cannon fodder—has unravelled. In its place stands a polity riddled with extremism, plagued by economic fragility, and mired in geopolitical ignominy. The international community, once indulgent of Pakistan’s strategic anxieties, now views its double game with growing exasperation.
The Geopolitical Ripple Effect
India’s suspension of the IWT, while unilateral in action, has multilateral implications. It signals to the world that New Delhi is prepared to reframe the contours of South Asian diplomacy. Water—long considered sacrosanct—can no longer be divorced
To paraphrase the ancient wisdom of the East, one cannot bathe twice in the same river—because the water has moved on, and so has time. Pakistan, too, must now move on—from the shackles of militancy, from the dogmas of military overreach, and from the delusion that duplicity can be a permanent policy.
If it fails to do so, history may not be as forgiving as the Indus once was.
Pakistan today finds itself in the throes of a deep and multifaceted crisis. A collapsing economy, political volatility, and a fraying internal security order have combined to expose the limits of the state’s resilience. Armed ethnonationalist movements in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, along with a resurgence of transnational jihadist violence, now pose grave challenges to internal cohesion. Compounding this crisis of the state’s systemic dysfunction is the unprecedented erosion of public trust in the military — historically the most powerful and stable institution in the country.
In any functioning democracy, such systemic dysfunction might prompt serious institutional introspection. But Pakistan is not a conventional democracy. Its generals continue to dominate the national security and foreign policy apparatus, leaving little room for recalibration — particularly on matters where the military has long maintained primacy, such as its regional policy.
On April 15, General Asim Munir, Pakistan’s current Army Chief and undoubtedly its most powerful figure, delivered a politically charged speech aimed at salvaging the military’s diminished public standing.
Instead of reflecting on the domestic failures under his tenure, Munir fell back on a familiar script by invoking Kashmir as the nation’s unfinished cause, a “jugular vein”, which will be supported till the very last end. But this time, he cast Pakistan’s long-standing support for insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir through a more overtly communal lens, framing it within a polarizing Hindu-Muslim binary. Far from an offhand remark, this rhetoric not only distracts from Pakistan’s internal problems but also serves to reaffirm Islamabad’s continued reliance on militant proxies as instruments of foreign policy.
Disturbing, though not surprising, the consequences of General Munir’s provocative speech seemed to unfold just days later, with militants carrying out a deadly attack in Pahalgam, a popular tourist destination in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
Early reports indicate the armed assailants, mostly non-locals of Pakistani origins, having singled out victims based on their religious identity before launching a brutal massacre that killed at least 26 civilians and injured many more. The synchronicity between the timing of the speech and nature of the attack are difficult to dismiss as mere coincidence. Instead, they raise serious concerns about the ongoing connection between Pakistan’s powerful military establishment and the extremist groups it has long been accused of supporting behind the scenes. The group claiming responsibility, The Resistance Front (TRF), is widely recognized as a rebranded version of Lashkar-e-Taiba — a U.N.-designated terrorist organization with deep ties to Pakistan’s security establishment. TRF’s reinvention is widely viewed as a strategic manoeuvre to shield Islamabad from international censure, including scrutiny by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The timing of the attack, so closely following General Munir’s speech, raises troubling questions. For decades, militant violence in Kashmir has often followed inflammatory statements from Pakistani leaders or shifts in the geopolitical landscape. The latest attack appears to follow this pattern, and its motive fits a familiar logic: force India back to the negotiating table by stoking instability.
There are three interconnected factors that may underscore how Pakistan’s fingerprints appear evident. First, the Pakistan Army’s public legitimacy is at its lowest point since the country’s founding in 1947, largely due to its deep and controversial involvement in domestic politics. Second, the Shehbaz Sharif-led government has repeatedly reached out to New Delhi to revive bilateral talks—an initiative that India has, quite justifiably, conditioned on Islamabad halting its support for terrorist networks targeting Indian interests. Third, since India’s 2019 constitutional reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir, the region has steadily transitioned from a “terrorism” flashpoint to a “tourism” revival story, leaving Pakistan’s decades-old Kashmir narrative and its attempts to internationalise the so-called dispute adrift.
The timing of the attack coinciding with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit to India adds a provocative layer. It recalls a grim precedent: in March 2000, during President Bill Clinton’s visit to India, Pakistani-backed militants massacred Sikh villagers in Kashmir — Chittisinghpura massacre —an act widely seen as an attempt to draw global attention to Islamabad’s agenda. The parallels are hard to ignore.
But the most damning aspect of Pakistan’s strategy is that while it is increasingly self-defeating, it refuses to abandon this strategy despite its violent backfire. Militant blowback has rendered vast stretches of its own territory—particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan—effectively beyond the reach of the central government, now largely controlled by Islamist extremists and Baloch nationalist insurgents, respectively. Extremist networks once deployed for strategic depth have turned inward, contributing to Pakistan’s domestic instability. According to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index, Pakistan now ranks as the world’s second most terrorism-affected country, surpassed only by Burkina Faso. Terrorism-related fatalities in Pakistan rose by 45 percent in 2024 alone.
Yet, despite these devastating costs, both in lives lost and in national stability, Pakistan’s military and political leadership remains either unwilling or unable to break with its long-standing policy of using militant proxies as instruments of regional strategy. This stubborn adherence to an outdated and corrosive doctrine has hollowed the state from within. The massacre in Pahalgam is not merely a cross-border atrocity; it is a symptom of a state trapped in its own delusions — one that continues to use extremist violence as a tool of policy even as it undermines its own survival.
While global powers have rightly condemned this latest act of terrorism at Pahalgam, expressions of outrage are no longer sufficient. The international community must adopt a firmer stance—one that combines diplomatic pressure, targeted sanctions, and enhanced monitoring of Pakistan’s financial and security networks. Islamabad must be made to understand that impunity is no longer an option as cost of inaction is steep.
For too long, Pakistan’s proxy war playbook has been tolerated as a regional irritant, which it is not. If this pattern continues unchecked, the risk of broader destabilization in South Asia — and the possibility of an escalation — will become all too real. The world must act before this proxy war metastasizes into something far more dangerous.