India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir four times since 1947, in conflicts that spanned the immediate postwar era, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War period. The last major war came in 1999, and while the region never achieved true peace, relations remained relatively stable for two decades. That stability shattered in 2019, when a suicide bomber from the Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed killed forty Indian paramilitary personnel in Kashmir. India responded by revoking the special autonomous status of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, allowing outsiders to buy land and settle there for the first time.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist base welcomed the move, but the region’s Muslim majority saw it as a demographic threat. The government also launched a sweeping crackdown on local insurgent groups, tightened security protocols, and later claimed to have stabilized the region. By 2024, a record 3. 5 million tourists visited Kashmir, and Modi declared the state open for business.

That sense of stability collapsed on April 22, 2025, when a group called The Resistance Front, believed to be a splinter of the militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, killed twenty-six tourists near Pahalgam. All but one of the victims were Indian nationals. The attack ignited nationwide outrage. Modi, who was on an official visit to Saudi Arabia, cut his trip short and returned to India to order retaliation.

India’s foreign secretary announced a series of measures: a travel ban on Pakistani citizens, revocation of their visas, closure of the Attari-Wagah border crossing, expulsion of Pakistani military advisers from the High Commission in New Delhi, and withdrawal of Indian counterparts from Islamabad. But the most consequential action was the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, a 1960 water-sharing agreement brokered by the World Bank. That treaty divides the Indus river basin between the two nations, with Pakistan controlling the western tributaries and India the eastern ones. The rivers are vital to Pakistan’s agriculture and food security.

Even during the wars of 1965, 1971, and 1999, India never blocked the flow of water to Pakistan. This time, India’s water minister declared that not a single drop would reach Pakistan. Pakistan immediately labeled the suspension an act of war. In practice, however, India’s ability to cut off the water is limited.

According to a BBC report, India’s existing water infrastructure lacks the storage capacity to hold back the volumes of water it would need to withhold, and it does not have the canal network to redirect such massive flows. Experts warned that without adequate infrastructure, India could face severe flooding within its own borders, since its dams sit far from the Pakistani frontier. Indian officials acknowledged that their plan requires long-term investment in new storage facilities and river diversions. The immediate impact on Pakistan would therefore be minimal, at least for now.

What India could do immediately was stop sharing hydrological data with Pakistan. That data is essential for flood forecasting, irrigation management, hydroelectric power, and drinking water supplies. Cutting it off would effectively blind Pakistan to upstream developments, raising the risks of floods, droughts, and food shortages. Pakistani sources noted, however, that they had not been receiving all the promised data even before the suspension.

Given the treaty’s importance, Pakistan’s government issued a strongly worded statement denouncing India and vowing to respond across the full spectrum of national power. Pakistan called on the World Bank and the international community to intervene. It also suspended the 1972 Simla Agreement, the peace treaty that governs bilateral relations, a step that signaled a willingness to consider military action. Pakistan restricted Indian flights over its airspace, halted visas for Indian nationals, expelled Indian diplomats and military advisers, and severed all trade ties.

It denied any involvement in the Pahalgam attack and demanded an impartial investigation. Both sides began military escalations. Indian security forces launched operations in Kashmir to hunt the attackers, destroying the homes of at least five suspected militants and engaging in clashes with local insurgents. There were exchanges of small arms fire along the border.

As of late April, both militaries had kept their responses measured. The most likely military outcome appeared to be border skirmishes and artillery exchanges, possibly including Indian surgical strikes against militant camps in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Pakistan might respond with similar operations or small-scale ground actions of its own. A full-scale conventional war appeared unlikely.

India was in a position of retaliation, and after conducting surgical strikes, it could declare victory to satisfy domestic anger without provoking a major Pakistani response. But that calculation could change if India began actively implementing the water treaty suspension. For Pakistan, such a move would be catastrophic, and a cornered Pakistan might escalate beyond cross-border raids to compel New Delhi to reverse course if diplomacy failed. Whether Pakistan has the military and economic capacity to inflict serious damage on India is another question.

India has been steadily modernizing its forces with advanced equipment from Western nations and Russia, while Pakistan’s longtime ally, the United States, has been drawing closer to India. The situation remained tense and unpredictable. American South Asia expert Michael Kugelman described the standoff as two nuclear-capable neighbors in a confrontation that could produce unexpected outcomes. Hours before the episode reporting on this crisis was released, videos emerged showing Indian strikes in a controlled area of Kashmir.

The Indian military said the strikes targeted terrorist organizations and deliberately avoided Pakistani military sites. Al Jazeera reported an attack on an old airport in Muzaffarabad, and Reuters confirmed at least two explosions in the Indian-administered regions of Kashmir. This was not the first crisis between the two nations since 1999, and it remained possible that a major escalation could still be avoided. But India had now committed to a retaliatory action it had never taken before.

The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, even if slow to take effect, had fundamentally changed the stakes. Pakistan viewed it as an act of war, and with two nuclear-armed powers facing off, the margin for miscalculation had grown dangerously thin.