The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) no longer functions as a simple bilateral water-sharing agreement; it has become a sensitive fixture in South Asia’s strategic landscape. Once hailed as a model that insulated water from politics, the treaty now sits under strain from accelerating climate stress, new hydro-technologies, and a security environment reshaped by Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism.
New Delhi’s decision to place the treaty in abeyance in April 2025, following the terrorist attack at Pahalgam, and the subsequent legal tussle at The Hague, are not procedural footnotes. They are warning signs: unless New Delhi, Islamabad, and the World Bank—the international mediator that brokered the pact—agree on a path to modernisation, the carefully apportioned flows of the Indus basin could shift from being one of the region’s rare sources of cooperation into a new axis of conflict.