The recent ruling by the Court of Arbitration in The Hague on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has rekindled tensions between India and Pakistan, with the tribunal affirming that India cannot unilaterally suspend or place the decades-old water-sharing agreement in abeyance.

The court maintained its jurisdiction over disputes related to the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects, reinforcing the continued legal validity of the treaty despite rising political and security tensions in South Asia.

While Pakistan welcomed the decision as a victory for international law and treaty obligations, India rejected the verdict outright, calling the tribunal “illegally constituted” and refusing to recognise its authority, thereby deepening the diplomatic and legal standoff between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

This verdict and the Indian response coincide with two mixed messages emerging from India.

The former RAW chief, A. S. Dulat, maintained in his recent interview with the BBC that dialogue with Pakistan is imperative on all matters of mutual interest.

He dismissed the imaginative claims of many Indians that Pakistan can be defeated on the battlefield or balkanised by covert operations in KP and Balochistan.

Simultaneously, the Secretary General of the RSS insisted that the BJP must keep trade and diplomatic channels open with Pakistan, as there is no other way forward.

It was the same RSS, the extremist Hindu right-wing organisation, that once wanted to annihilate Pakistan (and Indian Muslims), and it was the same Mr Dulat who had warned after Pahalgam that India’s only option was to raise walls against Pakistan, as no peace was ever possible.

What, then, has caused this change of heart – if at all?

It is unlikely that the Indian heart would change. The circumstances dictating its behaviour have certainly changed, nevertheless.

The dialogue between the US and China during President Trump’s recent visit to Beijing has substantially reduced India’s geopolitical status in the region, a status it had enjoyed since after 9/11.

It was then that civil-military cooperation between India and the United States began. American investors poured money into Indian markets, developing infrastructure and human resources, while strategic ties were forged through initiatives such as the civil nuclear deal with India in 2004, and beyond.

This was also the period when Pakistan was forced into an unwanted situation following the US invasion of Afghanistan, while the anti-terror narrative peaked globally.

India capitalised on this narrative by constructing one of its own against Pakistan.

Modi’s “mother of all deals” with the European Union, and his hugs and vows with Israeli and Emirati leaders, carry far less currency in the changing global order

Every peace initiative from Pakistan was met with a false-flag operation from India — the Parliament attacks and the Mumbai attacks coinciding with the Musharraf–Vajpayee Agra Summit, and later Pulwama and Pahalgam after Modi became Prime Minister.

The Indian establishment carried its narrative smoothly until President Trump decided to dismantle the terror narrative from mainstream American politics and media.

Policy then shifted towards dismantling the post-1945 (World War II) debates and structures that had occupied centre stage since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

That world ended in 2025. India took over a year to realise and absorb that change.

That, perhaps, is the principal driving force behind this apparent change of heart.

President Trump’s recent visit to China is an eye-opener for both India and Pakistan, albeit for different reasons.

For India, it signals that it is no longer a frontline state against China.

Indian forces faltered against Pakistan in May 2025, let alone proving to be of any use against China, as had once been envisaged.

For Pakistan, it marks a moment of realisation to revisit and recalibrate its strategic and foreign policy direction, which has traditionally been anchored to the approval of the United States.

China now occupies greater influence in the region, demonstrated through the Iran war, which has fundamentally altered the post-1945 security and regional structures in both the Middle East and Western Europe simultaneously.

Thus, Modi’s “mother of all deals” with the European Union, and his hugs and vows with Israeli and Emirati leaders, carry far less currency in the changing global order.

What has acquired greater importance in the renewed world order are regional alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS, along with the emerging Eurasian bloc of which Pakistan is a part, and in whose periphery India now rather tantalisingly sits.

The Hague verdict against India must be viewed within this broader context.

India’s refusal to recognise the legitimacy and jurisdiction of the Hague court indicates two things.

First, that international organisations are rapidly losing their standing as bodies whose decisions are binding upon member states.

Second, that institutions such as the Security Council may survive merely as façades of international law and order, while whether their decisions can shape the outcome of future conflicts remains open to serious scrutiny.

Both the Hague verdict and India’s response to it are unfavourable for India.

Taken together, they provide Pakistan with a stronger legal position in the eyes of the international community, which may prove advantageous in any future conflict.

Secondly, India’s decision to hold the Treaty in abeyance has little practical impact on its ability to regulate the waters of the western rivers — the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus — beyond a storage capacity of roughly two weeks, at least for the foreseeable future until any significant mega-structures are built to satisfy the ambitions and rhetoric of Indian hardliners.

Yet there remains the question of China’s ability to regulate the waters of the Brahmaputra through its mega dam in the Tibet region.

This river supplies approximately 40 per cent of India’s drinking water.

China’s position is clear: if India weaponises water against Pakistan, the same may be done unto India.

And, of course, Pakistan will not simply sit and watch India act without consequence.

Moreover, the Treaty itself was never entirely favourable to Pakistan.

Article III, Section 2(d) permits India to use the western rivers for hydroelectric generation, although it bars the withholding of their waters in reservoirs.

Yet how does one generate electricity without constructing reservoirs that allow the stopping and releasing of water at will?

Therefore, whether the Treaty remains in force or in abeyance makes little practical difference to Pakistan.

India did itself a further disservice by abrogating Article 370 in 2019.

In doing so, it breached the Simla Agreement of 1972, which had rendered Kashmir a bilateral issue and established the Line of Control (LoC), formerly known as the Ceasefire Line of 1949.

With Article 370 gone, the notion of “bilateralism” and even the LoC itself have inadvertently ceased to exist.

Pakistan, therefore, is no longer necessarily obliged to abide by either.

What remains to be seen is the clarity with which Pakistan’s foreign policy is reshaped, and its security structure and national narrative aligned with these renewed realities.