Modernise IWT: India has been too generous to a downstream nation

Despite the suspension of military operations, India must not dilute its recently initiated economic measures

- 

The recent four-day military confrontation on India's borders with Pakistan ended almost as abruptly as it began on 22 April, when a group of Pakistan-supported terrorists cold-bloodedly killed 26 Hindus—nearly all of them innocent tourists—in Pahalgam. For this cessation to evolve into a sustainable peace, the underlying issues that led to this latest near-war—and the four previous wars—need to be addressed. Achieving success here would entail protracted negotiations and need to be backed by a reversal of the hardened attitude of hostility and the uncompromising stance on Kashmir adopted by the Army-run Pakistan, ever since it came to be created in 1947 purely on religious grounds. Having failed militarily, Pakistan's generals have, since 1989, increasingly relied on the lower-cost option of cross-border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir and beyond. India is right in insisting that an end to such terrorism is non-negotiable and a prerequisite for scaling down Operation Sindoor, which has taken a heavy toll on Pakistan.

It is in such context that India needs to take a call on the economic measures it recently imposed on its neighbour—a country that has rarely seen eye to eye with India on most matters. Taken together, the impact of these and a slew of equally effective diplomatic actions, can be sizeable. Assiduously pursuing the non-military options has become a worthwhile alternative—be it curtailing bilateral trade, pausing implementation of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960, securing international blacklisting of Pakistan-based firms and individuals, and working with global institutions to impose stringent aid conditions on Pakistan for its continued support of terrorism.