✍ Muhammad Asif Khan
India has adopted a spate of destabilizing unilateral initiatives, undermining the fragile but vital confidence-building measures (CBMs) responsible for balance of South Asian region. The abrupt termination of the Kartarpur Corridor in May 2025, the termination of the 60-year-old mutually beneficial Indus Waters Treaty, and India’s reduced participation in regional forums like SAARC represent a concerning trend.
It is believed that cultural and religious accords between nations can withstand periods of conflict. Even during hostility, humanitarian gestures rooted in culture and respect for religion may prevail. However, a series of these policies adopted by New Delhi vis-à-vis Pakistan has shattered this belief in the context of South Asia. The idea behind the above-mentioned CBMs was to lessen escalation through mutual respect, humanitarian assistance, and dialogue opportunities. Rather than reinforcing these mechanisms, India’s current policies are tearing them down in a systematic manner, increasing the likelihood of conflict.
To begin with, Kartarpur Corridor was a unique cultural meeting point between people of Pakistan and India. Launched in 2019, it became “an opportunity to open a visa-free route so that the Indian Sikh pilgrims can visit the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan.” It exemplified India-Pakistan collaboration and a willingness to seek religious harmony.
On May 8, 2025, however, New Delhi unilaterally shut down the Kartarpur Corridor on ill-defined security grounds. This abrupt shutdown disrupted religious practices, and also stranded some 150 Sikh pilgrims at the border, paying the human cost for such a decision. For context, approximately 235,000 Sikh devotees had traveled to the shrine through the corridor since 2019. The Kartarpur corridor was exactly the kind of apolitical interaction South Asia needed to feel normal during tense times. This closure eliminated what had been a rare source of hope in otherwise tense bilateral relations.
Moreover, India unilaterally suspended the decades-old Indus Waters Treaty. A 1960 treaty brokered by the World Bank was long regarded as a stable water-sharing system. It was designed to survive wars, land disputes, and political hostility. However, New Delhi unilaterally suspended this pact, explicitly violating its provisions, as Article 12(4) of the treaty specifically forbids unilateral termination. According to the treaty, any dispute must go through a three-step arbitration process. India bypassed these legal procedures, setting a potentially dangerous precedent in international law. With a single move, a cherished international legal agreement was lost.
The consequences have been serious. By weaponizing common rivers and water sources, India has escalated concerns of a full scale conflict. This act can become a dangerous inflection point in South Asian hydropolitics given that climate change is exacerbating water stress. The risk of conflict is enhanced by how India justifies such measures. By blaming internal security failures on Pakistan, India exacerbates the tensions. Although India’s rush to blame Pakistan for any and all terrorist attacks has a history going back to 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing, which was later traced back to Hindu extremists, the recent escalation of this trend is worrying.
India is also systematically undermining regional forums that initially promised the possibility of broader cooperation. SAARC is the best example. Since 2016, India has been boycotting SAARC, effectively delaying the regionally binding union. After the Uri attack in 2016, New Delhi boycotted the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad, contributing to the collapse of the meeting. Since then, India has acted mostly like a spectator in SAARC, sidelining the only organization that includes all eight nations in South Asia.
This pattern reflects selective multilateralism. India even adopts hardline stances at supposedly neutral summits. For instance, New Delhi’s recent behavior toward the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has become increasingly transactional and reserved. India withheld its approval of the SCO joint communiqué during the 22nd meeting of the Minister of Defense in 2025 in Qingdao, China. Similarly, at the 2023 SCO summit, New Delhi demanded that its anti-Pakistan agenda be included in the joint statement, overriding the consensus-based rules of the intergovernmental organization.
Meanwhile, India shifts its regional focus to other alliances where it holds more influence. It has engaged more with BIMSTEC, QUAD, and Indo-Pacific forums, all of which implicitly and by design exclude Pakistan and other neighbors. Such groupings are fundamentally based on strategic, hard balancing rather than broad cooperation. From this perspective, India’s retreat into closed systems seems deliberate: it reshapes the regional order to suit its interests instead of fostering South Asian solidarity.
India’s smaller neighbors have also noted its increasingly undiplomatic behavior. For instance, in 2015, India blocked the Nepal border to pressure Kathmandu over constitutional issues, demonstrating how New Delhi can coerce weaker states into compliance. This pattern of coercive diplomacy reinforces Pakistan’s view that India’s “diplomacy” is merely a systematic assault on regional cooperation, comprised of closing borders, terminating treaties, boycotting meetings, and making unsubstantiated accusations. Critics warn that India under Prime Minister Modi is pursuing broader hegemonic goals, positioning itself as South Asia’s dominant power. India is expanding its hard power at the expense of genuine multilateral cooperation.
To sum up, India’s unilateral policies will push South Asia farther from peace. The shutting down of Kartarpur corridor, ending the Indus treaty, and marginalizing SAARC may only bring temporary applause at home but could lead to greater destabilization and conflict if the downward trend continues. In fact, each failed promise raises the question: Who will break this cycle before it triggers a major crisis?
The response should be action. New Delhi must be the one to abandon its new trend. India needs to re-open the Kartarpur Corridor, re-join the Indus Treaty mechanism, and re-engage with SAARC and other regional processes in good faith. For this reason, India should then practice what it preaches in international forums and respect rules and treaties. Pragmatically, this means renewed negotiations, shedding lingering suspicions, and recreating CBMs that once gave South Asia some breathing space. This must change, and now the world and the millions of people whose lives are closely tied to rivers, roads, and religious bonds should demand it. Otherwise, South Asia risks slipping into open hostilities due to a lack of trust.
