Indo-Pak ties at a crossroad after Shimla Pact suspension

Surjakanta Koijam *

The killing of 26 tourists at Kashmir's Pahalgam resort in April 2025 set off a renewed diplomatic crisis. The massacre—the deadliest attack on tourists in over two decades—"set off a chain of tit-for-tat moves by India and Pakistan," raising fears of wider conflict.

India reacted with strong measures, and Pakistan in turn announced it would "suspend its participation in all bilateral agreements" with India, explicitly naming the 1972 Shimla Accord. In effect, Islamabad declared the Shimla Agreement on hold, a move that one analyst calls a protest against India's "stringent measures" in the aftermath of the attack.

The news sent a shock through both countries, since the Shimla pact had long been regarded as the cornerstone of post-war stability. The 1972 Shimla Accord Pillar of Bilateral Peace : The Shimla Agreement was signed on 2 July 1972 by India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan's President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in the wake of the Indo-Pakistani war that split East Pakistan into Bangladesh.

The pact's drafters pledged that "both countries will... settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations," explicitly ruling out outside interference. They also committed to respecting each other's territorial integrity and not interfering in internal affairs. Crucially, the wartime ceasefire line in Kashmir was renamed the Line of Control, and India and Pakistan agreed that "neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences".

In short, Shimla was meant to lock in a rules-based peace: all disputes handled quietly between Delhi and Islamabad, and the status quo along the LoC maintained as a de facto border. In practice, however, the Shimla pact was a political understanding rather than a formal treaty with enforcement. It relied on mutual goodwill, and India long pointed to its terms when insisting that Kashmir must be resolved bilaterally.

Indeed, India has "many at imes ... maintained that [the] Kashmir dispute is a bilateral issue" precisely on this basis. Over the decades the accord became a touch-stone in Indian diplomacy to block any third-party mediation. But at the same time it set expectations of restraint: violations along the LoC or diplomatic provocations would breach the spirit of Shimla and risk retaliation.

Breaking the Pact: Consequences of Suspension Pakistan's announcement to suspend the Shimla Agreement marks a bitter turn. Analysts describe this step as "a significant move" that comes amid already frosty ties. Since 2019 the relationship had been severely strained by Kashmir policy changes, with Pakistan downgrading ties and taking the Kashmir issue to multilateral forums in defiance of Simla's bilateral norm.

By tearing up Shimla, Islamabad is essentially removing the final agreed framework between the two States. One commentary warns this could be "a new low" for relations: Islamabad is "signalling it may now seek third-party involvement" to internationalize Kashmir, while India will see this as an outright breach of a solemn pledge.

The very notion of direct, private negotiation between Delhi and Islamabad is now in question. In short, the pact's suspension shatters the old rules and leaves a dangerous vacuum. Already, mutual suspicion is running high. Pakistan's move was a direct counter to India's own post-attack measures, so each side claims to be reacting to the other's provocations.

With Shimla effectively "paused," there is no agreed mechanism left to cool tensions. Military commanders on both sides have warned of a hard response to any perceived threat (for instance, Pakistan has said disruptions to its water supply would be treated as "an act of war"). In this climate, even routine border incidents risk escalation.

The shared understanding of restraint along the Line of Control, carefully cultivated since 1972, now hangs by a thread. As one expert observed, Pakistan's strategy has shifted: if Shimla's rules are gone, Islamabad may turn to the UN or allies like China and the OIC for support — exactly the kind of third-party intervention that Shimla had forbidden.

In sum, suspending the Shimla pact plunges Indo-Pak relations into deeper uncertainty. The carefully balanced, if fragile, post-1971 framework has been shattered. Whether the two sides can find new rules of engagement, or whether entrenchment and escalation prevail, is now the looming question.

For both capitals, the choice is stark: either bridge the breach with fresh talks, or brace for an unpredictable and possibly dangerous stand-off. One thing is clear — with the old guarantor of bilateral peace effectively on hold, nothing about the future of Kashmir and the subcontinent can be taken for granted.