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In tit-for-tat moves this week, India and Pakistan have entered a strategic standoff following Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of at least 26 people.

On Wednesday, India downgraded ties with Pakistan, announcing a series of steps, the most important of which is a decision to suspend its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which could seriously restrict Pakistan’s water supplies.

India has also closed its main land border with Pakistan and given some Pakistani nationals currently in India a deadline to leave the country.

On Thursday, Pakistan retaliated with similar steps against India, and also threatened to suspend its participation in all bilateral agreements between the two, including the 1972 Simla Agreement, a peace accord drawn up following their war the previous year that led to the creation of Bangladesh.

Pakistan is particularly angered by the threat to the IWT and has warned India that any disruption to its water supply would be considered “an act of war”, adding that it was prepared to respond, “with full force across the complete spectrum of national power”.

The IWT, a transboundary water agreement that allows the two countries to share water flowing from the Indus basin, has survived armed conflicts and near-constant tensions between India and Pakistan over the past 65 years. While India came close to suspending the treaty in 2019, it did not go through with it.

Why has India taken action against Pakistan?

An armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF), which demands independence for Kashmir, has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack in Pahalgam, one of Indian-administered Kashmir’s most popular tourist destinations. Indian authorities have previously claimed that TRF is an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, an armed group based in Pakistan.

India has long held that Pakistan backs the armed rebellion in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies. On Wednesday, India claimed that the Pahalgam attack had “cross-border” linkages, blaming its western neighbour.

During a special briefing by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had been called to discuss the attack in which men armed with rifles killed 25 Indian tourists and one Nepalese tourist, all men.

“In the briefing to the CCS, the cross-border linkages of the terrorist attack were brought out,” Misri said.

Misri added: “The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in abeyance with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.” For a treaty to be in abeyance means that it is temporarily suspended or on hold.

Earlier on Thursday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India would identify, track and punish every “terrorist” and their backers.

What is the Indus Waters Treaty?

Signed in 1960, the origins of the IWT trace back to August 1947, when British colonial rule over the Indian subcontinent ended and India and Pakistan became two separate sovereign states. India is the upper riparian (located upstream) while Pakistan is the lower riparian, which means India has control over how the river flows.

Because both countries rely on the water from the Indus basin’s six rivers for irrigation and agriculture, they signed an agreement called the Standstill Agreement to continue allowing the flow of water across the border. When the Standstill Agreement expired in 1948, India stopped the water flow towards Pakistan from its canals, prompting an urgent need for negotiations on water sharing.

Following nine years of negotiations mediated by the World Bank, former Pakistani President Ayub Khan and former Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru signed the IWT [PDF] in September 1960. The treaty gives India access to the waters of the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

Pakistan, in turn, gets the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.

India can use the western rivers to generate hydroelectric power and for some limited agriculture, but cannot build infrastructure that restricts the flow of water from those rivers into Pakistan or redirects that water.

What would the suspension of this treaty mean for Pakistan?

It represents a threat from India that it could, if and when it chooses to, restrict the flow of water from the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab into Pakistan.

It does not mean that India plans to limit that flow immediately.

Even if it wanted to, it is unlikely that India could immediately stop the flow of water even though it has suspended its participation from the treaty.

This is because India has upstream reservoirs constructed on the western rivers, but their storage capacity cannot hold enough volumes of water to hold back water entirely from Pakistan. It is also high-flow season when ice from glaciers melts between May and September, keeping water levels high.

“The western rivers allocated to Pakistan carry very high flows, especially between May and September. India does not currently have the infrastructure in place to store or divert those flows at scale,” Hassaan F Khan, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy and environmental studies at Tufts University in the United States, told Al Jazeera.

However, if India were to try to stop – or cut – the water flow, Pakistan might feel the effects in seasons when water levels are lower. Pakistan relies heavily on the water from the western rivers for its agriculture and energy. Pakistan does not have alternative sources of water.

Pakistan has a largely agrarian economy, with agriculture contributing 24 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 37.4 percent to employment, according to Pakistan’s most recent economic survey published in 2024. The country’s statistics bureau says that the majority of the population is directly or indirectly dependent on the agriculture sector. According to the World Bank, the country’s current population is about 247.5 million.

Does India have the power to suspend this treaty?

While India has declared abeyance from the treaty, legal experts say that it cannot unilaterally suspend the treaty.

“India has used the word abeyance and there is no such provision to ‘hold it in abeyance’ in the treaty,” Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a Pakistani lawyer, told Al Jazeera. The treaty can only be modified by mutual agreement between the parties.

“It also violates customary international laws relating to upper and lower riparian where the upper riparian cannot stop the water promise for lower riparian,” Soofi said.

Anuttama Banerji, a political analyst based in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that the treaty might continue, but not in its present form. “Instead, it will be up for ‘revision’, ‘review’ and ‘modification’ – all three meaning different things – considering newer challenges such as groundwater depletion and climate change were not catered for in the original treaty,” Banerji said.

“In principle, a unilateral suspension of a bilateral treaty can be challenged as a breach of international law,” Khan, the Tufts University assistant professor, told Al Jazeera.

However, the enforcement of this is complicated, Khan added. “The Indus Waters Treaty is a bilateral agreement without a designated enforcement body. While the World Bank has a role in appointing neutral experts and arbitrators, it is not an enforcement authority.”

Khan explained that if Pakistan wanted to pursue legal recourse, it would likely be through international forums such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “In practice, the main costs for India would be reputational and strategic: undermining its image as a rules-based actor, especially given its own status as a downstream riparian on other transboundary rivers.”

Khan said that the broader strategic goal of the IWT suspension seems to be a renegotiation of the treaty. “India has been signalling its desire to revise or renegotiate the treaty for some time,” he said, explaining that India had asked to renegotiate the treaty in January 2023 and again in September 2024, citing climate change and implementation challenges. Pakistan has so far refused.

“The recent announcement appears to be an attempt to apply pressure and force a renegotiation on terms more favourable to India. Whether this strategy succeeds remains to be seen, but it marks a significant departure from six decades of treaty stability.”

What other steps is India taking in response to the attack in Kashmir?

Besides the abeyance of the IWT, Mirsi announced other steps, including:

• The main land border crossing between the two countries, the Integrated Check Post Attari, or the Attari-Wagah crossing, will be closed with immediate effect and those who have crossed over with “valid endorsements” have to return through the route before May 1.
• Any SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) visas granted to Pakistanis have been cancelled and any Pakistani currently visiting India on the SVES visa has to leave within 48 hours of the statement issued on Wednesday.
• The military, naval and air advisers in the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi are considered personae non gratae and have a week to leave India, while Indian military, naval and air advisers will be pulled back from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. To be persona non grata in a country means to be unwelcome.
• Five support staff members will also be pulled from each High Commission.
• The staffing for each High Commission will be reduced from 55 members to 30 through further reductions by May 1.

How has Pakistan responded to India’s measures?

On Thursday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called a high-level meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC).

A statement released by Sharif’s office on Thursday said: “the Committee reviewed the Indian measures announced on 23 April 2025 and termed them unilateral, unjust, politically motivated, extremely irresponsible and devoid of legal merit”.

The statement adds: “Pakistan vehemently rejects the Indian announcement to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance … Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty … will be considered as an Act of War and responded with full force.

“Pakistan shall exercise the right to hold all bilateral agreements with India, including but not limited to Simla Agreement in abeyance, till India desists from its manifested behaviour of fomenting terrorism inside Pakistan; trans-national killings; and non-adherence to international law and UN Resolutions on Kashmir.”

The Simla Agreement was a peace treaty signed between Pakistan and India in 1972, which emphasised resolving conflict between the two countries peacefully and through bilateral negotiations.

On the same day, Pakistan also announced the closure of the Wagah border, suspended all visas under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) issued to Indian nationals and declared Indian army and navy advisers in Islamabad personae non gratae.

Pakistan has also closed its airspace “with immediate effect” for all Indian owned or Indian operated airlines. It has also suspended all trade with India “including to and from any third country through Pakistan” – in effect saying that it won’t allow India to export to Afghanistan through its territory.

In the past, Pakistani officials have warned that India’s interference in water flow to Pakistan would be deemed an act of war, prompting retaliation.

In 2016, the then-chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, Raza Rabbani, said: “Interference with Pakistan’s water supply will be tantamount to an act of aggression and aggression will be met by aggression.”

Does this spell a major escalation in tensions between the two countries?

The suspension of the IWT is significant. While India has threatened to suspend it before, it has never actually gone through with its threat.

In 2016, suspected rebel fighters killed 17 Indian soldiers in the Uri area in Indian-administered Kashmir. Four suspected rebels were also killed by the Indian army during this attack. In the aftermath of the Uri attack, Modi said: “blood and water can’t flow together” when discussing the IWT with government officials. However, the IWT was not suspended after this.

In 2019, a suicide bomber killed 40 paramilitary police in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pulwama. This attack was claimed by Jaish-e-Muhammad, an armed group based in Pakistan. In the aftermath, Indian Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari threatened to suspend the flow of water to Pakistan. However, this threat did not materialise.

In Gaza, civilians are killed four times as frequently as in previous conflicts there. According to experts, the incident is unlikely to be an accident, suggesting that Israeli forces are choosing to use the most potent weapons to purposefully maximize casualties and destruction.

There is no other way to say it. The American university as the United States has known it since the 1960s is at an end. The spate of college closings and consolidations that began 15 years ago is certain to increase over the next few years.

Overall college enrolments peaked in 2010, but have fallen consistently since then, as the cost of college, the COVID-19 pandemic and other trends have curtailed students from attending higher education institutions. But with the recent crackdowns against protests on college campuses, the anti-DEI climate and the US government’s persecution of foreign students, American universities are truly up against a tsunami. The trickle of institutions closing or on the margins is all but assured to turn into a flood between now and the end of the 2020s.

Sonoma State University (aka, California State Sonoma) is among the latest universities facing budget cuts. Despite a Sonoma County court ruling that has temporarily put the university’s plans on hold, Sonoma State still faces a budget shortfall of $24m. Even if the order holds beyond May 1, Sonoma State can and likely will work in good-faith negotiations with staff, faculty and students to eliminate upwards of 22 majors, six departments, and more than 100 faculty positions. Specifically, the art history, economics, geology, philosophy, theatre/dance, and women and gender studies departments are on Sonoma State’s chopping block, mostly liberal arts and the social sciences.

The most expansive retrenchment in the past decade, though, occurred at West Virginia University in 2023. That August, after a six-year campaign to increase enrolment, West Virginia announced that it incurred a $45m budget deficit, and that enrolment had dropped from roughly 29,000 in 2017 to just under 26,000 in 2023. The austerity plan was to cut 32 majors– including all of their foreign language programmes and its maths doctoral programme – and 169 faculty positions. But after weeks of student protests, the number ended up being 28 majors (nearly one-fifth of its undergraduate majors) and 143 faculty (a 13.5 percent reduction) instead. The sudden shift towards austerity has led to a steady stream of faculty and administrators resigning or taking retirement buyouts to leave West Virginia. Again, the undergraduate liberal arts majors and small academic graduate programmes were the main targets for cuts.

Stories like what is happening at Sonoma State and has already occurred at West Virginia are part of a larger and terrible trend. As college matriculation for women has incrementally increased over the past 50 years, there has been a more drastic decline in men attending college, especially among white men. Since 1970, men have gone from 58 percent of all undergraduate college enrollees to only about 40 percent as of the early 2020s. Fully 71 percent of the decline in college attendance since 2010 coincides with the decline of men as students in higher education. Perhaps sexism disguised as disinterest in higher education in the wake of a women-dominant student body might be at least part of the explanation for this steep fall in enrolment.

But other higher education institutions are worse off: Clarion University of Pennsylvania, California University of Pennsylvania, The College of Saint Rose in New York and Independence University in Utah, for example. These are among the 76 colleges and universities that have either closed their doors or have merged with other higher education institutions in the US, affecting the lives of tens of thousands of students and several thousand faculty members. Nearly all of these institutions have cited budget shortfalls and lower enrolment as reasons for their demise or mergers.

Nationally, the number of students attending US colleges and universities fell from a peak of 18.1 million students in 2010 to 15.4 million in 2021, including a drop of 350,000 students after the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of this past fall, enrolment had climbed to 15.9 million students, a 4.5 percent increase, but hardly enough to stem the tide of closures, austerity and consolidations.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s financial stress test model for American higher education institutions, as many as 80 colleges and universities in the US could permanently close their doors by the end of the 2025-26 school year. They based their findings on “the worst-case scenario predictions com[ing] to pass from the upcoming demographic cliff (or a 15 percent decline in enrolment).” Demographers have also foreseen an imminent drop in the numbers of college enrollees starting this fall, a consequence of the economic distress that began the Great Recession of the late-2000s.

Then there is Trump 2.0 and his administration’s persecution of foreign college students. The recent crackdowns on academic freedom under former President Joe Biden, with pro-Palestinian college faculty and student protesters, and under mostly Republican governors like Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida over Critical Race Theory and DEI, have escalated under President Donald Trump. The Trump administration’s move to revoke the visas of more than 1,700 foreign faculty and students, and kidnap and deport many others, mostly over pro-Palestine activism and other political stances deemed against the interests of the administration, threatens the one area of sustainable growth in higher education. Neither Alireza Doroudi, Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, nor any of the hundreds of other victims of this injustice, have committed any crimes under US laws. Unless going to a funeral or writing an op-ed or exercising the First Amendment right to protest is criminal behaviour.

In 2023-24, more than 1.1 million international students attended US colleges and universities at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels. But with the Trump administration threatening, arresting and deporting foreign students and scholars in their dozens, it is all but certain that international student enrolment from the Middle East and South Asia will drop in the coming year. There will also likely be a drop in students from China as a consequence of the ongoing tariff fight between the two nations. One-quarter of all foreign students in the US are from China.

After decades of universities hiring armies of part-time professors instead of full-time, tenure-stream instructors and researchers, and college presidents running their campuses like for-profit businesses, the implosion of US higher education has been almost inevitable. Despite Harvard recently providing the Trump administration opposition to their repression of colleges and universities, top-down hierarchies and disempowered workforces have rendered higher education’s responses to conservative and far-right movements in the US utterly impotent. Add to this the conservative assumptions of liberal arts fields as “immoral,” “indoctrination,” and “libtards” instead of what they really mean: an expansion of one’s knowledge of people and the world. There has also been a decades-long overemphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The possibility of Trump’s Project 2025 gurus privatising the federal student loan programme would pretty much be the straw that broke US higher education’s back at this point.

Liberal arts departments especially will continue to consolidate, or university administrators will continue to find reasons to jettison them as a cost-saving measure. Ever larger numbers of senior faculty will take severance pay, early retirement, or will end up sacked. Non-tenured faculty and junior staff will simply be unemployed and, in many cases, unemployable in a shrinking US higher education landscape. Most of all, those students who find themselves at any institutions outside of the top 136 elite universities or the top 50 flagship public colleges and universities may no longer be able to afford college, with tens of thousands unable to complete their degrees. American higher education is not just staring into the abyss – it has already fallen into it.

Harvard University filed a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday to stop the institution’s $2.3 billion in federal funding being frozen. The funding freeze came amid US government efforts to crack down on student protesters and pressure universities into dropping diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.

The US Department of Education announced on March 10 that it had warned 60 higher education institutions of “enforcement actions” if they failed to protect Jewish students on campus as required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who said “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments that are funded by US taxpayers, is also quoted in the letters.” That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws”.

The Trump administration began halting funding for some of the nation’s top universities shortly after, putting a strain on academic research that universities believe is essential for scientific and medical advancement.

The Trump administration is specifically targeting schools where students took part in pro-Palestine demonstrations last year, alleging that the students’ demonstrations sparked anti-Semitism on the campus.

A day after Harvard filed its lawsuit, leaders and representatives of more than 200 American universities issued a joint statement accusing the Trump administration of political interference. Presidents and CEOs from some of the nation’s top universities, including Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern University, and Pomona College, signed the statement.

What is happening with US campuses in terms of federal funding, then, and can universities survive these cuts?

Why is Harvard suing the US government over funding?

A letter from the US Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration was co-signed by Harvard on April 11 claiming that “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”

The letter also demanded that the university stop all forms of discrimination against international students, including “students supporting terrorism or anti-Semitism,” and that the institution end all forms of discrimination against international students. This was a follow-up to a separate letter the government had sent Harvard on April 3, demanding that the university reform any academic departments deemed to be fuelling “antisemitic harassment”. According to the letter, these departments “must be reviewed and necessary adjustments made to address bias, increase viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture.”

Harvard responded to the demands, claiming that while some demands were intended to combat anti-Semitism, “the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.”

Hours after Harvard rejected the demands, an Education Department task force to tackle anti-Semitism released a statement announcing that &nbsp, $2.3bn in federal funding to the university had been frozen.

The US Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration leaders have now filed a lawsuit (PDF) in the US District Court in Massachusetts.

We filed a lawsuit to stop the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government’s control, Garber wrote in a statement on Monday.

The suit says that “the federal Government has launched a broad attack on the critical funding partnerships” which make it possible for Harvard and other American universities to carry out “invaluable research” in the fields of medicine, engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) which is crucial for finding solutions for space travel and for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancer, among other things.

The lawsuit also contends that the funding freeze violates First Amendment rights, which guarantee the right to free speech, making it unlawful.

According to the lawsuit, “This case involves the Government’s efforts to take advantage of the withholding of federal funding as leverage.”

The Tuesday joint statement co-signed by hundreds of American university leaders states: “We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding”.

What kind of losses might Harvard and other universities experience?

$2.2 billion in grants and $ 60 million in contracts are among the frozen federal funds for Harvard. However, more money is at stake. The Trump administration announced in March that Harvard’s $9 billion funding would be reviewed.

Additionally, the administration has threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students and its tax exempt status. In the Monday statement, Garber also wrote that the Trump administration has considered taking steps to freeze an additional $1bn in grants.

Columbia University, which became the epicenter of pro-Palestine campus protests in 2024, received $ 400 million in funding from the Trump administration in February. The government cited the institution’s “failure to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment,” according to the government.

On March 19, Trump froze more than $175m in federal funding to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, citing the allowance of transgender women to play women’s sports.

What other ways are university costs being targeted?

Some universities have reported receiving “stop work” orders that direct universities to halt all work on specific research projects that are funded by the government.

“American universities receive two main funding sources from the federal government. The first is student financial aid, which is provided by thousands of colleges. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies’ Robert Kelchen, a professor and department head, told Al Jazeera. “The second is research funding, which is heavily concentrated at about 200 universities.

“The American government has relied on universities to conduct research to benefit the country since World War II, and universities have built an infrastructure around that. During this time, the scope of American research funding was unmatched across the globe, Kelchen said.

According to a statement released by Cornell University President Michael I. Kotlikoff and other university leaders on April 8, the US Department of Defense issued more than 75 “stop work” orders.

The orders sent to Cornell relate to “research into new materials for jet engines, propulsion systems, large-scale information networks, robotics, superconductors, and space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research”, the university said.

The amount of federal funding that the projects that were subject to stop work orders were receiving was not specified in the statement. Additionally, it did not specify the reason for the government’s decision to issue these orders.

Northwestern University has also received stop work orders relating to roughly 100 federal grants, the university’s President Michael Schill and Chair of Board of Trustees Peter Barris wrote in a statement on Northwestern University’s website on April 17.

US media reported earlier in April that the Trump administration had frozen Northwestern University and Cornell University’s funding in addition to more than $1 billion. A White House official, according to CNN and the New York Times, had confirmed these funding freezes. “The money was frozen in connection with several ongoing, credible, and concerning Title VI investigations”, the official was quoted by CNN as saying.

However, both Cornell and Northwestern claim to not have been informed of these funding freezes.

How much do universities have on their own?

Many universities have sizeable endowment funds from which they can draw income each year to support research projects, scholarships and other expenses. A university’s endowment is a collection of funds or assets that are given to ensure the institution’s financial viability in the future. Endowments are incredibly large thanks to charitable contributions from alumni, other donors, and businesses.

Harvard’s endowment was worth approximately $53.2bn in the 2024 fiscal year – the largest of any university. According to the website of Harvard, more than one-third of the university’s research is funded by the institution.

For the fiscal year that ended in June 2024, Columbia’s endowment was $ 14.8%. Cornell’s endowment was about $10.7bn in the fiscal year ending in June 2024. In 2024, the endowment for Northwestern University reached an estimated $ 14.3 billion. In June 2024, the endowment for the University of Pennsylvania was $22.3 billion.

Some universities will be able to fall back on these endowments if federal funding freezes remain in place. According to Kelchen, “universities typically spend about 5% of their endowment, which provides funding for the Harvards of the world to make up for lost federal funding.”

However, endowments have limitations. “Endowment funds are heavily concentrated at a few dozen universities, and roughly three-fourths of all endowment funds are restricted for particular purposes”, Kelchen said, explaining that such purposes include student scholarships in very specific fields.

At Harvard, donors choose which programs, departments, and purposes receive a share of the annual endowment. According to the website of Columbia, the endowment’s annual spending is done in accordance with donor wishes.

Universities have also seen a fall in the value of endowments. According to an October 2024 report from the student-run newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, some donors pulled funding from the university over the pro-Palestine protests and the university’s response to concerns about anti-Semitism on campus. In response, Harvard’s donations dropped by $11 million in 2024.

How will universities respond to threats of funding by the government?

Kelchen said that a few research universities may be able to make it through a period of several years without federal funding.

For instance, Northwestern University’s leadership stated in its statement on April 17 that the university would continue to fund research projects that were subject to government stop-work orders. This funding is intended to keep these initiatives going until the funding landscape is understood.

Most universities will not be able to afford to this. Some, therefore, accept government demands.

Columbia, for instance, accepted these demands on March 13 and implemented new policies on campus after receiving its own list of demands from the government. These new policies require protesting students to present their university identification if asked to do so. Additionally, they forbid wearing face masks to cover up a person’s identity. However, wearing a face covering is still acceptable for religious or medical reasons. Columbia also hired 36 security officers who have special powers to arrest students, and the university continues to rely on New York police for additional security assistance.

According to experts, some universities will try to find alternative funding sources.

“Universities have tried for years to diversify their funding sources. The two most likely sources are increasing enrolment]to get more tuition dollars] and trying to generate more donations”, said Kelchen.

After India announced the day before, Pakistan threatened to suspend all bilateral agreements with India, including the 1972 Simla Agreement. In retaliation, Pakistan threatened to do so on Thursday in retaliation.

The Simla Agreement was a peace accord signed by the two countries a few months after Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan.

Pakistan’s top civil-military decision-making body, Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), issued a warning to India that any disruption to its water supply would be regarded as “an act of war,” adding that it was ready to respond “with full force across the entire spectrum of national power.”

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, and other government officials and commanders of its military forces, led the NSC meeting that took place on Thursday in Islamabad.

The NSC statement mirrored actions announced by India on Wednesday, and included the closure of the Wagah Border Post with “immediate effect”, the suspension and cancellation of SAARC visas for Indian nationals (excluding Sikh pilgrims), the designation of Indian defence advisors as personae non grata in Pakistan, a reduction in the staff of the Indian High Commission, the closure of Pakistani airspace to Indian airlines, and the suspension of all trade with India.

The actions come in response to India’s response to Tuesday’s tourist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left at least 26 people dead.

The Indian government announced a number of measures following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, including the suspension of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, a pact that allows both nations to irrigate their agricultural lands.

In a media conference, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri also announced the closure of the border with Pakistan, slashed the number of Indian diplomatic staff in Pakistan, ordered Pakistani citizens under the SAARC scheme to leave the country within 48 hours, and expelled Pakistani military attaches posted in India. India has been mistakenly attributed this response as blaming Pakistan for the Kashmir attack.

Since 1947, when the two nations gained independence from British rule, each nation has a claim to the Himalayan territory in its entirety. Since independence, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir.

Ishaq Dar, the deputy prime minister of Pakistan, called the Indian actions “immature and hasty” in a television interview on Wednesday night.

India has not provided any proof that Pakistan was involved in the attack. They have not shown any maturity in their response. This approach is not at all serious. According to Dar, who also serves as deputy prime minister, “they immediately started creating hype.”

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif also rejected India’s implication of Pakistani involvement in the attack.

India’s claim that Pakistan is responsible for the Pahalgam incident is inappropriate. Asif said, “We strongly condemn terrorism, there should be no ambiguity.”

‘ Ready for Indian misadventure ‘

In line with the 2019 Balakot strikes, commentary in the Indian media and discussions among the political leadership have suggested starting a military assault on Pakistan following the Pahalgam attack.

India launched air strikes in Balakot, northern Pakistan, in February 2019 following an attack in Pulwama, Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of more than 40 Indian soldiers. It called militant hideouts.

Pakistan said the strikes only hit an uninhabited forest and responded with its own air strikes near Indian military targets, causing no casualties.

Additionally, both sides used fighter jets, and an Indian aircraft was shot down during a dogfight. Abhinandan Varthaman, the airline’s pilot, was captured and released two days later.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also hinted at a” strong response”, reiterating India’s” zero tolerance “policy on terrorism.

We will also reach out to those responsible for this incident. At the Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on April 23, he said, “We will also reach out to those who have conspired to commit such nefarious acts on the soil of India.”

Analysts and security officials in Pakistan say they believe that Indian military action&nbsp, could now be possible, but said the country was” ready for any Indian misadventure”.

We are keeping up a high level of vigilance and alertness, but unlike India, we don’t want to spread unnecessary gossip about our readiness, a security source told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, noting that he has not been given permission to speak on the subject.

India is mistaken if it believes there won’t be any tit for tat. However, we are both nuclear-armed countries, and Indian aggression could lead to an irresponsible situation. He continued, “Both of us should act with caution.”

The official also raised the possibility of India’s involvement in the attack, noting that it occurred close to 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan, and highlighted the presence of more than 500 000 Indian security personnel in the Kashmir valley.

He also pointed to the recent visit to India by United States Vice President JD Vance, who arrived in the country on Monday with his wife and two children for a four-day visit, taking in a meeting with Prime Minister Modi.

How do you believe that JD Vance’s presence will benefit Pakistan in this attack, particularly? He “asked”. Could this attack lead to the liberation of Indian Kashmir? Why won’t Indian authorities take the time to examine the country? Do they ever accept the security issues they face?

‘ Fight-to-finish syndrome ‘

The two countries, which together have a population of more than 1.5 billion, have previously been at odds with one another due to previous conflicts.

Asfandyar Mir, a security analyst with a focus on South Asia, said as a result of the Indus Waters Treaty’s suspension, Pakistan is likely to reserve its military response in the event of an Indian action.

The Indus Basin is a lifeline for the populations of Pakistan and India, who rely on the river water flowing from the Himalayas for irrigation and agriculture.

However, Mir added that “potentially more visible” military action is becoming more and more likely for India, in line with what it might be in 2019.

He cited the outcry over the attack on Tuesday and the Indian media’s call for a swift response, saying: “India’s domestic mood is strongly geared toward a response. That said, India faces a more acute China challenge than in 2019, so it has to carefully factor that into its response and how an escalation may play out, “he told Al Jazeera.

One of Pakistan’s closest allies is China, India’s northern neighbor. In June 2020, China and India engaged in a minor conflict along their border.

On the other hand, Salman Bashir, former Pakistani envoy to New Delhi, told Al Jazeera he believes the decisions made by India’s Cabinet Committee on Security have been based on a” mistaken assumption “about Pakistan’s weakness.

These indicate a “fight-to-the-finish syndrome,” which is based on wishful thinking and naivete. But I anticipate a mature and appropriate response from Pakistan to the challenge posed by India, he added.

Bashir, who also served as Pakistan’s foreign secretary from 2008 to 2012, said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -led Indian government may have considered military action, but the scale of such moves, given the history between the two countries, presents a dilemma.

Pakistan will never accept this as it is, in any case. We need to anticipate more from the future. Options for diplomacy are rather slim. The former diplomat claimed that a back-channel contact might be effective, but he is unsure whether one exists.

‘ No lessons learned ‘

According to Mir, a security analyst for Washington, DC, Pakistan is more stable than in previous years and is more likely to respond violently to army chief Asim Munir, who has accused India of conducting “proxy operations” in Pakistan.

Pakistan has accused India of starting hostilities on its soil, most recently accusing it of being the mastermind of the separatists’ March march attack on the Jaffar Express.

The 36-hour standoff, in which at least 26 passengers were killed, was Pakistan’s first-ever train hijacking.

Mir claimed that the 2019 crisis has taught both sides nothing but constructive lessons.

The former Pakistani Army chief general Bajwa and India choosing to concentrate on their border with China and their goals to become a global power largely contributed to the relative calm we saw after the end of 2019. But careful observers knew the relationship was only deteriorating, “he said.

If Prime Minister Sharif makes an announcement to visit India, Bashir, the former envoy, said Pakistan might do so in a grand way.

“Gests like Shehbaz Sharif’s announcement of a visit to New Delhi are acceptable in situations where Pakistan-Indians are involved.” The pendulum has swung too far. He said, “We must take all necessary actions to control the situation.”