India, May 12 -- While the India-Pakistan ceasefire, agreed through the director general of military operations (DGMO) channels and reportedly brokered by the US, on May 10 ended the rapidly escalating military hostilities between the two sides, India-Pakistan relations may have changed in fundamental ways between the Pahalgam attack on April 22 and the ceasefire on the May 10. And it will take a great deal of diplomacy for the two sides to go back to where they were on the day of the terror attack (i.e., the minimal relations), let alone going back to normalcy and dialogue. But most importantly, Pahalgam and after has fundamentally transformed the terms of engagement between the two sides, and to India's advantage. Let's quickly recall how things stood between India and Pakistan on the day of the attack. Despite unresolved tensions, functional mechanisms were in place: A stable ceasefire, adherence to the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), several functional confidence building measures (CBMs), and an open Wagah-Attari border with limited travel. Senior diplomatic officials (minus high commissioners) were present in respective capitals, and there were expectations that some form of discussions on Kashmir would be plausible someday. On April 23, a day after the attack took place, New Delhi announced that it was putting the IWT in abeyance, closing the Attari-Wagah border, and cancelling the posts of defence attaches, among other such measures. The ceasefire between the nuclear-armed neighbours eventually broke down, and Pakistan threatened to suspend the Simla agreement of 1972. Fast forward to May 11. The hostilities have ended, and a ceasefire is in place. But what exactly does this ceasefire do, and what is it that it doesn't? The ceasefire agreed upon on May 10 is a technical agreement between the two DGsMO to end military attacks against each other that includes firing and shelling on the Line of Control (LoC), use of drones, missiles and other long-range weapons against each other, and so on. What the ceasefire does not entail is more important to the argument I am making here. The ceasefire agreement of May 10 doesn't undo the measures India took on April 23 or Pakistan thereafter. The ceasefire is a technical instrument, not a political one - DGsMO are not authorised to enter into political agreements. That is for the respective foreign offices to do, which they have not done. Put differently, the status quo ante bellum between India and Pakistan as on April 22 has not been reinstated. And, as a result, there is a new status quo between India and Pakistan today. This means that Ithe WT will continue to be in abeyance, with India dealing with the river waters as it pleases, unwilling to share hydrological data with Pakistan, thereby triggering long-term implications for Pakistan's economy and domestic politics. More crucially, the suspension of the IWT has the potential to fundamentally transform the structure of India-Pakistan diplomacy going forward. In announcing the suspension of the IWT, India stated that the treaty would not be reinstated unless Pakistan "credibly and irreversibly" ceases support for cross-border terrorism against India. This can, of course, be changed either by India unilaterally undoing the suspension of the treaty or doing so after negotiations with Pakistan. But the ceasefire agreement of May 10 doesn't cover this. In that sense, for New Delhi, the revival of the IWT will now be a major bargaining chip with Pakistan. Simply put, if Pakistan wants water from the Indus basin rivers, it will have to concede to India's demands on terrorism. While Kashmir is an emotive issue for Pakistan, water is one of life and death - literally and figuratively -- for the people of Pakistan. So, while Pakistan may continue to harp on the Kashmir question going forward, their real objective would be to get India to reverse its decision on the IWT, with the latter becoming far more substantive than the former. Therefore, going forward, the IWT is bound to replace Kashmir as the key point of conversation between the two sides. Let me rephrase that: With the singular act of suspending the IWT, New Delhi may have replaced Kashmir with water as the central issue in India-Pakistan relations, thereby changing the terms of their bilateral engagement. Delhi did something similar in the Simla agreement of 1972 signed after the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war. After the war ended, it refused to accept the territorial status quo ante bellum (unlike after the 1965 war) thereby changing the name of the border in Kashmir from ceasefire line to line of control (LoC). In doing so, India refused to entertain third party mediation in Kashmir and has since ignored the presence of the UN observers in Jammu and Kashmir for, in the Indian argument, the job of the UN observers was to monitor the ceasefire line in Kashmir that had ceased to exist. In sum, the terror attack in Pahalgam and what followed mean two things for India Pakistan relations. One, while the attack may have brought some international attention to the Kashmir issue which Pakistan was keen on, India may have deftly removed Kashmir from the negotiating table as Pakistan will now be forced to focus on the IWT instead of Kashmir. Pakistan needs water and India wants an end to terrorism. So, the new terms of engagement for bilateral conversations would be Pakistan ending terrorism for the Indian provision of water, instead of India agreeing to have a dialogue on Kashmir for Pakistan agreeing to end terrorism. Second, India has demonstrated that when it comes to a conflict between India and Pakistan, the initiation of hostilities lies at the sub-conventional level, not at the conventional level. And that any future sub-conventional attacks will be met with a conventional response. The onus is on Pakistan now to ensure that there are no sub-conventional attacks if it seeks to avoid Indian conventional responses. Unfortunately, it took a major military crisis and the loss of many lives to drive home the point that acts of terrorism will be responded to with conventional force. But then, establishing deterrence is not without its costs, as is maintaining it....