Will India and Pakistan “Do the Right Thing” in 120 degree Temps?
This very week, climate change is an immediate threat multiplier for the world's most dangerous border
by Lowell Bliss May 01, 2025
“And now, here’s the point where we must also factor in climate change. . .”
First, no shame if you can’t keep up with the headlines, but “the world’s most dangerous border” is under threat again. On April 22, militants attacked a group of tourists in Indian Kashmir, near the town of Pahalgam. Twenty-six people were brutally killed. While not similar in scale, dynamics are similar to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2024. Two set of antagonistic religionists are living out a decades-long drama on land which each considers to be in some way illegitimately-occupied. Despite disavowals from Islamabad, India is trying to discern the role of Pakistan in the attacks. Repeated incidents of gunfire between Indian and Pakistani military forces along the Line of Control (LoC) has been reported over the last six days. India is contemplating a retaliation, much like how Israel had to plan one. In fact, yesterday at midnight local time, Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said at a news conference: “Pakistan has credible intelligence that India intends carrying out military action against Pakistan in the next 24-36 hours on the pretext of concocted and baseless allegations of involvement in the Pahalgam incident."
The reason that the border between India and Pakistan has been called “the world’s most dangerous” is because both nations possess nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistan have fought four major wars since 1947 and have often exchanged fire across the LoC even during times of peace. Neither is this the first time that a BJP Government has had to contemplate retaliation against terrorism that they believed was birthed in Pakistan. On December 13, 2001, five Jaish-e-Mohammed militants attacked the House of Parliament in New Delhi. India would eventually deploy troops to Kashmir and Punjab in what was India's largest military mobilisation since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. I was still living in India at the time; it was tense.
But that was 2001; this is 2025. That was Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee; now is Narendra Modi. In 2001, the US played more of a de-escalating role in the region, though I see that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reached out and called for caution. Additionally, today, we have the model of Israel retaliating against Gaza. Nonetheless, the one contextual difference for this conflict in 2025 that I want to highlight is climate change. From here on out, I both fear and advise, there must be a moment when someone says, “We must also factor in climate change.” I’ll make two quick observations about India and Pakistan in these seven days from April 29 to May 5, 2025.
First, the non-military responses that India has already set in motion may prove to be more deadly in the long run, not unakin to the ultimate devastation of Gaza. India has suspended a water sharing treaty that has existed for 65 years. As the BBC reports, the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty “allocated the three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – of the Indus basin to India, while 80% of the three western ones – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.” India is the upstream country and thus could hold back or divert the Indus basin waters. Meanwhile more than 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and one-third of its hydropower is dependent on the flow of this water, as per the treaty. India has been wanting to re-negotiate this treaty and there are reports that they are, without transparency, nibbling away at its edges already. Now India has the excuse to abrogate the treaty altogether, leaving their enemy parched on a shared sub-continent, the one region of the world projected to be the hardest hit by climate change impacts.
Secondly, temperatures from April 29 to May 5 are forecast to top out at 50°C (120°F) in Pakistan and 47°C (116°F) in India. Heatwaves are a deadly climate change impact, but as militaries around the world have recognized for a couple decades now: “climate change is also a threat multiplier.” In this week’s case along the world’s most dangerous border, the heat itself is the threat multiplier. Numerous studies indicate, as per this headline in The Nation: “As global temperatures rise, so does the potential for violence: Hotter temperatures can increase aggressive behaviors, making violence more likely during the accelerating climate crisis.”
Admittedly these studies are about urban shootings, domestic violence, and sexual violence. Nonetheless, I have been inside government buildings in New Delhi during a heatwave. Even the air conditioning couldn’t keep up, let alone my patience at provocation. I picture Prime Minister Modi and his cabinet ministers sweating through their kurtas, and I pray that God will give them a cool-headedness that belies 47°C temperatures.
The reference to “Do the Right Thing” in my headline is an allusion to Spike Lee’s 1989 movie by the same title. In the film, temperatures in Brooklyn have risen above 100°F. Racially-mixed, and yes, racially-charged even on cooler days, the community has found a way to move along just fine. But today is too hot. And when an innocent man—the mentally-challenged Radio Rahim—is killed, the provocation is too much. Mookie, played by Lee, throws a trashcan through the window of the pizzeria that employs him. A riot breaks out. The fires just make the day even hotter.
Even after multiple viewings of this movie, I’m still not quite sure what Spike Lee means by “doing the right thing.” It is what I so badly want India and Pakistan to each do. It’s what I want Israel and Gaza to do. Yet, I do understand the reality that knowing what the right thing to do and having the will (patience, virtue, wisdom) to do it is rendered more difficult when waters run unpredictably, and temperatures leave us on the edge.
