Pakistan is stepping up a high-decibel battle of words with India and threatening that stopping the waters of the Indus would be tantamount to an act of war.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif let rip the volley of words Tuesday, warning that if India made any move to change the flow of the Indus, “You will be again taught such a lesson that you will be left holding your ears.”
His tough talking speech came a day after PPP chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari let loose a fusillade of verbal missiles at India. The heated speeches from both the politicians came after Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir attacked India during a speech to a mainly Pakistani-American audience in Tampa, Florida.
Pakistan is convinced that it got the better of India or forced a draw in the Four-Day War and that has partly led to the new fighting tone from across the border. Sharif insisted that: “Our air force shot down six of their jets, among which four of them were Rafales.”
Building on the theme of Pakistan’s supposed success in the Four-Day War, Sharif added : “The way we smashed the enemy in this conflict, they will remember it for a lifetime.” The prime minister insisted that a “new Pakistan” had emerged after the war in which he claimed Pakistan’s armed forces had defeated India.
Both Sharif and Zardari Bhutto focused a large part of their attack on India’s putting the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance.
“I want to tell the enemy today that if you threaten to hold our water, then keep this in mind that you cannot snatch even one drop from Pakistan,” Sharif told an audience at an event connected with International Youth Day in Islamabad.
In a similar aggressive tone, Bhutto Zardari declared that, “If Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces an attack on Indus, he attacks our history, our culture and our civilisation.” Bhutto Zardari was quoted saying this by the Express Tribune but it’s not clear which culture and civilisation he had in mind, especially since his country was only founded in 1947.
However, he did also push the claim that abrogating the IWT was an attack on the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Bhutto Zardari even bluntly raised the spectre of war between the two countries, saying: “If war is waged, then from the land of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai we will send a message to the Modi government that we do not retreat, we do not bow down, and if you dare think about launching an attack on the Indus River, then the people of every province of Pakistan will be ready to confront you.”
Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai was a Sindhi Sufi mystic and also a poet.
India’s ministry of external affairs has declined to be drawn into this war of words and the thinking appears to be that, “We have made our position clear. And this is best ignored.”
There is a new mood of ebullience across the border. Nevertheless, Pakistan’s leaders appear to be accepting their own shortcomings and Field Marshal Munir speaking in Tampa, Florida used an unusual analogy to compare his country and India, saying that, “India is like a shining Mercedes coming on a highway like Ferrari but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car who is going to be the loser?”
On August 8 the Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled against India saying that the Indus Waters Treaty should not be abrogated without agreement from both sides. However, Indian experts point out that one of the treaty’s weaknesses is that it has no expiry date.
