Pakistan’s well-established public relations apparatus has launched an aggressive campaign against India’s plan to optimise the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) on the Western Rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab). Pakistan’s rhetoric has grown increasingly alarmist, employing scare tactics such as describing India’s actions as “weaponisation of water” and issuing dire warnings like “cutting off India’s hand” if water supplies are severed. Some officials have gone even further, warning that any interference with water flows would constitute an “act of war” with possible nuclear retaliation.

Pakistan has also sought to internationalise the treaty by bringing up the climate crisis and related issues. The arguments are designed to garner wider international sympathy, at a time when water security is a global concern. In an article in the Washington Post in January 2009, Asif Zardari, who is president now as he was then, while pleading to the US president Barack Obama to recognise Pakistan’s role in the US’s war on terrorism and regional stability, seized the opportunity to raise water concerns with India. “The water crisis in Pakistan is directly linked to relations with India. Resolution could prevent an environmental catastrophe in South Asia, but failure to do so could fuel the fires of discontent that lead to extremism and terrorism.”

Like it or not, Pakistan does what it does best: playing the victim and framing the issue as a matter of international law, humanitarian rights, and downstream vulnerability.

This........

© hindustantimes