As if on cue, India and Afghanistan jointly started to escalate their propaganda offensive against Pakistan in the month of July. Almost immediately after the bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, the Indian National Security Adviser declared publicly on television that he had no doubt that Pakistan's ISI was behind the attack, and that the “evil” ISI had to be “destroyed”.  The Indian media has also been widely reporting a New York Times report based on 'undisclosed sources' that the US government has provided the Pakistan government with “evidence” of ISI involvement in the Kabul Indian embassy bomb blast. Shortly afterward, the Indian Foreign Secretary surprised everyone by using the occasion of his Pakistani counterpart's visit to Delhi to say that the relationship between the two countries was “under stress” and was going through a particularly difficult patch. He also accused “leaders” of Pakistan of engaging in “polemics” against India. 

These accusations by top bureaucrats have been followed by a series of reports that Pakistani armed forces were violating the border truce that has been in place since 2003 and were engaging in “unprovoked” firing across the Line of Control (LOC).  The terrorist bomb blasts in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad were also the occasion for hysterical speculation in the media that the ISI was targeting various Indian cities in the run-up to Independence Day.

Each of the recent verbal attacks on Pakistan by the Indian state has been matched by the US puppet chief in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who has also been repeatedly charging Pakistan with sponsoring terrorism in Afghanistan. In the recent SAARC Summit meeting held in Colombo, both the Indian and Afghanistan Prime Ministers made terrorism the centrepiece of their speeches.

These various statements and charges coming one after the other are not a coincidence, but point to a definite, coordinated escalation of pressure against Pakistan which is led by US imperialism.  In recent times, the US has been turning the screws on Pakistan, threatening to send its forces in Afghanistan over the border in pursuit of militants fighting the US presence there.  It has even bombed border areas, leading to the deaths of several Pakistani civilians.  Not just Bush, but both the candidates for the coming US presidential elections have also threatened to bomb Pakistani territory and send their troops over the border if they did not get more “cooperation” from Pakistan. Both the Pakistani government and public opinion have reacted angrily to such threats against their sovereignty.

What seems clear is that the current situation of domestic political instability in Pakistan is being used to mount intense pressure on Pakistan. The US imperialists want Pakistan to fall completely in line with their designs in the region, while simultaneously wanting to cement its growing ties with the Indian state. The Indian government is dovetailing its moves with US imperialism to achieve its objective of seeing that Pakistan poses no obstacle to its geo-strategic interests. For instance, in its current drive to push through the nuclear deal, India has been vehemently opposed to Pakistan claiming parity with India as a “responsible” nuclear weapons state. It lobbied intensively to see that Pakistan could not open its mouth to oppose the deal at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

On the domestic front, the government in India is planning a series of anti-people measures in the name of pushing through further reforms. Sabre-rattling against Pakistan, along with the fomenting of communal and sectarian violence, are old methods used by the ruling class to divert public anger when it is planning a major offensive against the people's interests. 

The working class and people of India must not get drawn into these renewed efforts to increase tension in India's relations with Pakistan. Developments of the past few years have confirmed that the peoples of India and Pakistan deeply desire to live in peace and friendship with each other. The imperialist aspirations of the Indian ruling class, to become part of the league of big imperialist powers and dominate the other countries of our neighbourhood, is a roadblock to this desire of the Indian and Pakistani peoples to live in peace and harmony with each other.