Pak digs its Indic roots for Indus waters, gets some Aussie, British help

British and Australian envoys have recently highlighted Pakistan's heritage through funding and a Taxila visit. The timing is suspicious. Islamabad has been increasingly invoking the Indus Valley Civilisation during the Indus waters dispute with India.

The British High Commissioner to Pakistan this week announced a fund to protect Pakistan's cultural heritage. The move by the British government comes right after the Australian envoy visited the historical site of Taxila and highlighted Pakistan's "extraordinary" heritage. Has Pakistan resorted to an international toolkit while suddenly highlighting its pre-Islamic history, especially the Indus Valley Civilisation, amid a battle for Indus waters?

While conservation and promotion of cultural heritage is important, Pakistan, especially since the reign of Zia-ul-Haq, emphasised that its history began from Muhammad bin Qasim's conquest of Sindh in 711 CE. Since April 2025, when India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) after the terror attack in Pahalgam, Pakistan has begun a concerted campaign highlighting its Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) connection. Some emotionally charged Pakistani leaders gave away why they were doing so.

In recent months, Pakistanis harping on their link to the IVC and the Indus have reached a crescendo. On global platforms, Pakistan has been attacking India's decision to keep the IWT in abeyance.

Therefore, the timing of the recent events is raising the question whether Pakistan has activated a toolkit.

Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Timothy Kane, visited Taxila on June 19. Kane described the city as a centre of learning that connected "people, ideas and cultures from across the region and beyond" and a reminder of Pakistan's "rich heritage".

On June 24, the British High Commissioner to Pakistan, Jane Marriott, posted a video on the official X handle, announcing the second round of funding to safeguard Pakistani heritage. The first round took place way back in October 2023.

"Pakistan’s cultural heritage is extraordinary and worth protecting! Pleased to announce applications for the Cultural Protection Fund are now open. Led by the British Council in Pakistan and the UK Government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Fund supports organisations safeguarding heritage at risk, with inspiring projects across Pakistan," said Marriott.

Interestingly, BBC News Hindi on Thursday (June 25) released a video feature on the promotion of Sanskrit in Pakistan.

"Since Partition, Sanskrit is now finding a place in Pakistan's higher education. Two Sanskrit courses have already been taught at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. From this session, Sanskrit will become a regular part of the curriculum, and Dr Shahid Rashid is working to take this initiative forward," it posted on X.

In the video, Rashid shows books published decades ago in Lahore's Anarkali Bazaar to say that the city was a hub of printing of Sanskrit books and books from there went across Hindustan. "The narrow-minded belief that Sanskrit isn't our tongue, and is a foreign tongue, should be discarded," said Rashid in the video.

A user on X, who claims to be "a custodian of the Indus Valley Civilisation", amplified the Sanskrit argument and posted on his X saying that, "Sanskrit evolved in Pakistan, not India. The Sanskrit grammarian Panini was born in a village near Swabi, Pakistan. He taught at Taxila University, which is also in Pakistan.

"Sanskrit died 600 years before the word India was coined. The word India also originated from a Pakistani river," he added.

Earlier, BBC Urdu, while reporting on the controversy surrounding NCERT's decision to cover the Indus civilisation's Dancing Girl statue that is housed in National Museum, New Delhi, referred to it as a "Sindhi dancing girl," linking the artefact to Pakistan's Sindhi cultural heritage.

Pakistan was part of India and has a shared heritage. Its birth was on the basis of the Two-Nation Theory, which, at its core, holds that Hindus and Muslims are two nations. While Muhammad Ali Jinnah partitioned India based on that theory, it was Zia who turned Pakistan into a hardline Islamic state.

The Two-Nation Theory has also been used for dog-whistling by Pakistani military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir just ahead of the Pahalgam terrorist attack in which terrorists slaughtered innocent civilians after segregating them based on their religion.

Therefore, it is indeed curious when a military-civilian hybrid state tries to do an about-turn and starts highlighting its pre-Islamic past.

WHY PEOPLE ARE QUESTIONING PAKISTAN'S INTENTIONS ON INDUS VALLEY?

People did question why the UK was funding such a project in Pakistan after Jane Marriott's video.

"Why is my tax money funding heritage in Pakistan? Pakistan can do that itself," said a person from England on X, sharing the video.

Indians were more sceptical and alleged a global nexus.

Nandini wrote on X that Pakistan's "national cultural heritage is precisely 79 years old", and that it had spent all these years convincing itself that it was Arab, Turkic, Persian, and/or Afghan, rejecting the Indic inheritance.

"Then, almost overnight, like last month, it seems to have suddenly rediscovered its Indic roots, helped along in no small measure by enthusiastic foreign cheerleaders such as yourself, and the Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan," wrote Nandini.

"Well, the master plan now stands exposed. Here is the UK Envoy announcing a fund to protect 'Pakistani' culture. Now West wants to declare Pak as the real civilisation-state," wrote Monica Verma, commentator and internet personality, on X.

People also see the sudden taking to the pre-Islamic past as a combined project of Pakistan's hybrid regime. A Tibetan refugee claimed it was a propaganda project of the Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistani military's media wing.

"So, as I said. DG ISPR is on a new mission to claim IVC now. We should stop them reaching an international audience and spreading their fake ass theory. Let's do it? Are you all ready?" said Eason Tenzin on X.

HOW PAKISTAN HAS EXPOSED ITS PROPAGANDA ON INDUS WATERS

After India put the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance, the chief of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, voiced Pakistan's opposition to India's decision with a civilisational example.

The leader of the country that for years taught its students that Pakistan's history began with the Sindh conquest of Muhammad bin Qasim in 712 CE invoked Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Valley Civilisation and claimed that Pakistan was the "true custodian" of the Indus.

Bhutto suggested that it was by this virtue that Pakistan had a historic right to the Indus as its "defender".

These developments highlighted the newfound love for the Indus Valley Civilisation and its pre-Islamic history by Pakistan's hybrid civilian-military regime and sections of its society.

There is an increase in Pakistan's invoking of the Indus Valley Civilisation to bolster its claim as the primary inheritor of the Indus legacy, and it is using the Indus Valley narrative to challenge India and strengthen its claims over the waters of the Indus River system.

"Blood and water cannot flow together," Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said after the Pahalagam terror attack, which killed 28 innocent civilians in Jammu and Kashmir.

Since then, Pakistan has condemned the move as "illegal and an act of war". Islamabad has been warning that any disruption of water flows would be met with a firm response, including potential military action. It has also accelerated diplomatic efforts at the UN, engaged the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a media campaign portraying itself as a victim of what it called "weaponisation of water".

Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif launched a series of verbal attacks against India, often threatening a war on New Delhi over the decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty.

That is why the envoys talking about Pakistan's rich pre-Islamic heritage brings up the question if the hybrid Islamabad-Rawalpindi regime has activated a global toolkit as it fights India on the Indus Waters Treaty.

- Ends