Pakistan’s junior foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday accused the world of ensuring “generous supply” of arms to India. Khar, who was speaking at the United Nations Thursday, said this was threatening South Asia’s stability. But some Pakistanis seem to disagree with their foreign minister.
Reacting to Khar statement, a Twitter user said: “While India spends money to modernis its military, Pakistan’s military grab a considerable percentage of the Budget and “additionally run highly-profitable diversified businesses”. The user said their military still could not protect their borders like India does because “priorities are political and personal gains do not serve (the) nation”.
Khar’s remarks come as India has ramped up spending to modernise the military with Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlining the commitment to boost domestic production to supply forces deployed along two contentious borders with Pakistan and China.https://t.co/MI2mIFBYZn
— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) March 2, 2023
Another Twitter user with the handle @VikramAt1 said: “They are buying duh, they are not broke.”
Addressing the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament on Thursday, Khar – without naming India – said, “The largest country in the region continues to be a beneficiary of nuclear exceptionalism, in violation of established non-proliferation norms and principles.”
She told the UN panel via videolink from Islamabad that “this country also remains a net recipient of generous supplies of advanced conventional and non-conventional weapons, technologies and platforms”.
She added that the “favours” being done to India were straining South Asia’s security environment as well as Pakistan’s national security.
She then reinforced Pakistan’s “clear vision and policy for a peaceful neighbourhood” and said the country would continue to pursue the “path of peace”.
Later Thursday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a communique highlighted Khar’s concerns about “the troubling trends on display in South Asia, which are straining the security environment; heightening risks to regional peace and stability; reinforcing a sense of impunity; and freezing pathways to conflict resolution through peaceful means”.
Another user pointed out at Pakistan’s prevailing economic crisis — when inflation is at a 58-year high. Nothing is cheap in the country anymore, as common Pakistanis have lamented, while the country desperately tries to negotiate an IMF bailout.
While India was the largest importer of arms globally from 2017 to 2021, the country’s total volume of imports fell by 21 per cent between 2012 and ’16.
This is seen as the fallout of India’s push to manufacture weapons indigenously.
Last year, the Indian Army issued multiple tenders to buy guns, missiles, drones and many other systems from domestic manufacturers in order to meet critical requirements.
“We have invited the Indian defence industry to offer critical defence equipment for emergency procurement. Proposals are being fielded for guns, missiles, drones, counter-drone, loiter munition, communication and optical systems, specialist Vehicles, engineering equipment and alternate energy resources,” the Indian Army had said.
India continues to be the world’s biggest buyer of Russian arms, accounting for around 20 per cent of Russia’s sales. Annual arms exports were about $14-15 billion, and the order book has remained steady at around $50 billion, Russian news agency Interfax reported in February.
Meanwhile, the US has actively begun to court India in order to reduce its dependence on Russia.
President Joe Biden wants to see India as a long-term security partner, “despite its reluctance to criticize Russia for its invasion of Ukraine”, Bloomberg quoted a senior US official last year.
The Bloomberg report said: “Washington wants to be seen as a reliable partner for India across the board… and the administration is working with other nations including France to make sure Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has the equipment it needs”.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)