INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked his country’s independence day today by making blood-curdling threats against Pakistan.

But India’s communists said the truest threat was Mr Modi himself and that 78 years after throwing off British colonial rule, the country faced a choice between “the three pillars of the constitution — secularism, democracy and federalism — and … a fascistic Hindu rashtra [nation] based on a dark, medieval vision of society.”

Speaking from New Delhi’s Red Fort, Mr Modi said India would continue its unilateral suspension of the Indus Water Treaty, which governs India and Pakistan’s respective rights to the Indus and other rivers flowing from the Himalayas.

New Delhi has threatened to breach terms of the agreement by damming or diverting flows away from Pakistan, which is overwhelmingly reliant on rivers that pass through India for its water supply.

“Rivers from India were irrigating the lands of enemies while my country’s farmers and land faced a deficiency of water,” Mr Modi said. “India has now decided that blood and water will not flow together.”

Pakistan says interference with its water supply would be an act of war. Both countries are nuclear-armed.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) accused the government of “building a Hindu supremacist architecture, marginalising religious minorities, strengthening the brutal caste system and suppressing democracy.

“Outside of the government, the Sangh Parivar organisations [community-based networks of activists and street fighters] have undertaken naked violence and intimidation to push this agenda,” the party warned, but it added that “there is a growing tide of opposition to this. The biggest expression of this resistance was seen recently in the July 9 general strike called for by trade unions and farmers’ organisations.”