Sushma’s speech

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj’s speech at UNGA’s 71th session focused primarily on the positive initiatives taken by the Indian government to address domestic issues. The foreign minister diverted the attention of the world leaders from the atrocities in Indian-held Kashmir. Although Sushma Swaraj denounced terrorism and stressed that a nation should be judged by its actions and inactions, she conveniently forgot the plight of Kashmiris facing violence on which India has been silent for so long.

She clarified that India’s invitations to the prime minister of Pakistan were unconditional. All in all, her speech was biased and put India in a positive light by boasting about the country’s remarkable achievements.

Zaheer Ahmed Cheema

Wazirabad

*****

Only a day after Narendra Modi’s speech vowing to isolate Pakistan internationally, India swung into action. Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly where she told the world to identify those who nurture, peddle and export terrorism and to isolate them for doing so. By this Swaraj obviously did not mean the state terrorism inflicted on Kashmir, which she defended as an integral part of Kashmir. It was her reference to the arrest of Bahadur Ali, a Lashkar-e-Taiba member who was arrested by India in July, as proof that Pakistan exports terrorism. First, it is telling that India only has one person in custody when Modi claimed in his speech that it had foiled dozens of terror attacks originating from Pakistan. Second, Pakistan has never denied that it has a militant problem – indeed no country has suffered as much from the scourge of militancy nor has any country sacrificed as many soldiers in the fight to defeat it. But drawing a straight line from the presence of militant groups in Pakistan to accusations that the government nurtures them requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

Swaraj’s claim that Kashmir is an integral part of India doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either. India, of course, ignores the existence of resolutions against Kashmir much as it ignores the indigenous movement for freedom. Swaraj predictably batted away accusations of human rights abuses in Kashmir, in a single sentence wiping away decades of mass graves, killings of civilians, curfews, curbs on media and most recently the blinding of children by rubber pellets. Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi pointed all this out on Twitter and explained how it was disingenuous to compare Kashmir to Balochistan, as Swaraj did. Without even trying to deny the Pakistani state’s conduct in Balochistan, only one of these two regions is the subject of multiple UN resolutions and only one of these two regions is disputed territory. Swaraj was trying to muddy the waters and change the subject. She should not be allowed to get away with her half-truths and outright lies.

Nasir Hassan

Karachi