UNGA session: What is the ongoing Indo-Pak feud about?
India and Pakistan have been engaged in a war-of-words during the ongoing UN General Assembly session. Latest in the ongoing feud is India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj terming Pakistan "the pre-eminent exporter of terrorism" while addressing the assembly. Hitting back, Pakistani envoy Maleeha Lodhi has termed India "mother of terrorism in South Asia." What's the ongoing feud about? Read on to find out.
Pakistan's PM Abbasi launched the first attack when he accused India of human rights violations in Kashmir and urged the international community to end New Delhi's state-sponsored terrorism in the state. He went on to suggest that India had made over 600 ceasefire violations along the Line of Control since January 2017. He accused India of refusal to open dialogue with Islamabad.
In a spectacular rebuttal to Abbasi, India recently silenced Pakistan over the Kashmir crisis at the UN General Assembly. Courtesy Eenam Gambhir, India's First Secretary of the Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Gambhir highlighted Pakistan's role in boosting global terrorism, and called the nation "Terroristan." She slammed Pakistan's tactic to create distorted narratives and added that "alternative facts do not change reality."
Taking this further, "Why is it that today India is a recognized IT superpower in the world, and Pakistan is recognized only as the pre-eminent export factory for terror?," Swaraj wondered during her address to the UNGA. "What have you produced? You have produced terrorists and terrorist camps," she continued. She also named groups including, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Haqqani network to substantiate her arguments.
Swaraj said that everyone who heard Pakistan PM Abbasi's accusations said, "look who's talking." She slammed Pakistan's envoy who accused India of human rights violations and termed Islamabad, a "champion of hypocrisy" and "the world's greatest exporter of havoc, death, and inhumanity."
Now, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN termed India "the mother of terrorism in South Asia." She accused BJP of murdering thousands of Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat riots and pointed out that the Modi government's right-wing ideology. She slammed India for allowing lynching of Muslims and referred to UP CM Yogi Adityanath as a "fanatic" who heads India's largest state.
Lodhi showed a picture of a woman's face scarred by pellet gun wounds, to draw the international community's attention to human rights violations in Kashmir. She conveyed that Pakistan would be open to a bilateral dialogue if the Kashmir issue is up for discussion.
Neither country is a saint when it comes to human rights violations. They can always accuse each other back and forth on this. India has a strong case against Pakistan as a state-sponsor of terrorism, while similar arguments from Islamabad against New Delhi are extremely weak. Both countries accuse each other of stalling talks; bilateral relations will continue to deteriorate until talks resume.
