In what is possibly the sharpest castigation of Pakistan on the world stage, India has asserted its right of reply to Prime Minister >Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the UN General Assembly with some rather rough words. Calling >Pakistan a “terrorist state” that is now training “militant proxies” with a “toxic curriculum” at its “Ivy League of terrorism”, the First Secretary at India’s UN mission accused Mr. Sharif of having delivered a “hypocritical” sermon to the Assembly. India pointed out that Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation record, which is marked by “deception and deceit”, hardly gave it the right to speak of India’s eligibility to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group, as Mr. Sharif had done. Finally, India said his championing of Hizbul Mujahideen ‘commander’ Burhan Wani as a “symbol of the latest Kashmiri intifada” was further proof of Pakistan being a state sponsor of terrorism. Mr. Sharif’s speech at the UN was indeed full of gross inaccuracies on the subject of >Jammu and Kashmir , including his reference to the promise of a plebiscite, which in UN annals can only be considered after Pakistan’s troops vacate the territory it currently occupies. Mr. Sharif’s contention that Pakistan is the “principal victim of terrorism” supported, sponsored and financed from abroad was clearly a stretch. While his sympathetic reference to Wani was an affirmation of Pakistan’s support to the Hizbul, it was compounded by his refusal to speak of the 18 Indian >soldiers killed in the Army camp in Uri in an attack allegedly carried out by terrorists from Pakistan. That the Prime Minister of Pakistan should devote more than half his speech at the UN to the Kashmir issue, which Pakistan has long accepted must be resolved bilaterally, was disappointing. However, in a signal of how little such rhetoric matters, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made no reference to it in his speech.
There is, unfortunately, little evidence that India’s response, which elicited loud cheers back home, was regarded any more by the UNGA than Mr. Sharif’s was. Despite the powerful language of India’s retort — which will no doubt be echoed in the address External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj delivers next — the world has little time for a ‘low-intensity’ conflict that has stretched on for almost 70 years. India’s diplomats have fought and struggled for decades to keep Kashmir off the UN’s agenda, and the Centre does no good to its case by bringing the subject back into focus by joining issue with Pakistan in such a high-pitched manner. For the moment, it would be advisable to keep its powder dry and rhetoric sober as India investigates the intelligence and procedural lapses in failing to avert the Uri attack, and weigh its strategic options.
