Strongly hitting back at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s rant at the UN General Assembly, India has said its citizens do not need anyone else to speak on their behalf and “least of all those who have built an industry of terrorism from the ideology of hate.” Fielding a junior diplomat in its right of reply to Imran Khan’s address to the United Nations, India mocked Khan's angry presentation before the General Assembly as “hate speech” coming from a “medieval mindset” from a country that has “monopolised the entire value chain of the industry of terrorism”.
India’s reply, given by Vidisha Maitra, a junior diplomat posted as First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of India at the United Nations, conveyed New Delhi’s full fury, virtually denouncing Pakistan a terrorist state using evidence built up by the global community, after Khan had lit into India with a theatrical presentation centring on the Kashmir issue, including overwrought scenarios of massacres leading to nuclear war.
India said, “Prime Minister Khan’s threat of unleashing nuclear devastation qualifies as brinkmanship, not statesmanship. Even coming from the leader of a country that has monopolized the entire value chain of the industry of terrorism, Prime Minister Khan’s justification of terrorism was brazen and incendiary. For someone who was once a cricketer and believed in the gentleman’s game, today’s speech bordered on crudeness of the variety that is reminiscent of the guns of Darra Adam Khel.” Darra Adam Khel, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is infamous for its illegal guns bazaar.
Taking up on Khan’s statement that his government has dismantled the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan, which could be verified by UN observers, India posed the following questions that Pakistan can respond to as a precursor to the proposed verification: Can Pakistan confirm the fact that it is home to 130 UN-designated terrorists and 25 terrorist entities listed by the UN as of today? Will Pakistan acknowledge that it is the only government in the world that provides pension to an individual listed in the al-Qaida and Da’esh sanctions list? Can Pakistan explain why here in New York, its premier bank - the Habib Bank - had to shut shop after it was fined millions of dollars over terror financing? Will Pakistan deny that the Financial Action Task Force has put the country on notice for its violation of 20 of the 27 key parameters?
While affirmative answer to each of the questions is on record, Maitra sneeringly asked the Pakistan PM, dubbed “Taliban Khan” in his own country, whether he would deny to the city of New York that he was an open defender of Osama bin Laden. India also took a dig at Imran on Pakistan’s record on human rights. “Having mainstreamed terrorism and hate speech, Pakistan is trying to play its wild card as the newfound champion of human rights. This a country that has shrunk the size of its minority community from 23% in 1947 to 3% today and has subjected Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiyas, Hindus, Shias, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Balochis to draconian blasphemy laws, systemic persecution, blatant abuse and forced conversions. Their newfound fascination for preaching human rights is akin to trophy hunting of the endangered mountain goat - markhor,” India said.
“Every word spoken from the UNGA podium carries the weight of history, India said. Unfortunately, what we heard today from Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan was a callous portrayal of the world in binary terms. Us vs Them; Rich vs Poor; North vs South; Developed Vs Developing; Muslims vs Others. A script that fosters divisiveness at the United Nations. Attempts to sharpen differences and stir up hatred are, simply put, ‘hate speech’.”
Rarely has the General Assembly witnessed such misuse, rather abuse, of an opportunity to reflect, India said. “Words matter in diplomacy”, India said, and “invocation of phrases such as “pogrom”, “bloodbath”, “racial superiority”, “pick up the gun” and “fight to the end” reflect a medieval mindset and not a 21st century vision.”
