India’s short-sightedness

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s oft-repeated mantra of ‘epicentre of terrorism’ against Pakistan ultimately ended up in a tit-for-tat response from Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The minister called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the ‘butcher of Gujarat’. Ideally, such an ugly situation should not have happened. But the diplomatic history of India and Pakistan is replete with bitter moments, and it is only growing with the onset of the Hindutva majoritarian mindset rooted in hatred, Islamophobia and hegemonism.

It all started with the Indian presidency of the UN Security Council in December, which is also the last month of India’s two-year membership of the council. When holding the presidency, the members usually have ‘special events’ around their issues or issues of regional interest. India chose to hold two events on December 14 and 15, on ‘UN reforms’ and ‘counter-terrorism’, respectively.

On the first high-level open debate titled ‘Maintenance of International Peace and Security: New Orientation for Reformed Multilateralism (NORMS)’, India made a pitch for its candidature based on its size, economy and new status as a ‘donor’ state. The latter ‘status’ was acquired through donations of Covid vaccines and 150,000 tons of wheat to different countries. In return, India has been asking for support for its candidature for the UN Security Council. Claiming to be the fifth economy in the world, India figures nowhere among the first 10 donor countries, which donate billions of dollars without making a song and dance about their contribution.

FM Bilawal was right when he challenged India’s claim as a permanent member advising the world body that “we must adhere to the principle of sovereign equality of all and not the superiority of some.” He apprehended that adding new permanent members would multiply the possibility of “paralysis in the Security Council”, as seen in the past when the forum had been unable to act due to differences among its permanent members.

Pakistan’s foreign minister’s argument against India and that too at the latter’s special event must have been embarrassing and unpalatable for the Indians. Bilawal’s demand from the world body to implement its resolutions on the Kashmir issue and deliver on its commitment to peace in the region, and ‘prove that multilateralism can succeed’ must have further embarrassed the Indian EAM, presiding over the council session. Surprisingly, amongst the prominent permanent seat aspirants (Japan, Germany, Brazil, and South Africa), India is the only country violating the UN Security Council resolutions on the Kashmir dispute. Acceptance of Indian candidature will be tantamount to awarding the aggressor and justifying the act of occupation.

The second high-level briefing on the theme ‘Threats to International Peace and Security Caused by Terrorist Acts: Global Approach to Counter Terrorism Challenges and Way Forward’, proved to be more lethal for India when Mr Jaishankar, in his acerbic style, repeated his diatribe against Pakistan by calling it the “epicentre of terrorism”. India chose the above theme to further build on the deliberations of the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) meeting, which took place in Mumbai and Delhi in October. The Delhi Declaration adopted at the end of the special session of the CTC in India had anti-Pakistan undertones.

Having served in Pakistan’s Mission to the UN over two decades ago, one is reminded of the Indian habit of shooting one in their own feet when taking on Pakistan. The December 15 event could be dubbed in the same category when Bilawal had to tell the world about the true face of India. He called Prime Minister Modi the “butcher of Gujarat”, a harsh but realistic title not coined by Bilawal, but by most Muslims of India and objective Hindus.

After the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan last year, the issue of terrorism has taken a back seat. The Ukraine crisis is the new talk of the town in the Western world. Therefore, blinded by anti-Pakistan rhetoric, Mr Jaishankar’s ‘epicentre of terrorism’ mantra hardly had any takers. If, after sacrificing 80,000 Pakistanis in the war on terror, Pakistan is still a culprit and ‘epicentre of terror’, then Mr Jaishankar only ridiculed himself.

Bilawal’s retort to Mr Jaishankar was not a contrived rhetoric, but a statement of fact reminding the world that Modi, an RSS Parcharak, was banned till 2014 in North America and Europe for his role in the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Indian Gujarat. Since Modi became the prime minister of India, he has enjoyed indemnity in the Western capitals — a duplicitous, but profitable approach for the champions of democracy and human rights.

As for the hate-based agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), this organisation has its tentacles in most of Europe and North America. The RSS’ history of hate against minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, has gradually gained populist traction in the country. Consequently, an environment of fear and uncertainty prevails amongst the minorities. The RSS apologists defend it as a social organisation, conveniently ignoring that this very organisation was involved in the murder of Mahatma Gandhi; its activists destroyed the Babri Mosque, followed by a series of pogroms committed against Muslims all across India. In Mumbai, Muslims bore the brunt as hundreds were killed, while 70 perished in the Samjhota Express incident in which passengers, mostly Pakistanis, were set ablaze. The accused belonging to the RSS were released when the Modi government came to power. The Gujarat massacre in 2002 happened under the supervision of Prime Minister Modi – then the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. Shouldn’t a Nuremberg like trial also be held against the RSS?

Claiming to be the world’s ‘largest and oldest’ democracy, India fails to explain the curse of casteism, which is unique to India. Over 200 million Indian Hindus are condemned to live as low-caste, untouchable humans in the so-called largest democracy. A simple survey of matrimonial ads published in Indian newspapers bear testimony to how casteism is alive and thriving under the tutelage of the RSS. Media freedom is worse than it was under Indira Gandhi’s emergency; journalists are threatened or lynched. So much so that the RSS dared to attack Muslims in the UK’s Leicester city in September when scuffles broke out between Hindu and Muslim groups, following days of ‘disturbances’ in the aftermath of the India-Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match on August 28.

India may cease to remain a member of the UN Security Council at the beginning of the new year, but it has left a bitter taste at the fag-end of its tenure. By raising hype against Pakistan, the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), under the hawkish supervision of the RSS, may garner more support as it eyes the 2024 elections. Undoubtedly, the RSS agenda of Islamophobia is likely to grow more, giving its Parcharaks an excuse to show Pakistan in bad light, and simultaneously enhance its repression against the people of Kashmir and Muslims elsewhere in India. Regretfully, for the time being, Pakistan-India relations have plunged to a new low.

The writer is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Iran and UAE and is currently the Senior Research Fellow at IPRI