UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan on Monday dismissed as “self-delusional” India’s claim to Jammu and Kashmir as its integral part, saying New Delhi’s shenanigans cannot deprive the Kashmiri people of their UN-pledged right to self-determination as set out in Security Council resolutions.
“The tired and trite rhetoric on Jammu and Kashmir is part of this self-delusional and unlimited Indian appetite for paddling alternative reality,” Pakistani delegate Saad Ahmad Warraich told the General Assembly as the 193-member body concluded its unfinished high-level meeting to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations.
“The truth is that Jammu and Kashmir is not part of India – it never was, it never will be,” he said in a sharp response to India’s statement on September 21 when the Assembly meeting was adjourned late at night to meet again to listen to the remaining speakers.
In that September meeting Indian delegate Vidisha Maitra, reacting to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi strong espousal of Kashmir’s freedom from New Delhi’s yoke, accused him of interfering in the internal affairs of India and described Islamabad of being the “epicentre of terrorism.”
“We reject the malicious reference made to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral part of India. If there is an item that is unfinished on the agenda of the UN, it is that of tackling the scourge of terrorism,” Maitra, the Indian delegate, had said.
Exercising his right of reply on Monday when the anniversary meeting resumed, Warraich, a counsellor at the Pakistan to the UN, said, “It is beyond shameful that a country which misses no opportunity to flaunt its so-called credentials, has the temerity to question fundamental tenets of international law, including resolutions of the Security Council. May I remind the Indian representative that it is the very same organ whose permanent membership India covets with such drooling ambition.”
But, he said, he was not surprised not surprised as the international community was used to India’s “duplicitous behaviour.”
“After all, in a country where history can be rewritten to suit a ‘saffronized’ version of reality; where laws can be enacted with the sole objective to legitimize religious ‘discrimination’; where dissident voices can be cowed into obsequiousness and reputable human rights organizations such as Amnesty International can be brazenly forced to shut their operations; where perpetrators of pogroms and massacres can be rehabilitated as the face of modern India; every inconvenient truth can surely be dressed up and garnished in this milieu,” the Pakistan delegate said.
“The Indian representatives can cry themselves hoarse (about Kashmir being India’s integral part) but these shenanigans can neither do away the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination as enshrined in Security Council resolutions – binding commitments that India signed-up to, or the unwavering resolve of the Kashmiri people to rid themselves of the oppressive yolk of Indian occupation.”
“Oct. 27 marks the 73rd anniversary of the illegal Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir – the first act in the tragedy of Kashmir that continues to this day. While India continues to occupy the land and resources of Jammu and Kashmir, it does not rule over the hearts and minds of the valiant people of Kashmir,” Warraich said.
“They (the People of Kashmir) will be free one day.”
Referring to India’s much touted ‘Five-S’ approach to diplomacy — samman (respect), samvad (dialogue), sahayog (cooperation), shanti (peace) and samriddhi (prosperity) — the Pakistan delegate said New Delhi would, in fact, do well to consider another ‘S’ — satya (truth) — the truth of the fascist country’s destabilizing role in the region, the systematic marginalization of its minorities, especially the Muslims, and the reign of oppression and terror in occupied Jammu and Kashmir which cannot be covered up by false espousals.”
