By Mohammad Jamil
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi said that India is the mother of terrorism in South Asia. In her response to the allegations of terrorism leveled against Pakistan by India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in her address at the UN General Assembly session in New York, Maleeha Lodhi accused Sushma Swaraj of indulging in an orgy of slander against Pakistan. “Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav has confessed of committing terrorism in Pakistan; year after year does not and cannot conceal or alter the truth. Sushma Swaraj in her vitriol deliberately ignored the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir,” Maleeha Lodhi said. Maleeha Lodhi deserves all the superlatives for presenting Pakistan’s case in the UNGA forcefully and exposing India’s ruses and subterfuges and excesses in the Indian Occupied Kashmir. Last year, following the attack at Uri, Sushma Swaraj at the UNGA also had said that it was time to identify nations who nurture, peddle and export terrorism and isolate them if they don’t join the global fight against terrorism. Pakistan rejected those allegations, maintaining that India was responsible for financing and carrying out subversive activities, especially in Balochistan and Karachi, which it illustrates with the example of Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was arrested in Balochistan last year. Eight Indian ‘undercover operatives’ posted as diplomats in Islamabad were found in November 2016 who were involved in subversive activities, including attempts to disrupt and sabotage CPEC and create fear and chaos in the country.
Although the objective of a foreign policy for any country is to have cordial relations with all countries of the world especially the neighbouring countries, and to safeguard its national security, independence and sovereignty, Pakistan’s foreign policy has been a dismal failure. Unfortunately, our leadership and foreign office could not counter the propaganda waged against Pakistan by India and Afghanistan. Despite having given tremendous sacrifices in the war on terror, the US and the West continue with the litany to do more, and are still pushing Pakistan to the precipice. The problem is that they give overriding consideration to their economic and other interests, as India with 1.2 billion population is an attractive market for them. During PPP regime, members of Obama administration continued with their innuendos. The then British Prime Minister David Cameron during his visit to India had also accused Pakistan of exporting terrorism. While talking to Indian business leaders in Bangalore on July 28, 2010 the British Prime Minister, in reference to Pakistan, had said: “We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world”.
Had he passed such remarks in Britain, one would not have seen debate raging in print and electronic media nor the anger on the street because the nation is quite used to disparaging remarks and the insult heaped on Pakistan by Americans. Of course, his diatribe against Pakistan on Indian soil was intentional and with purpose. At that time, Britain was in the race of supplying Hawk training jets to India, and also wished to secure a deal for supplying jet fighters, which did not materialize. The world has so far shown apathy to what is happening in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
The wholesale orgy of death and destruction that its rampaging military has indulged in so freely in the occupied territory has left not even a single home there without a family tragedy. But the Kashmris have not bent; they stand tall; and their tormenting Indian military stands ignobly dwarfed. Recently with a view to diverting attention from India’s atrocities committed on people of Kashmir and at the same time to denigrate Pakistan, Indian RAW through an advertising agency in Geneva had put up ‘Free Balochistan’ posters and billboards in Geneva. Meanwhile, posters demanding freedom for Jammu and Kashmir and Indian states Tripura, Nagaland and Manipur have appeared on Metro buses and trams in Geneva when the 36th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council was underway in the city. Anyhow, international community must persuade India to resolve the issue, as confrontation between the two nuclear states is fraught with extreme dangers for the region and beyond.
The fact remains that Indian hatred and animosity against the Kashmiri Muslims is deep-seated and its reflections can clearly be seen through Indian repressive tactics including torture, extra-judicial killings, rape and fake encounters by Indian Security Forces in IOK that continue unabated. However, these acts could not break the will of Kashmiris, and they are determined to achieve their objective of their right to self-determination.