The breathtaking response of India’s First Secretary to the United Nations Eenam Gambhir to the belligerent address of Pakistan’s new prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abassi at the UN General Assembly has left India’s supporters and critics equally spellbound. Exercising India’s right of reply to Abassi’s call for a special envoy to Kashmir while alleging that the “struggle of the people in the region is being brutally suppressed by India,” she said Pakistan is now “Terroristan” – the land of pure terror with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism.
In a speech that virtually demolished Abassi’s sabre-rattling, Ms Gambhir said it was “extraordinary” that the state which protected Osama Bin Laden and sheltered Mullah Omar should have the gumption to play the victim and to expound narratives based on deception and deceit. Ms Gambhir’s stinging rebuttal said “in its short history, Pakistan is a geography synonymous with terror. Its current state can be gauged from the fact that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a leader of the UN designated terrorist organisation Lashkar-i-Taiba, is now sought to be legitimised as a leader of a political party.” Castigating Pakistan Ms Gambhir said this was a country whose counter-terrorist policy was to mainstream and upstream terrorists by either providing safe havens to global terror leaders in its military town or protect them with political careers.
Ms Gambhir has set the stage for External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s UN address on Sept 26 which can be trusted to demolish whatever is left of Pakistan’s case. With US President Donald Trump making no secret of his exasperation with Pakistan’s terror machine, this is indeed the time for India to press on for the UN and the world’s sole superpower US to designate Pakistan as a terror state.
Just as North Korea under dictator Kim Jong-un’s mindless provocations and threats to world peace needs to be suppressed with no holds barred, Pakistan’s record of aiding Pyongyang’s nuclear programme and abetting terror in India, Afghanistan and to some extent Iran deserves to be met with punitive action, the first stage of which should be through strong economic and military sanctions. This is necessary if the world is to be a safer place to stay in. While in the case of North Korea the culprit is an individual, in the case of Pakistan it is the army establishment that is at the root of the country’s recalcitrance. There can be little doubt that Abassi is playing the army’s tune as his predecessors have been forced to do in varying degrees.
