External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj gave a hard-hitting rebuttal to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech on Wednesday to United Nations General Assembly that largely dealt with India. In her speech, that was delivered from the same platform on Thursday, she told Islamabad point blank that a one-point programme was enough to turn around India-Pakistan relations: give up terrorism and sit down at the negotiating table.
Her 25-minute speech in Hindi at the UNGA set the template for India-Pakistan bilateral relations from New Delhi’s perspective. But there is one subtle discrepancy in what she actually spoke at the UNGA and the English translation of her speech put out by the Ministry of External Affairs.
In her speech, that was beamed live by most Indian TV channels, Swaraj said that India has been facing terrorism for 25 years, suggesting that she takes the cut off year for the beginning of Pakistan-fomented terrorism in India as 1989-90 when terrorism hit Jammu and Kashmir, and is ignoring the previous five years of terror activities that rocked Punjab.
But the English rendering of her speech put out by the MEA quoted her in this context as saying: “A threat that India has lived with for more than a quarter of a century was tragically brought home to this very city in the autumn of 2001. Since then, the proliferation of terrorist acts, the rise of extremist ideologies, and the impunity of states that back it have not been adequately countered.”
She then took the Pakistani Prime Minister head on.
This is what she said: “Yesterday the Prime Minister of Pakistan proposed what he termed as a four-point new peace initiative. I would like to respond. We do not need four points, we need just one – give up terrorism and let us sit down and talk.
“This was precisely what was discussed and decided by the two Prime Ministers at Ufa this July. Let us hold talks at the level of NSAs on all issues connected to terrorism and an early meeting of our Directors General of Military Operations to address the situation on the border. If the response is serious and credible, India is prepared to address all outstanding issues through a bilateral dialogue.”
This perhaps sums up the Pakistan policy of the current Indian government.
Swaraj also exhorted the international community to not categorise terrorists as “good” or “bad” and underscored the need for “zero tolerance” for terrorism and to not ascribe any religion to terrorists as they have no religion.
“Equally importantly, an international legal regime, under the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism can no longer be held up. 19 years ago, in 1996, India had made this proposal at the United Nations but we have been unable to adopt it and entangled ourselves in the issue of definition. We have to understand that there can be no distinction between good and bad terrorists. Neither can terrorism be linked to any religion. A terrorist is a terrorist; one who commits crimes against humanity cannot have any religion. Therefore, my appeal to all of you is that we should come together in this 70th anniversary year of the United Nations and pledge to unanimously adopt the CCIT,” she said.
She reiterated India’s stand on the issue by saying that India was all for talks with Pakistan but also made it clear that talks and terror cannot go hand in hand.
Swaraj thus articulated that the Modi government won’t consider Pakistan-sponsored terrorism as business as usual and Pakistan will have to give up using terrorism as a means of statecraft before the two South Asian neighbours can sit on the negotiating table to resolve their outstanding bilateral disputes. In other words, the international community should not expect India to smoke the peace pipe with Pakistan till that country completely turns off the terror tap.