Venkatesh Iyer
NEW DELHI, Oct 15: India and Pakistan were again locked in a verbal duel over Kashmir at the 20th Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers’ virtual conference each accusing the other of “trampling the rights of the religious minority.”
Hitting back at the insinuations of the Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, India’s Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Vikas Swarup without naming any country said “a South Asian state was misusing the multilateral platform by pursuing its own bigoted, ill-conceived, narrow and unilateral agenda.” In an obvious reference to Pakistan, Swarup said, “This also is the same country that has the dubious distinction of becoming synonymous with the phrase “epicentre of terrorism” and hosting the largest number of terrorists proscribed by the United Nations.”
Referring to the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Swarup said what that country was referring to as the “disputed territory” was nothing but its “illegal ownership of a certain part which “sooner or later it would have to vacate. “For such a country to hypocritically preach about religious minority groups elsewhere, while trampling itself upon the rights of its indigenous minorities, was indeed most regrettable and blatant misuse of this august platform,” he said.
His response was to his previous speaker, Qureshi, who too without naming India accused “a state in South Asia” of “targeting religious minority groups. “It has transgressed rights and freedoms of millions and fanned hyper-nationalism to engineer illegal demographic change in the disputed territory.”
On the contrary, Swarup said, India had already demonstrated that it was a “reliable partner” for the world. Referring to the prevailing Corona pandemic, he pointed out that despite being severely impacted, India had kept its supply chains open during this pandemic and supplied medicines and equipment to more than 150 countries. India accounts for 60% of Vaccine production in the world and was committed to facilitate and help the world in fighting the on-going pandemic, he added.
He appreciated the efforts by all member countries in combating racial discriminations and implementing a zero-tolerance policy. “India has always regarded racism and racial discrimination as the anti-thesis of everything. As a nation, we stand for – equality, justice, peace and progress,” he said.
Swarup thanked the United Kingdom, the Chair of the conference, for hosting the meeting and said as a founding member India looked forward to contributing substantively to the initiatives of the Commonwealth.
After his virtual address, Swarup tweeted, “Represented EAM at the 20th #Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting. Held good discussions on the challenges we face today and how Commonwealth members can forge a shared response.”
Anurag Srivastava the official spokesperson MEA also in a tweet stated, “Vikas Swarup, Secretary (West) represented India at the #Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting today. Discussed progress since #CHOGM2018 and looking ahead to #CHOGM2021 in #Rwanda”