Pakistan misquotes Sushma Swaraj’s statement. Indian liberals follow Pakistan’s narrative

Pakistan as a country has been facing international condemnation for its association with terror groups since the past many decades. Not only is the country suspected of funding these organizations but has also received backlash for providing a safe harbor to these. In the midst of this criticism, the country is now facing international embarrassment as well.  In an effort to somehow justify and save themselves from further embarrassment, Pakistan has been attempting to prove that the air strikes did not cause any damage and were, in fact, a failure. With this desperate assertion, Pakistan has now sunk to a new low, twisting and manipulating the words of the Union Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj.

While speaking on how the Indian air force had been given a “free hand” in the Balakot operation but was clearly told that no Pakistani civilian should be killed and also there should be “not even a scratch” on the Pakistani Army, Sushma Swaraj stated, “Our armed forces were told to target only Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) which was behind the Pulwama terror attack and they did just that — destroyed their camp and returned. Our Army did the same without harming any Pakistani citizen or soldier. When we carried out the air strike, we had told the international community that we took the step only in self-defense.”

While the minister was talking about the emphasis on international humanitarian rights, Pakistan manipulated her positive statement into something else entirely. Mag Gen Asif Ghafoor, spokesperson of the Pakistan armed forces, tweeted, “Finally the truth under ground reality compulsions. Hopefully, so will be about other false Indian claims ie surgical strike 2016, denial of shooting down of 2 IAF jets by PAF and claim about F16. Better late than never.”

Either the poor fellow failed to interpret Sushma Swaraj’s statement correctly or did so and twisted it for his own benefit. The point is, he couldn’t be more off the mark. The external affairs minister was talking about India’s stand against harming the innocent citizens or the armed forces. The only enmity had been against the terrorists which had been successfully eliminated.

The country has been harping on about the failure of the mission by stating that the IAF had hit only a ‘few trees’; but ironically had taken extreme precautions to shield the Strike areas from any outside agency. The area had been cordoned off by the army, who did not even allow the police to enter. The army also took away mobile phones from the medical staff on the ambulances. Adding to this, in spite of repeated requests, Pakistan had denied any journalists or observers to go on the site to confirm the damage for over a period of 40 days.

Such blatant manipulation is expected from the terror harbouring nation of Pakistan. What is unexpected here is that there are several Indians who are echoing Pakistan’s voice. The forefront of these is Sudheendra Kulkarni. A man known for his disloyalty and change of ideologies, he was first a member of the CPI, thereafter changed his ideology and formally joined the BJP. Now recently Kulkarni has switched again and is supporting Congress for the 2019 electoral run. Done and dusted with the three major political spectrums in the country, it seems the man now wants to switch his nationalistic ideologies as well. Reiterating Pakistan’s stance, Kulkarni stated, “Has #SushmaSwaraj just punctured @AmitShah claim? She says: “No #Pakistan Soldier or Citizen Died in #Balakot Air Strike” If no Pak CITIZENS were killed, who were the 250 terrorists #BJP chief claimed were ‘killed’? Were they all foreign nationals?”

In an attempt to be sassy, Kulkarni has just perfectly proved why the saying, ‘it is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re dumb then to open it and remove all doubts,’ is so accurate for people of his stature. He obviously is unaware of the fact that the correct terminology for terrorist such as these is “unlawful combatant”. The term includes all those people who directly engage in armed conflict in violation of laws of war or is fighting outside of internationally recognized military forces. This term will thus include all insurgents and terrorists operating outside the scope of a national army. The terrorists cannot be designated as “armed forces” and neither can they be referred to as “citizens”. So in answer to Kulkarni’s question, they were not foreign nationals or any nationals for that matter; they were merely unlawful combatants.

Kulkarni was not the only one peddling Pakistani propaganda. Barkha Dutt liked a tweet peddling the same agenda. 

Ashok Swain came out with another bizarre twisting as well.

https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1118950168735432705

Sushma Swaraj definitely didn’t state that the IAF didn’t harm the unlawful combatants nor did she go against the current government, in any way whatsoever. Her statement is consistent with the government’s and armed forces’ stand which had repeatedly stated that the target was the JeM terror camp in Balakot.  IAF had taken extreme precautions so as to not inflict harm on Pakistani armed forces or civilians during the very successful strikes and hence, though the casualties definitely existed, they were that of the terrorists.