UNGA: Imran Khan crossed every line with a crude, inflammatory speech- India showed him his place

Pakistan PM Imran Khan seems to have lost his mind over Kashmir after Pakistan’s relentless efforts to internationalise the issue, ever since India abrogated Article 370, failed to yield any dividend. In his speech at the UN General Assembly Session, Imran Khan made terrible remarks unbecoming of a head of government representing his country among the international community of nations. In what can be described as erratic and highly objectionable diplomatic behaviour, the Pakistan PM warned of a “bloodbath” when India lifts curfew in Kashmir.

Imran Khan did not stop at the threats of a “bloodbath” and went on to extend threats of a war staring that an all out conflict between the two nuclear armed countries would reverberate far beyond the shared borders. He said, “If this goes wrong, you hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.” Continuing with his bellicose narrative, Khan added, “If the conventional war starts with a country which is four times the size of Pakistan, what will we do? This is what I ask myself a lot of times. But I say this, we will fight but think what happens when two nuclear countries fight.” He also openly threatened of exporting cross-border terrorism into India and extended an open Jihadist threat by saying that once curfew is lifted there would be another attack like Pulwama and Pakistan will be blamed.

Imran Khan’s speech was full of communal, divisive and inflammatory rhetoric. He seemed to have attempted to create a sense of bitterness in Muslims across the world. In what reflects the narrow mindset of Imran Khan, he said, “Islamophobia is creating divisions, hijab is becoming a weapon; a woman can take off clothes but she can’t put on more clothes. It started after 9/11 and it started because certain western leaders equated Islam with terrorism.”

Imran Khan also used the UNGA platform for the purpose of creating animosity among the Indian Muslims towards their country by uttering falsehoods and making bizarre allegations. He said, “RSS believes in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims. RSS goons butchered hundreds of Muslims. This is arrogance. This makes people do cruel things. Something PM Modi has done. Arrogance has blinded PM Modi.” In order to substantiate his absurd claim, Imran Khan quoted Congress at the UNGA. He said, “The previous Congress Home Minister gave a statement that in RSS camps, terrorists are being trained.”

While PM Modi spoke truly like a world leader concentrating predominantly on India’s efforts towards protecting the environment, the need to unite against terrorism, and not even mentioning Pakistan or Kashmir in his address, Imran Khan’s speech was all about inciting communal passions of the Muslims across the world and particularly in India and using the global forum for pushing a bellicose narrative in order to extend open threats of war and cross-border terrorism. While PM Modi spoke for 17 minutes complying with the allotted time of 15-20 minutes, Imran Khan spoke for almost an hour in a speech which never went above the threats of nuclear war and bloodshed.

The number of times some keywords figured in Pakistan PM’s speech give a fair idea about the overall theme of his address. ‘Islam’ figured most prominently (70 times) in his address. Other frequently used words in speech were of course Kashmir and terrorism. This makes perfect sense because his speech till the very end carried an inflammatory and communal agenda mostly aimed at targeting Kashmir by giving terror threats.

It is utterly shameful how an elected (supposedly) head of government representing his country, used the highest global forum for threatening its immediate neighbour with war and terrorism. Not only this, Imran Khan tried to create fissures within the Indian society by uttering falsehoods and making bizarre allegations of violence against Muslims in India. By using Islam as a part of his narrative, Khan tried to incite a sense disillusionment within the Muslim community of India. This cannot be accepted and India has rightly chose to use the right of reply option to respond to Pakistan PM. The Indian side exposed Khan’s falsehoods, hypocrisy and belittled him for his crude terminologies and insinuations used in his UNGA speech.

In this composed but scathing speech, Vidisha Maitra, first secretary of MEA dissected and destroyed Imran Khan’s hateful rhetoric. Maitra remarked that, “Imran Khan’s threat of unleashing nuclear devastation qualifies as brinksmanship, not statesmanship”. One of the most interesting points was when she mentioned Lt. Gen A. A. Khan Niazi of the Pakistan army who butchered thousands during the 1971 war and whom Imran Khan ‘Niazi’ is known to be related to. Vidisha Maitra called out the hateful rhetoric used by Imran Khan, which is unbecoming of a Prime Minister, and also reminded Pakistan of its persecution of minorities and its patronage of terrorists.

India must make it clear that if Pakistan escapes scot free after using the UN General Assembly, the highest global platform for making such provocative, inflammatory and communal remarks, then it would set a wrong precedent for the International Community at large. Article 1 of the UN Charter declares, inter alia, that the purpose of the United Nations is to “maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace.” However, in this case, Imran Khan has used the General Assembly, a frontline organ of the United Nations for promoting the ideas of war, terrorism and hatred against Hindus that is a threat to the “international peace and security” that the UN seeks to maintain in the first place. Pakistan has clearly crossed the line here and that warrants an unequivocal response from the international community.