Daily Times

Pakistan has told the UN General Assembly that India, whose prime minister is visiting the US later this month, was targeting Indian Muslims, Christians, as also Muslims of occupied Kashmir, and called for an end to their harsh suppression.

“To those who are ready today to open their doors to the Prime Minister of India, we urge that they call for a halt to India’s oppression and atrocities,” Ambassador Munir Akram said in a speech during a debate on ‘Culture of Peace’ on Wednesday. “Their silence diminishes their stature and exposes their real commitments to universal human values and human rights as being hollow and hypocritical,” the Pakistani envoy told the 193-member Assembly. US President Joe Biden is set to host Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state visit on June 22. In his remarks, noted for their depth and sweep, Ambassador Akram pointed out that recent times have witnessed a significant rise in hate, discrimination, xenophobia and organized violence against individuals, communities and nations due to their differences of cultures, nationalities, religions, or race. “The most adverse development in the context is the proliferation of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate and hostility, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11,” he said. Several instances of military intervention, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims have perished, would not have happened if Islamophobia had not influenced perceptions and decisions, the Pakistani envoy said, noting that the world is now dealing with the consequences of those mistakes. “The resolution of the consequent conflicts and tensions in Asia and Africa will require the active promotion of a Culture of Peace,” Ambassador Akram said.

The international community, he said, cannot fail to address the worst contemporary manifestation of Islamophobia – “the threat posed by Hindutva hate in India against the 200 million Indian Muslims and Christians as well as the oppressed Muslims of occupied Jammu and Kashmir” Noting that “Hindutva”, prescribing Hindu supremacy, was born simultaneously with Nazism in the 1920s, the Pakistani envoy said its exponents – the Sangh Parivar – adhere to the same ideology. “They seek to transform India into an exclusive Hindu State in which Muslims and other minorities are obliged to convert to Hinduism or accept ejection or a second-class existence. “The founders of this party – the RSS, the parent of the ruling BJP – proudly equated their ideology with Hitler’s Nazis and called for the persecution of India’s Muslims just like the Jews,” he added. One of the members of the RSS, Nathuram Godse, assassinated Mahatma Ghandi, Ambassador Akram said, adding that within India’s ruling party, it is Godse, not Ghandi, who is glorified as a deity. The RSS was responsible for the organized pogroms against Indian Muslims in Bombay (1992), Gujarat (2002), Delhi (2021), he said, pointing out that the BBC documentary on the Gujarat pogrom and the Indian Prime Minister’s culpability was banned in India and the BBC was being investigated for tax fraud.