India's response to UN move very apt

Calling for the United Nations to recognise 'Hinduphobia' along with other acts of religious hatred against Buddhism and Sikhism, India's envoy to the United Nations, T S Trimurti on Thursday said that the UN's latest Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy passed last year is full of flaws and is selective and could reverse gains from the global consensus in the "war on terror" post 9/11.

But, will a sane advice be heeded in this complex world where internal politics and religion have come to the fore as vital to judge other countries performance in tackling terror? Everyone pays only a lip-service in saying terror does not have religion but keep looking at it from their religious convictions. Kashmir has been facing terror from across the border since long and yet, the world does not take a proper stock of the situation.

The conflict in Kashmir is not a conflict being waged by the people against India but only by the non-State actors from Pakistan with the aid and full support of the Pakistani Army and its ISI. Just because India happens to be a Hindu majority country it does not make its terror containment strategies in Kashmir aright-wing violence or war crime. Certainly, a war-like situation prevails in Kashmir but it is not because of the Indian government, its Armed forces or its people. The war is being waged by Pakistan through its non-State actors and some misguided youth trained by them over the years. India's action to terror is in response to it.

India needs to protect its land and its people from terror activities and hence it has to defend its territory. When a war-like situation prevails in any area, one cannot talk of law and order as we do about it in peaceful places. Even ordinary crimes are being weighed on a religious scale to tarnish India's image. This, unfortunately, has the sanction of some Indian political parties and leaders who care only about their own interests.

It is the Congress party that created "Saffron Terrorism" in the country and began comparing Pakistan's terrorism agenda to it. Political hatred of some sections and their appeasement politics have done great harm to the image of the country all over. Fundamentalist groups waging anti-Hindu and anti-India agenda are getting not only funds but also material support from various countries and various religious groups. Those who do not agree to the dictum that terrorism has no religion should remember that giving terror any other name like right wing extremism and violent nationalism only dilutes the war on terror.

Several member States of the UN driven by their political, religious and other motivations, have been trying to label terrorism into categories such as racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism which is a dangerous tendency for several reasons, as the Indian Ambassador rightly reminded the UN. Trimurthi, the Indian Ambassador said he spoke in his capacity as the Ambassador to the UN and not in his capacity as Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) at the UN Security Council for 2022. These terms that have been included in the UNSC's discussions on terrorism maust be fought relentlessly as they have been included in its jargon and are a deliberate attempt by some countries inimical to India's interests to counter the Indian narrative.