MEA must move beyond Nehruvian past
OUR FOREIGN OFfiCE MUST PERCEIVE THE MACHINATIONS OF pinkish UN tsars and discern the pattern in UN actions.
John O’Sullivan, a British conservative commentator, has a law named after him. O’Sullivan’s First Law says: “All organisations that are not actually Rightwing will over time become Leftwing.” The United Nations has obeyed the law. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report on Kashmir shows the intensity of transmogrification the world body has undergone.
Its lies and deception—the report refers to terror outfits as “armed groups”—have been widely commented upon in the media. India has rightly trashed it as “fallacious, tendentious and motivated”. But what foreign policy mandarins and experts have missed is the most critical point: the report is part of the Left-liberal enterprise, supported by Islamist and jihad-compliant forces, to malign democratic nations and peddle moral equivalence. Worse, India itself has often played into the hands of such forces.
Consider this: On 13 June, India voted in favour of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution, proposed by Turkey and Algeria, condemning the use of allegedly “excessive” force by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in what the UN calls “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. At the same time, it abstained on a USbacked amendment aimed at denouncing violence by Hamas. The latter resolution fell through.
Our foreign office must do more to perceive the machinations of pinkish UN tsars; it must discern the pattern in UN actions; it needs to comprehend the thread running through most UN statements and resolutions. The truth is that the UN relentlessly badgers democracies (especially Israel and the US), turns a blind eye to the worst human rights offenders like Saudi Arabia and China, and peddles moral equivalence.
Anti-Americanism is rampant globally; liberal media and Left-leaning academia intensify it every day. But if India aspires to become a power to reckon with, as it does, it has to do better than follow the herd. It should know how to protect its national interest; and before that, it should know what its national interest is.
India can’t expect the US to goad Pakistan to rein in its jihadist puppets while supporting anti-Israel resolutions and remaining neutral on Washington-sponsored ones. And it’s not just realpolitik; it is also problematic to maintain neutrality over the crimes of Hamas, which is an Islamist body. And it would be presumptuous on the part of India to expect meaningful and heartfelt cooperation from Israel in a war against global jihad while persisting with the Nehru era phraseology.
On the anti-Israel resolution, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said before the vote: “This resolution holds Hamas completely unaccountable for most of the recent unrest. It blames everything on Israel. But the facts tell a different story. It is Hamas and its allies that have fired over a hundred rockets into Israel in the past month, hoping to cause death to as many civilians and as much destruction as possible. It is Hamas that has used Palestinian civilians as human shields at the boundary fence, seeking to incite violence and overrun the border. It is Hamas that refuses to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority to unite in the pursuit of peace. It is Hamas that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel within any borders. And yet the resolution before us not only fails to blame Hamas for these actions, it fails to even mention Hamas.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon was equally scathing on the resolution: “By supporting this resolution, you are colluding with a terrorist organisation and empowering Hamas.” But this is exactly what India, and scores of other countries, did.
The UN Human Rights Commission’s report on Kashmir should be scrutinised against such a backdrop; like the UNGA resolution and several other activities, it is also a joint venture between the Left-liberal grandees and Islamists. Their objectives are common: smear democracies (and downplay gross human rights violations in places like Muslim countries), instil guilt among politicians and people in democracies (and thus undermine their resolve to combat terror), and disseminate moral equivalence (so that security personnel and terrorists become “two sides” in conflict.)
The resolutions at the UNGA are designed with expert care to make military and paramilitary commanders of Israel think twice before acting against jihadists. The US administration of Donald Trump is under pressure from the media and other opinion makers (who are the ideological brethren of UN bosses) to adopt appeasement policies. Similarly, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report on Kashmir becomes an inhibiting factor for the officers of Army and paramilitary forces.
It is unfortunate if our foreign policymakers miss the thread of the narrative that Left-liberals and Islamists together are spreading all over the world. The MEA must realise the true nature of the UN and of national interest. It must avoid the knee-jerk, pro-forma reactions of the Nehruvian past.