Jaishankar takes swipe at Pakistan for blocking SCO statement terror reference

Hindustan Times

4 hours ago

India refused to sign on for a joint statement at a meeting of defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) because one country refused to include a reference to terrorism in the document, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Friday in a tacit swipe at Pakistan. External affairs minister S Jaishankar. (PTI)
The objective of the SCO is to fight terrorism, and defence minister Rajnath Singh refused to accept the joint statement because it did not contain a reference to terror, Jaishankar told reporters on the margins of an event organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) to mark the 50th anniversary of the Emergency.
'The objective of the SCO was to fight terrorism. This organisation exists to fight terrorism,' Jaishankar said. When there was a discussion on the outcome document of the SCO defence ministers meeting at Qingdao in China, Jaishankar said that 'one country, you can guess which one, said…we do not want a reference to that [terrorism]'.
Though Jaishankar did not name any country, it was obvious he was referring to Pakistan. After India did not endorse the joint statement on Thursday, officials said Singh refused to sign on for the document as it was silent on the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 in which 26 people were killed, but mentioned the situation in Pakistan's Balochistan province and the hijacking of the Jaffer Express train by Baloch militants in March.
The gathering of defence ministers was among several SCO meetings in China that were attended by leaders of India and China in the aftermath of last month's clashes between the two countries. The clashes erupted when India launched Operation Sindoor to target terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack.
Jaishankar said Singh's view was that 'without that reference [to terrorism], when the main purpose of that organisation is to fight terrorism and you are not allowing a reference to that, I am not prepared to accept it'. As SCO works by consensus, the two-day defence ministers meeting ended without a joint statement.
Jaishankar said that in contrast to divisions within the polity at the time the Emergency was imposed by former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1975, all political parties had come together to join parliamentary delegations that travelled across the world to defend India's national interests after the launch of Operation Sindoor.
These delegations delivered India's message that terrorism is unacceptable, he said. 'Our policy is zero tolerance of terrorism and if terrorism continues, we reserve the right to defend our people,' he said, adding it was a matter of pride that the delegations were led by MPs from opposition parties, such as Shashi Tharoor of Congress, Supriya Sule of NCP-SP and Kanimozhi of DMK.
Jaishankar responded to a question on RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale's remarks calling for a review of the inclusion of the words socialist and secular in the Constitution's preamble during the Emergency by saying that it would not be appropriate for him, as a Union minister, to comment on the matter.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) organised 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas' on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of the emergency and targeted the Gandhi family of the Congress for its role in the period from June 1975 to March 1977 when civil liberties were curtailed, political opponents were arrested, and the media was censored.
Jaishankar also addressed a mock parliament organised by BJYM and told the audience that the 'emergency happened because the interest of a family was put ahead of the interests of the nation'. He added: 'Today, we are seeing the interests of the nation put ahead.'
He criticised the Congress, Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi for never expressing regret for the Emergency. 'It is not enough to move around with the Constitution in your hand, the Constitution should be in your heart and in your mind,' he said in an apparent reference to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who had often carried a copy of the Constitution during public campaigns last year.
Jaishankar recalled he was a 20-year-old student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University when the Emergency was imposed and said the main lesson from that period was 'never take freedom for granted'. The Emergency, imposed 'because of only one family', posed a threat to the Constitution, institutions, politics, media, culture, and the people's way of life, he said.