Last Updated on September 26, 2020 at 8:10 pm
Aditya Chauhan
The United States General Assembly is one of the major six principal organs of the United Nations. Every year, in September, all the member nation’s representatives assemble in the General Assembly Hall in the New York Headquarters.
This year, the 75th assembly was set to meet from 15th September to 30th September. The issues generally revolve around racism, intolerance, inequality, poverty, hunger, etc. Since the world is going through a pandemic, it was concluded that the head of states will deliver a pre-recorded speech.
Imran Khan took the stage on Thursday and delivered a 25 minutes speech. His speech touched on four major themes: Money laundering, Climate change, Islamophobia and Kashmir.
Imran Khan started his monologue by raising issue of climate change. He blamed rich nations for the present climatic condition of the world and said that it is adversely affecting Pakistan. Then he explained how money laundering has widened the gap between rich and poor nations. He blamed that the corrupt politicians siphoned off black money to richer nations from developing countries.
His third point was islamophobia. He emphasized that islamophobia is increasing the world every day after 9/11 attacks. Adding to it, he said that there is no such thing as radical Islam and there are radical fringe groups which are present in every society. Citing an example, he asked why nobody is bothered about (the religion of) Tamil Tigers and Japanese Kamikaze bombers.
He saved the ‘best’ for the last, his favourite: Kashmir. He said that when he get into the office, he firstly reached out to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi but got zero response. Then, he lashed out at India for revoking Article 370 from the constitution which gave special rights to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir. He then went all out to paint RSS as some sort of terrorist organization and Indian Prime Minister being a faithful member of it. In his words, “Mr Modi is a “life member” of RSS. An organisation inspired by Hitler and Mussolini. They believed in racial superiority the same way that the Nazi’s believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race.”
India was quick to respond to the allegations of Khan. In this 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, India is represented by Mijito Vinito. He is the first secretary at India’s UN mission to the United Nations. He walked out of the hall as soon as Imran Khan’s video began being broadcasted. In the language of diplomacy, it is a sign of protest and it gives a message to the world that India doesn’t subscribe to the views of Imran Khan, specially about India.
Later in the United Nations General Assembly debate, India exercised its “right to reply” to Imran Khan’s comments. Vinito called Pakistan’s PM’s remarks “an incessant rant”. He said that Imran Khan’s speech was full of misinformation, lies, malice and war mongering. Replying to Khan’s remarks on Kashmir, he once again made it clear on the world stage that the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the rules and legislation brought in that part of the nation are strictly internal affairs of India.
