Indian Foreign Minister aggressively refutes Kashmir narrative of Washington pundits and the media

WASHINGTON, D.C. — India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Sept. 30 through Oct.1, launched a blitzkrieg in the nation’s capital, hitting all of the five prestigious think tanks in the city, to counter the negative press and unrelenting criticism of Modi government, not to mention Congressional concern over “the humanitarian crisis,” in Kashmir in the aftermath of New Delhi’s repeal of Article 370 of India’s constitution according special status for Kashmir.

During his visit to D.C., after attending the annual General Assembly session of the United Nations in New York along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaishankar, also met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper and members of Congress, and also addressed a press conference with Indian journalists where he dismissed President Donald Trump’s continuing offers of mediating the Kashmir imbroglio, strongly asserting that there’s absolutely no scope for third party mediation between India and Pakistan on this issue.

In a deliberate attempt to aggressively get the message out that the Modi government had no qualms about its decision to revoke Article 370 in Kashmir, the Indian embassy had requested that Jaishankar’s appearances at the think tanks — previously scheduled as background and off-the-record, be instead be put on the record and the media be invited.

Jaishankar took all of the questions on Kashmir head-on and forcefully defended the merits of the government’s decision on Article 370 and the actions on the ground that followed in Kashmir.

In the span of 48 hours, kicking off with a breakfast meeting at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, followed by interactions with policy wonks and media at The Atlantic Council, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Brookings Institution, and the conservative Heritage Foundation, Jaishankar, said he doesn’t “lose sleep” over the mainstream media’s unrelenting criticism of the Modi government and its policies. Jaishankar had already engaged along the same lines with the foreign policy establishment in New York at The Asia Society and the Council on Foreign Relations.

At Carnegie, he acknowledged that “it’s not that in India today, everybody is on the same page and there are no arguments or disputes in India,” but argued, “there’s a lot of change happening in India, there’s a lot of change happening in the world…(but) it’s also quite evident that in many ways a lot of our arguments within the country are reflected in global arguments.”

Jaishankar said, “I take a lot of what are media comments and media analysis, as reflecting the thinking, the viewpoints, of different media organizations,” and said to chuckles, “whenever I am at the negative end of it, I will regard it as bias and obviously, if it’s in our favor, I take it as insightful.”

“And, I’ll give you and example,” he said, and explained, “Look at all that’s come out on 370. It’s almost impossible to find anywhere in global media, one reference to the fact that 370 was a temporary provision of the constitution because it’s inconvenient to the narrative, which they are advancing. So, let’s not kid ourselves—the world’s an ideological place.”

Jaishankar said, “People…not everybody is as fair and objective as we would like them to be. So, we take what comes from different quarters and then say, ‘Who’s saying that?’ And, then you see who’s saying it, shrug your shoulders and you move on. So, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”

“At the end of the day, in a society like India,” he added, “the caravan would move on and people will do what they do.”

But on Kashmir, Jaishankar noted that “the irony is that everything the liberal press thinks is good for the world was not happening in Jammu and Kashmir, and yet people wanted to defend the provision that was blocking the good from happening.”

“I mean, look at the absurdity,” he declared and then went on to argue the lack of progressive attitudes and laws in terms of equality for women and also on other issues like property ownership and the continuing cronyism and corruption by those in power, and the continuing proliferation of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

“So, the point is, there is a fundamental issue of governance in a way at stake here.”

“The goal is toward a deradicalized Jammu and Kashmir than a more radicalized Jammu and Kashmir, and those were our options,” he said.

At the Heritage Foundation, which has always maintained close links with successive Republican administrations, including now the Trump administration, Jaishankar predicted that Pakistan would surely continue to paint apocalyptic scenarios now that Article 370 has been revoked.

Jaishankar argued, "I think it's important to have a historical context to judge these remarks. This is not a conversation that began on August 5. These are their policies and their actions which began the day Kashmir acceded to India with Pakistani invaders threatening to burn down Srinagar. Please look at the history of Kashmir.”

“As such there is a lot out there which needs to be taken into account,” he said, but said India would endeavor to "manage this as well as it can, and I'm reasonably confident we should succeed out there.”

He added, "We have also seen a lot of alarmist rhetoric coming (from Pakistan), not just about false flag, (but also) jihad... going all the way to nuclear weapons. That kind of gives you a sense of responsibility of the people who are saying.”

“India's strategy is obviously to reason with (Kashmiri) people and get them to understand why all of this is for their long-term benefit,” said, and added, "Clearly our intention is that they would buy into that", while in that interim period, India would take all precautions because history has shown the need for precautions.

Meanwhile, at his press conference, he totally rejected any third party mediation in Kashmir, and pointed out, "India has been clear for 40 odd years that we would not accept mediation... and that whatever has to be discussed has to be discussed bilaterally," when asked about Trump’s continuing offers of mediation.

He also pooh-poohed efforts in some quarters to once again hyphenate India and Pakistan and try to make it into a zero-sum scenario. “You are really being very semantic about it. How do you hyphenate a country, which is one-eighth of your economic size, which is 'reputationally' your exact opposite?” he asked.