Editorial: Stop sermons, show solidarity

Attempts to equate India with Pakistan and ask them to resolve outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations expose the deliberate refusal of the West to distinguish between the perpetrator and the victim

There is a familiar pattern to the hypocrisy of European countries on the issue of terrorism. Though India has been a victim of cross-border terrorism — nurtured and exported by Pakistan for decades — Europe has typically been ambivalent, preferring to dish out sermons to New Delhi on the virtues of maintaining peace rather than unequivocally condemning terrorist activities and castigating Islamabad for adopting terrorism as an instrument of state policy. For too long, Western diplomacy has been obsessed with a hyphenated approach towards India and Pakistan, ignoring the obvious contrast in the regional dynamics. The two South Asian neighbours are routinely bracketed together with lazy generalisations and patronising lectures. The Western media coverage of the horrific targeted killings in Pahalgam — preferring to call terrorists as gunmen and refusing to acknowledge that the victims were chosen based on their religion — and the subsequent statements emanating from European leaders are classic examples of hypocrisy and bias. Attempts to equate India with Pakistan and ask them to resolve outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations expose the deliberate refusal to distinguish between the perpetrator and the victim. In a way, such a preachy approach takes away India’s right to respond militarily to an external threat. Curiously, the sage advice being dished out to India runs contrary to what the West practices at home, the right to act militarily in a crisis. The double standards in their stance also reveal the West’s ignorance of South Asia’s contemporary history. It must be pointed out that since independence, India has never initiated a war but has been a victim of proxy war.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has rightly reminded the European Union that India is looking for partners, not preachers. New Delhi does not need lectures on human rights or restraint from nations that have themselves bled from the horrors of radical Islamic violence. From the Charlie Hebdo massacre and Bataclan attacks in France to the Berlin Christmas market attack and the Manchester Arena bombing, Europe has paid dearly for its complacency and misplaced naivety. And yet, when India chooses to strike hard at the roots of terror growing across its borders, some in the EU are quick to don moral robes and get into preaching mode. At a time when the emphasis of the international community should be on mounting pressure on Pakistan to dismantle its terror networks and their safe havens, it would be naive to selectively preach restraint. Such an approach will only embolden the so-called non-state actors instigating terrorist activities from Pakistani soil. The Pahalgam attack was clearly aimed at disrupting the normalcy in the Kashmir Valley. This is no coincidence. It is part of Pakistan’s long-standing playbook that aims to bleed India by a thousand cuts, using proxy jihad. India has every right —moral, legal, and strategic — to neutralise the threats at their source.

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