DC Edit | Rajnath promise' on PoK rejoining India welcome

The statement of defence minister Rajnath Singh will find approbation among most Indians which he made targeting Pakistan over its reaction to the India-United States joint statement. He said the illegal occupation of Kashmir by Pakistan will end soon as the people living in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) will seek its reunification with India. Thereafter, PoK will rejoin India, Mr Singh said in a welcome statement.

Mr Singh did not threaten a war nor did he talk of India taking any step in this direction. Rightly critical of the Pakistani response to the India-US statement which merely condemned terrorism sponsored from across international borders, he merely urged Pakistan to stop fanning terrorism. Besides admonishing Pakistan’s recently released public statement, he also advised the government of the neighbouring country to focus on its domestic problems.

Castigating Pakistan for obsessing over the issue, Mr Rajnath Singh aptly told off the nation for trying to divert international attention from cross-border terror and using Kashmir as a distraction.

He rightly, and strongly, defended India’s actions in shielding Kashmir from international attention, saying that India will continue to succeed in “shielding Kashmir from the gaze of the outside world”, “... making it clear to Pakistan that citing Kashmir over and over again will not benefit it.”

Finding the timing right is crucial in politics, domestic or international. The BJP government is right in thinking that at a time when Pakistan is dealing with yawning fiscal deficit and a crushing inflation, it is only apt that India brings to the world’s attention the problems facing the people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir which rightfully belongs to India.

Mr Singh echoed the Indian sentiment when he said, “...tortured people of PoK will clamour to join India. They have been shouting slogans (about joining India).” He also brought out the strong consternation in India about unwarranted attacks on religious minorities in Pakistan, especially those from the Sikh community.

Just a day after his ministerial colleague, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, also found fault with didactic observations on Indian democracy and the rights of religious minorities by former US President Barack Obama to a TV channel on the sidelines of the state visit by Mr Modi, Mr Singh reproved the former US President for his hasty statements and took him to task over action by American military forces in Muslim nations.

Though a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr Obama has been criticised by many governments and people globally for his numerous attacks on Muslim countries, and the ministers and leaders of the BJP government are within their rights to examine the subject.