Oops, she did it again. Last year, just before her Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was about to address the UN General Assembly, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN tweeted, “Entering the UN for the PM’s ACTRESS to the GA.” Though it was quickly deleted, the damage had been done, with several diplomats sniggering over the gaffe by the senior Pakistani diplomat. To add insult to injury, Pakistan’s high-powered pitch over terror in Kashmir was totally demolished by young Eenam Gambhir, the suave first secretary at the Indian mission to the UN. Her description of Pakistan as the “Ivy League of terrorism” went down well not just with scribes eager for an interesting quote, but again, with several diplomats who were seen nodding in agreement. Everything Sharif and Lodhi said before and after
that was forgotten.
This year, Lodhi went a step further, brandishing a photograph of young Rawya abu Jom’a, a girl injured in Gaza in 2012, and insisting she was a victim of pellet guns fired by the police in Kashmir. “A racist and fascist ideology is firmly embedded in Modi’s government ... its leadership is drawn from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which is accused of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi, ” she declared, adding that “the government has appointed a fanatic as the chief minister of India’s largest state”. Perhaps she is ignorant of the fact that in India, CMs are not appointed, but elected in free and fair elections. And then she went on to quote author Arundhati Roy who had apparently declared, “Whole populations of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians are being forced to live in terror.”
From now on, India should just ignore Pakistani rants at international fora and focus on global issues—not just because it would cleanly de-hyphenate the relationship or encourage the state’s constant attempt to seek parity with India, but because Pakistan doesn’t need external help to turn it into the world’s laughing stock.