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No country says everybody is welcome: foreign minister Jaishankar hits out at CAA critics

On UNHRC's intervention, Jaishankar said that its director has previously been wrong too and one should look at the UN body's past record on handling Kashmir issue.

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New Delhi: No country in the world says everybody is welcome, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday, hitting out at those criticising India over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

Jaishankar criticised the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its criticism on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, saying its director had been wrong previously too and one should look at the UN body’s past record on handling the Kashmir issue.

“We have tried to reduce the number of stateless people through this legislation. That should be appreciated,” he said when asked about the CAA at the ET Global Business Summit. “We have done it in a way that we do not create a bigger problem for ourselves.”

“Everybody, when they look at citizenship, have a context and has a criterion. Show me a country in the world which says everybody in the world is welcome. Nobody says that,” the minister said.

The external affairs minister said moving out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was in the interest of India’s business.

Asked about the UNHRC director not agreeing with India on the Kashmir issue, Jaishankar said: “UNHRC director has been wrong before.

“UNHRC skirts around cross-border terrorism as if it has nothing to do with country next door. Please understand where they are coming from; look at UNHRC’s record how they handled Kashmir issue in past,” he added.


Also read: US-Taliban deal was like watching ‘Pakeezah’ after a long wait, says Jaishankar


 

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8 COMMENTS

  1. Most nations show some bias in whom to grant citizenship to . But this is done in a subtle way, by treating each application individually. Here the Govt by passing CAA has shown its obvious bias against Muslims , just to rouse its favourite vote bank. If there is hesitation to grant illegal Muslim migrants citizenship, the Govt can easily implement that at the individual application level, instead of passing a law. No one says every application has to be accepted. By passing the CAA, the Govt has made its sectarian bias obvious to the whole world.

  2. Foreign minister Jaishankar has failed to convinced the world that CAA is a harmless law. Even India’s best friend the US doesn’t believe him, although it may not say so in so many words to not offend India. Countries like Malaysia, Turkey, Iran, Bangladesh, etc. and OIC have criticised the law, ignoring India’s pleadings that it is an “internal matter”. So has the UNHRC and the USCIRF has criticised the law. One can also see India criticised for the law in the prestigious publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, BBC, Guardian, The Economist, etc. Jaishankar has failed tio even convince the India-origin lawmakers in the US! Even within India there is ot of criticism of the law. There are some 160 petitions filed in the supreme court against it! The knee jerk reaction from the MEA is that the law is India’s “internal matter”, that the critics haven’t read the law, that they don’t understand the law, that they are biased!

    Jaishankar has forgotten that in the past India was the first country to propose sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid policies. India had said that apartheid in South Africa was an aggression against its own citizens. But wasn’t the apartheid South Africa’s “internal matter”, just the same way Jaishankar says the CAA is India’s “internal matter”? What business India had to meddle in South Africa’s “internal matter” of its apartheid policies? Human rights violations? Then why can’t the UNHRC, the body especially created to deal with the human rights related matters, can’t criticise India for its “apartheid” against Muslim, as the whole world sees it?

    • The countries that you mention are all Islamic nations. Is it any wonder that they are not enamoured of the CAA? Besides, is India supposed to take permission from the global community before enacting its own domestic laws? Or get laws passed by the Indian Parliament vetted by the UN?

  3. No matter what you say, you are Madarasi in New Delhi? Brainy.head on wrong body………………………………

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