NEW DELHI: Indian diplomat Kshitij Tyagi delivered a fiery rebuttal at the 5th Meeting of the 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), hitting out at both Pakistan and Switzerland in unusually sharp terms.Responding first to Switzerland, which currently holds the UNHRC presidency, Tyagi called its remarks on India “surprising, shallow and ill-informed.” He warned that “as a close friend and partner, it is all the more important for Switzerland to avoid wasting the council’s time with blatantly false narratives.” Instead, he urged Switzerland to “focus on its own challenges such as racism, systematic discrimination and xenophobia,” adding that India, as the world’s largest democracy, stood ready to help it address those issues.The strongest words, however, were reserved for Pakistan. Dismissing Islamabad as a “failed state” addicted to “propaganda and terror,” Tyagi said:“We need no lessons from a terror sponsor, no sermons from a persecutor of minorities, no advice from a state that has conjured its own credibility. India will continue to protect its citizens with unwavering resolve. We will defend our sovereignty without compromise.” In a stinging remark, he mocked Pakistan’s leadership for recently likening the country to a “dump truck”, a metaphor he called “perhaps inadvertently apt for a state that continues to deposit recycled falsehoods and stale propaganda before this council.”Tyagi also accused Islamabad of “systematic abuse” of the UNHRC and of “making a mockery” of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) by using it as a political mouthpiece.This is not the first time Tyagi has taken on Pakistan at the UN. Earlier this year, at the 58th Regular Session of the council, he branded Pakistan as a “failed state” surviving on “international handouts” and accused it of maliciously raising Jammu and Kashmir at every multilateral forum.Reiterating India’s position, Tyagi said Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh remain “integral and inalienable parts of India,” and pointed to the “unprecedented political, social and economic progress” in the region as evidence of New Delhi’s commitment to peace and development.
