Pakistan has described as “hate-driven” and “deeply disturbing” recent remarks of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, warning they serve as a reckless provocation.
Addressing a public event in his home state of Gujarat, Modi said that the people of Pakistan must step forward if they wish to end terrorism in Pakistan. “The youth of Pakistan need to step forward. Live peacefully and eat your bread, or else my bullet is ready,” he said in an apparent warning to the country’s civilian population.
Continuing his usual self-aggrandizement, he claimed that those who fanned terror had not even imagined in their dreams how difficult it was to face Modi. “Ever since Pakistan was born, it has focused on enmity with India, while we in India have focused on removing poverty, growth, and development,” he added.
“Pakistan has taken note of the recent remarks by the Prime Minister of India, delivered in Gujarat with the theatrical flourish of a campaign rally rather than the sobriety expected of the leader of a nuclear-armed state,” read a censure issued by the Foreign Office. “The hate-driven invocation of violence in his remarks is deeply disturbing, not only for its content, but for the dangerous precedent it sets in a region already burdened by volatility,” it said, regretting the ongoing erosion of maturity and decorum in Indian statecraft.
Emphasizing that such statements blatantly violate the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, which obliges member states to resolve disputes peacefully and refrain from the threat or use of force against the sovereignty or political independence of other states, it said Pakistan saw them as reckless provocation. The remarks, it said, aimed to distract from the ongoing human rights abuses and demographic engineering in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Noting that Pakistan’s contributions to U.N. peacekeeping and consistent cooperation in global counter-terrorism efforts spoke louder than any “hostile” soundbite, it urged India to look inwards if extremism was a genuine concern and address “majoritarianism, religious intolerance, and the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities under the increasingly brutal Hindutva ideology.”
Emphasizing that Pakistan remains committed to peace based on mutual respect and sovereign equality, it warned that any threat to its security or territorial integrity would yield firm and proportionate measures in accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.
“The international community must take serious note of India’s escalating rhetoric, which undermines regional stability and the prospects for lasting peace.” It added.