Imran Khan today gave a masterly display of Goebbelsian propaganda techniques at the UN general assembly. His “speech” (if it may be called that) exceeded the allotted time limit of 20 minutes by a full 10 minutes, and resembled a lie and hate-filled rant more than a measured message from a head of state.
Indeed, some sane commentators wondered aloud whether he may have been under the influence during the course of his speech (several people, including his ex-wife Reham Khan, have claimed that he abuses cocaine: perhaps he took some to calm his nerves, and the drug unhinged him somewhat?).
Anyway, let us quickly get to verifiable facts and logical reasoning. Imran seems to have taken to heart Goebbels’ lesson that “repeat a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth.” His entire speech was laced with such repetitions of blatant lies. Let me address some of these.
1.) “India has 900,000 troops in the Kashmir valley”
False. The entire northern command of the Indian army, under whose purview the valley falls, has 3 corps—XIV, XV, XVI. Each corps comprises 2 divisions. A division is between 10,000 to 15,000 combat troops. So using standard (not Pakistani) Mathematics, there are at most 90,000 combat troops in the northern command. Even if we assume that ALL of these are in the Kashmir valley, which they could not possibly be since the headquarters of the command itself is outside the valley (in Udhampur, Jammu), that would be 10 times fewer than Imran’s propaganda repeatedly stated as fact.
Now, further, the northern command is responsible for manning the entire porous border of the LoC, and also the Line of Actual control with china. We do not have exact figures for how many troops are needed for this, but one assumes that it is a significant proportion. My best guess is at least half of these troops are manning the LoC.
2.) “Modi and India run on RSS ideas of racial superiority and ethnic cleansing”…”like Hitler’s Germany”
This one is perhaps the most curious and ridiculous of Imran’s assertions. India is a constitutional democracy—the largest in the world—not a dictatorship of a single party and single leader. Not only is it A democracy, it is arguably the most vibrant democracy in the world, with a large coalition bloc (the UPA) that opposes every single move by the PM, and the debates are telecast live for anyone in the world to see. Can Imran point to a SINGLE DEBATE in EITHER OF OUR TWO HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT which even suggest racial supremacy/ethnic cleansing being proposed? If Mr. Khan has any difficulty obtaining the archives of all debates, he can contact this author, who will gladly help him obtain them.
Furthermore, did Imran know tha the RSS itself has a constitution? And that constitution prohibits violence of any kind, against anyone. That is why the RSS has not flown planes into buildings or produced an assembly line of suicide bombers. Even the words attributed to Mr. Golwalkar, said at a time of heightened Hindu-Muslim tension before partition and in response to Muslim demands for Pakistan, and before the true horrors of the Nazi holocaust unfolded – they are just that, words, and a relic of history.
Like any organization (perhaps except Islamist groups), the RSS has evolved with time. Each new leader brings in their ideas and their changes. And no Imran, Savarkar was not a founding member of the RSS (he actually was ideologically quite opposed to it in many ways), and RSS does not wear brown shirts “like the German brown shirts”, they wear white.
3.) 8 Million people are under curfew for 55 days, without medical aid and food.
Is the above statement even possible? Can people survive for that long without food? Obviously, they cannot, and so this statement cannot possibly be true. The truth is the following:
A.) ONLY TWO of the 10 police divisions in the Kashmir valley have curfew anymore. These are the districts with the highest level of infiltration by Pakistani elements, and the highest levels of radicalization.
B.) EVERYWHERE (including the two divisions) from day one of the curfew, medical stores were exempt from curfew, as also food shops. Not only that, the Indian army carried out door to door supplies of medical needs for the residents. As for food stores, one can find several videos of Srinagar taken by multiple media outlets which show bustling food markets. Like I said, 55 days without food is simply not possible.
C.) It is the terrorists who have put up flyers across south Kashmir warning shopkeepers NOT to open their shops. They want to prevent any return of normalcy in Kashmir. Indeed, the first death reported in Kashmir after August 5th (when article 370 was revoked) was of a Kashmiri shopkeeper shot to death by terrorists because he dared to disobey them and open his shop
I will stop here and address Mr. Khan. Mr. Khan, you are a head of state. The UNGA is an august body. Please do not diminish yourself, your country, and the UN by making such rants which might fit well in a low literacy gully mohalla in Islamabad, but simply sound foolish at an UNGA meeting.
And also, next time please don’t collect fellow Pakistanis in one corner to clap at your statements: that is against the etiquette at such meetings. Imagine if Modi had collected 25 Indians to clap at his each statement? Please adhere to the etiquette at such events. If this etiquette is unknown to you and your diplomants, kindly contact our foreign secretary Shri Jaishankar, who might agree to tutor you. Thank you.
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