Jaishankar questions bids regarding "hyphenating" India with Pakistan

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday (October 1) said that the bids being raised regarding “hyphenating” India with Pakistan after the nullification of Article 370 were being triggered by those who are obsessed with the post-August 5 developments in Jammu and Kashmir.

“You are really being very semantic about it. How do you hyphenate a country, which is one-eighth of your economic size, which is reputationally your exact opposite?” Jaishankar told a group of Indian reporters. He appeared to virtually disagree with India and Pakistan being talked of in the same breath.

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The external affairs minister had been answering a query about India and Pakistan being “hyphenated” once again after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status which was a result of the nullification of Article 370 of the Constitution.

By that logic then, India should not do anything which would bring Pakistan into the conversation at all, he said. “So, let’s not talk Afghanistan. In fact, let’s not talk South Asia. So, my sense is people are over-obsessed about it,” he said.

Often the argumentation comes from people who have a viewpoint that we shouldn’t have done anything about (Article) 370, Jaishankar said, adding he has very little tolerance for that.

(With inputs from agencies)