Germany on Kashmir

T he Indian government continues its streak of faux offence at other members of the global community showing concern over the happenings in the same world we all share, most recently with indirect criticism of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock over comments she made regarding Kashmir. While sharing a stage with her Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Baerbock made a relatively innocuous comment regarding Germany’s interest in seeing a peaceful settlement to the Kashmir dispute. “Germany also has a role and responsibility with regard to the situation in Kashmir. Therefore, we support intensively the engagement of the United Nations, to find peaceful resolutions in the region,” she had said.

This was apparently enough to ruffle feathers in New Delhi to generate an official response from the ministry. Still, credit to the MEA for actually changing their script and focusing more on accusing Pakistan of terrorism while downplaying the more common ‘Kashmir is an internal matter’ claim. However, this might just be a follow-up to Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s recent remarks falsely accusing Pakistan of “international terrorism”. Unlike Jaishankar, however, the MEA spokesman did not bumble his way into suggesting that India replied to terrorism with terrorism. But the response is still surprising given the relative inoffensiveness of their content and the qualifications and political positions of the speaker.

It is also worth noting that Baerbock is not identifiably pro-Pakistan or anti-India, but she has several years of high-level foreign policy experience and holds a master’s in international law. All Baerbock said was that Germany wants to see the UN more engaged in trying to peacefully resolve the dispute. This is in line with the UN resolutions regarding Kashmir which India has previously accepted but failed to observe. India could have ignored the comments instead of issuing inane statements. Instead, India’s official position now appears to be in opposition to UN intervention that would bring peace to war zones and other areas where human rights violations occur.