Jaishankar questions bids to ‘hyphenate’ India with Pakistan

Washington, October 1

Questioning bids to “hyphenate” India with Pakistan following nullification of Article 370, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said it is being done 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 ‘reputed’ to be your exact opposite?” Jaishankar told a group of Indian reporters, virtually taking exceptions to India and Pakistan being talked of in the same breath.

The External Affairs Minister was responding to a query about India and Pakistan being “hyphenated” once again following abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status after 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 had “very little tolerance” for that. PTI