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Full Speech: Shashi Tharoor Jolts USA Amid Trump's India-Pakistan Claims; Explains Pahalgam, Sindoor

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First of all, thank you all for being

here. It's amazing on a Saturday night

of the Memorial Day weekend that we were

able to get such a star turnout and

thank you all for coming. I had a chance

to say hello to many of you during the

reception, but some of you I haven't and

I do want to say hello and acknowledge

with gratitude your presence here this

evening. My colleagues and I uh

literally arrived this afternoon and our

first stop was the September 11

memorial. Uh it was obviously a very

moving moment for us, but it was also

meant to send a very strong message that

we are here uh in a city which is

bearing still the scars of that savage

terrorist attack in the wake of yet

another terrorist attack in our own

country. Uh unlike the US, I'm afraid

we've had to endure very a very much

larger number of terrorist attacks in

India. But uh we came both as a reminder

that this is a shared problem but also

out of a s out of a a spirit of

solidarity with the victims who included

Indians as Indra was reminding me

someone young Indian working in her own

company was one of the victims of 911 uh

Indians Americans and very many other

nationalities who were affected. It's a

global problem. It's a scourge and we

must all fight it unitedly. So that was

that was a very important message to

convey and my colleagues and I uh did

that by by going to the memorial and and

and leaving roses on the some of the

names uh around the memorial pool. And

having done that, we are now proceeding

as has been mentioned already to four

other countries before returning to the

US, not to New York, but to Washington

DC on the 3rd of June when Congress will

come back from its recess as well. So,

um, our idea is very much to speak to a

cross-section of public and political

opinion in each of the countries we're

going to about recent events um,

which obviously troubled a number of

people around the world um, and which

now have subsided. There is a reasonable

amount of calm that's reigning on the

border between India and Pakistan today.

But the fundamental underlying problem

remains and it's important that we try

and enlarge your understanding of our

thinking and our concerns about what's

going on. So it's it's for us an

opportunity. We will be in every country

meeting members of the executive,

meeting members of the legislature, uh

meeting uh think tankers and influential

foreign policy experts and at the same

time uh uh interacting with the media

and public opinion in every one of these

places. Um, we're on our way to Guyana

tonight where Independence Day

celebrations are about to take place and

we'll be seeing the president and and

the foreign minister and and members of

of parliament there and we carry on on

similar programs uh in these other

countries. Uh, Vine had asked me to say

a few words about what happened.

Um by way of context I mean I think

you're all aware that India has uh tried

to be focused on a very different

narrative uh from some of our neighbors.

Our focus for some years now has been on

being the world's fastest growing free

market democracy. uh attempting to focus

on the development of our economy, our

high emphasis on on technology and

technological growth and pulling large

numbers of people uh from below the

poverty line not just into the 21st

century but into uh the world and the

opportunities that the 21st century

offers. And perhaps in that process we

had allowed ourselves in some ways um to

to be complacent. Complacent may be too

unkind a word but we we had not perhaps

um braced ourselves sufficiently for the

malign influences in our neighborhood uh

that did not want that story uh to to

that narrative to be told in a in a in

an uninterrupted manner. uh we had been

seeing in uh Jammu and Kashmir which as

you know has for the long long time been

um coveted by our neighbors on the other

side Pakistan. We had been seeing not

just uh peace but increasing

prosperity. Um in fact uh Vine gave me

this wonderful nugget that the number of

tourists in Kashmir last year was double

uh the number of tourists in Aspen

Colorado last year. So that was the kind

of the kind of um of of not just normaly

but but growth prosperity that the

people of Kashmir were enjoying uh as

Indians and foreigners were flocking to

Kashmir for tourism. So some people

decided that they would want first of

all to attack that process of

normalization. Second to undermine the

overall Indian narrative as well as the

prosperity of the people of

Kashmir.

Third by doing so in an atrocious manner

that is it was not just a terrorist

attack of somebody indiscriminately

blowing up people with a bomb. It was a

bunch of people going around identifying

the religion of the people before them

and killing them on that basis which was

clearly intended to provoke a backlash

uh in the rest of India um on since the

victims were overwhelmingly Hindu. In

fact, u 26 people died. 25 Indians and

one Nepalese. And the Nepoese uh

happened, of course, uh didn't get a

chance to say he was Nepoese, but he was

a Hindu, so he would have probably been

killed anyway. And quite astonishingly

one person who wasn't killed was a Hindu

professor who happened to be able to

recite the calima the first verse of the

Quran and therefore was was not shot

which is a very interesting message and

it was very very clearly I mean for us

it was not that um not that there was

any doubt about the motives of these

people but it was particularly driven

home in many cases uh the husband was

shot and the wife was told to convey the

message back that he was shot for his

faith. And I'm very proud as an Indian

to say that uh that did not happen that

there was no backlash that Indians held

together uh uh unitedly uh in the face

of this atrocity. The Kashmiris um who

are overwhelmingly Muslim as you know uh

were not just completely uh distraught

by what happened but they were there was

public uh rejection of this. The next

day the entire uh states downed its

shutters. Um there was there was a

public observance of support and

solidarity for the victims. Um the state

assembly as well all all shades of

political opinion. Uh, one of the

victims, I should have added, was a

Kashmiri Muslim pony operator who

attempted not just to save the lives of

his of his of his of his customers, but

to snatch the Kalashnikov for one of the

killers and it was turned against him.

uh but others I mean I I had a victim

from my state of Kerala um who was a

61-year-old man uh who was walking in

the meadow with his youngish daughter

and her twin sons age six when they shot

him and uh I I went to his home and

called on his widow and and his daughter

and and grandchildren and it was it was

very very moving when this girl said

that Um though she lost her father that

day, she found two brothers and the two

brothers were two Kashmiri Muslim men

who took her to safety uh protected her

sons and eventually then accompanied her

to the morttery to identify her father's

body brought and bring it back. I I I

give these examples just to say there

was an extraordinary amount of

togetherness cutting across religious

and other uh other divides that people

had tried to provoke. But the message

was very clear that there was a malign

intent uh that I've just spelled out for

you. And

India sadly had no reason to doubt where

it came from because within one hour of

the atrocity a group called the

resistance front had claimed credit. The

resistance front was known for some

years to be a frontal organization of

the banned prescribed

uh lashkariba which is on the US uh

designated terror list as well um as

well as the UN sanctions committees and

India had gone to the UN sanctions

committee with information about the

resistance front in

2023 and in 24 and now sadly it had

acted in 25. They repeated their claim

the next day until of course global

condemnation I think woke their handlers

up to the dangers as represented and

then they deleted their claim on the

third day but by then the claim had been

made recorded registered and

reported and for us therefore um the

culpability

lay not just with the five four five

we're not 100%

uh evil killers who came to Pahelgam and

did this did this uh uh atrocity but

also with those who had sent them

financed them equipped them trained them

guided them uh into doing this and since

we knew where Lashkar is headquartered

it has it's not just a safe haven but a

rather generous 200 acre campus uh in a

city in the heartland of Pakistani

Punjab uh we also knew where the

responsibility lay. Sadly, Pakistan

chose to follow its usual path of

denial. In fact, Pakistan uh with the

help of China succeeded in removing a

reference to the resistance front from

the resolution of condemnation that was

drafted in the security council, the

press statement actually not resolution

uh in the security council of the UN uh

two days later. But uh though the name

was not mentioned, it was as I said a

matter of public record and and we knew

what was happening. Uh India replied

immediately that we would not let this

go unanswered. Um I don't work for the

government as you know I work for an

opposition party but I myself authored

an op-ed in one of India's leading

papers the Indian Express within a

couple of days saying the time had come

to hit hard but hit smart. And I'm

pleased to say that's exactly what India

did uh on the night of the 6th 7th of

May. It was sixth here. It was seventh

for us. Um at 10:05 in the morning, a

time chosen deliberately to avoid any

risk of too many civilians wandering

about or any collateral damage.

very precise and calibrated strikes took

place on nine specific known terrorist

bases, headquarters and launchpads.

Those included those of the Lachkar Toba

in a place called Muritk, those of the

Jash Muhammad, the organization that is

responsible amongst other things for the

murder of Daniel Pearl and some of you

knew in New York um and others uh Jashi

Muhammad and Bahavalur and um in

Muzafarabad which is in Pakistan, the

Pakistani occupied part of Kashmir,

there were no less than three different

terror organizations which had their

bases there. Harat Ansar, Harat Mujahim

and others and and and so

India sent a clear message number one

that it was not going to take terror

lying down. it would answer. But equally

that by delivering very precisely

calculated calibrated strikes on very

specific

targets, it was also sending a message

that this was not meant to be the

opening salvo in a protracted war but

just an act of retribution that we were

prepared to stop with that act. In other

words, uh I mean not just in other

words, it was officially conveyed uh

there is a a regular hotline between the

two directors general of military

operations. The message was conveyed um

that this was the intent that it was

pointed out that no military targets, no

civilian targets and no governmental

targets had been hit, not even by

accident and that the message therefore

had been delivered exactly and precisely

uh to the terrorists and their handlers.

Nonetheless, Pakistan chose to respond

and respond, I'm sorry to say, uh with

indiscriminate shelling uh uh across the

border the very first day and night,

which sadly uh killed 19

civilians and injured grievously 59

others, including Carmelite nuns in a

convent, uh seeks worshiping in a

gurudara and uh others who happened to

simply be in the line of fire because

they lived in districts adjoining the

Pakistani

border. When this happened, India had no

choice but to retaliate in

kind. The matters got worse the next day

as the

Pakistanis followed up artillery

shelling with uh a serious u invasion of

drones and and missiles. um India's air

defenses were able to hold them off but

in turn India returned the the

compliment and on the night of 9th 10th

May India hit 11 Pakistani military

targets um

including a rather well-known air base

that's just one and a half kilometers

away from military headquarters of

Pakistan and Robert

Pindi the following morning we got a

call rather our director general

military operations got a call from the

Pakistani director general military

operations saying they'd like to stop

this and we said we've been saying all

along we didn't want to start anything

we were just sending a message of

terrorists you started we reply if you

stop we'll stop and they stopped uh

there was an 88 hour war

um we look back on that with with a

great deal of um of of of of frustration

because um it needn't have happened at

all. Lives have been lost. But at the

same time, we look back on this

experience with a steely and renewed

sense of

determination. There is now got to be a

new

normal. No one sitting in Pakistan is

going to be allowed to believe that they

can just walk across the do the border

and kill our citizens with impunity.

there will be a price to pay and that

price has been going up systematically.

I'll just take you briefly through what

happened. You may remember in 2015, well

you may not remember because this is our

problem not yours but in 2015 in January

there was an attack on Indian air base a

place called Patanot and our prime

minister had just made a goodwill visit

to Pakistan the previous month on the

25th of December he'd attended the

birthday celebrations of then Pakistan

prime minister Nawas Sharif uh whose

granddaughter's wedding was on the same

day he had given gifts so when this

happened he was so astonished that he

actually called the Pakistani prime

minister and said Why don't you join the

investigation? Let's let's solve who is

doing this. And the Pakistani you can

imagine the horror of the Indian

military establishment at this idea that

Pakistani investigators are going to

come to an Indian air base. But um but

they came and uh they went back to

Pakistan and said, "Oh, the Indians did

it to themselves." That was the last

straw. I mean it was just the we we'd

already gone through the horrors of 2008

in Mumbai when 170 people had been

killed and the Pakistani denials at that

time were laid bare not just by the fact

that we caught one of the terrorists

alive and his identity his address his

his family etc identified in Pakistan

but equally because that drama took

place over three days during which

western intelligence agencies trained

their recording devices amongst other

things uh on Pakistani uh the the

chilling voice of the Pakistani handler

giving minute-by-minute instructions to

the killers in Mumbai. So the evidence

was there. There had been denial and

that denial was proven to be completely

uh false. And as you know thereafter uh

the Pakistanis claimed not to know where

Osama bin Laden was until he was found

in a safe house right next to an army

cantonment uh in a in a in a in a city

dominated by the army. This is Pakistan

and I'm afraid for us 2015 was the last

opportunity for them to behave, to

cooperate, to really show they were

serious about ending terror as they

claimed every time that they were. And

since they did not do it in January, in

September 2015, there was another attack

uh in a place called Uri, also not far

from the border. And this time India

breached the line of control which we

had rigorously observed throughout in

every previous skirmish. We had never

crossed the line of control. We crossed

it with a surgical strike in September

of 2015. Uh that seemed to calm things

down a bit but unfortunately in January

of 2019 there was another terror attack

in a place called Pulwama killing 40

Indians at that point. And then India

responded not just by breaching the line

of control but also breaching the

international border and striking uh uh

with with with uh our air force a known

terror training camp in a place called

Balakot. Now we have not just crossed

the LOC, we have also crossed the

international border. We have hit

Pakistan in their heartland. And we have

done so as I say only to send a message

about terror. We are not interested and

we still remain absolutely clear that we

are not interested in warfare with

Pakistan. We would much rather be left

alone to grow our economy and pull our

people into the world that they're ready

getting ready for in the 21st century.

We have no desire to have anything that

the Pakistanis have. Sadly, we may be a

status quo power. They are not. They are

a revisionist power. They covered

territory that India controls and they

want to have it at any price. And if

they can't get it through conventional

means, they're willing to get it through

terrorism. That is not acceptable to us.

And that's really the message that we

are here to give all of us, all of you

in this country and and elsewhere.

Uh we are determined now that there's

got to be a new bottom line to this. We

have tried everything international

dossas, complaints to sanctions

committee, diplomacy,

um even this joint investigation

attempt, everything has been tried. Uh

Pakistan has remained in denial. There

has been absolutely no conviction, no

serious criminal prosecution, no attempt

to dismantle the terror infrastructure

in that country and the persistence of

safe havens. So from our point of view,

this is it. You do this, you're going to

get this back. And we have demonstrated

with this operation that we can do it

with a degree of precision and with a

degree of restraint that the world, we

hope, will understand. We have a right

to self-defense. We've exercised that

right. We have not done so irresponsibly

and we have not done so in a way that

would have warranted a wider

conflration. That's really the message I

wanted to give you all today. I'm sure

you have questions and comments and my

colleagues uh represent as I say four

parties amongst the five of us and

there's a wide span of views. We're all

happy to join in conversation with you.

Thank you all very much once again for

coming and being with us today.

J Heat.

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YouTube Transcript:Full Speech: Shashi Tharoor Jolts USA Amid Trump's India-Pakistan Claims; Explains Pahalgam, Sindoor

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YouTube Transcript:
Full Speech: Shashi Tharoor Jolts USA Amid Trump's India-Pakistan Claims; Explains Pahalgam, Sindoor