Western media poses the biggest challenge in clarifying Kashmir move to U.S. government : EA minister Jaishankar

S. Jaishankar, Indian external affairs minister
S. Jaishankar at the USISPF meeting at New Delhi
S. Jaishankar, Indian external affairs minister
S. Jaishankar at the USISPF meeting at New Delhi

The negative attitude of western media while narrating the Jammu & Kashmir issue poses the biggest challenge to the Indian government when they try to clarify the Kashmir situation and reasons behind scrapping the Article 370 to the governments abroad, explained External affairs minister S. Jaishankar on Monday.

“I think it was a more difficult challenge with the media, especially the English-speaking liberal media [in the West]. Partly because they were ideological about [Jammu and Kashmir], and they had strong preset views about it. My view was that they didn’t present a fair picture or absorb it,” Mr. Jaishankar said while interacting with an audience of American and Indian businessmen, at an event organised by the U.S. India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). He spoke and opened up about the questions the government faced during his visit to the U.S. in September.

Mr. Jaishankar explained that Indian government believes that abolishing the Article 370 is an internal business of the country but yet it has to explain thr reasons behind the move while interacting with governments of various countries.

In general, India’s EA minister was very critical of U.S. & U.K. newspapers for not publishing the reasons for scrapping the Article 370.

“I found a lot of people were surprised by the information that the particular provision of the Constitution was a temporary one, because the media does not say that,” he said, also throwing light on the facts how the media had ignored explanations of the “business and development obstacles” due to Article 370.

S. Jaishankar’s comments on the government struggles with Kashmir situation came ahead of a U.S. Congress hearing on Tuesday of the Asia Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC), which is looking into Human Rights issues in South Asia including in Kashmir, and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam.

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