NEW DELHI: One of India's senior diplomats is in the news for the wrong reasons. Sandeep Chakravarty, India's consul general in New York featured in a video which quickly spread like wildfire on social media where he apparently compared the future of Kashmiri Pandits to Jews and Israel.
While the MEA refused to comment on the diplomat's personal comments, social media lit up with criticism about the comparison. Addressing an audience at a private event in New York, Chakravarty has been filmed saying that if Kashmiri pandits should look no further than the experience of the Jewish people who he said, "kept their culture for 2,000 years outside their land, and [then] they went back." "We all have to keep the Kashmiri culture alive. The Kashmiri culture is the Indian culture, it is the Hindu culture. I feel as much Kashmiri as anyone else," he said. In addition, he said, "I don't know why we don't follow it. It has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it," Chakravarty said.
Chakravarty took to Twitter later to say, "I have seen some social media comments on my recent remarks. My remarks are being taken out of context." On condition of anonymity, sources here said that Chakravarty's comments did not constitute government policy.
India has, in all these decades, taken care to not conflate the situation in Kashmir with the Israel-Palestine problem. India has maintained that Kashmir is an integral part of the country, and the unrest a result of Pakistan's policy of cross-border terrorism.
However, the Indian diplomat's remarks elicited a response from Read More – Source
