External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday took a swipe at Pakistan over the Kashmir issue - a subject the country frequently tries to flag in global forums with no success - declaring "no one talks about a losing stock".
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, it was put to Mr Jaishankar that one of his biggest achievements as India's external affairs minister is that he is no longer grilled about the Pakistan-Kashmir issue - a quagmire of a subject that hounded several of his predecessors and their governments.
"If today no one talks about Pakistan or it is not mentioned as much... what can I say? One way of looking at it is 'verdict of the market'. Which losing stock talks? No one talks about a losing stock," he responded with a smile in an interview ahead of the G20 summit to be held in Delhi next weekend.
The minister's comment comes after India in April dismissed Pakistan's objection to the hosting of a G20 meet in the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The government told Pakistan it is "natural" to hold events in these areas are they are an "integral and inalienable" part of the country.
India hosted G20 Tourism Working Group meet in Srinagar and youth event in Leh.
READ | "Natural To Hold" G20 Meetings In Srinagar, Ladakh: India Thrashes Pak's Objection
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry had earlier hit out at India's "irresponsible move" and called the scheduling of G20 events in J&K and Leh "the latest in a series of self-serving measures".
On Kashmir And Article 370
From the cheeky jab at Pakistan, Mr Jaishankar shifted to a more serious topic - Jammu and Kashmir and the scrapping of Article 370, which granted the former state 'special status' and the removal of which, Narendra Modi's government has said, played a key role in combatting terrorism in the region.
ALSO READ | On J&K Statehood Timeframe, Centre To Inform Supreme Court On Thursday
"Honestly... I was a member of the cabinet in 2019 and involved in the decisions taken. One part is still amazed at how we allowed this situation to fester for so long," he said, referencing a conversation with a close friend from Kashmir who had just returned from there.
"I told her... you want to see the change? Go to Lal Chowk (in Srinagar)... and tell me what you have seen, for she had not been there since 2019. So you see today... what injustice (took place in Kashmir). We kept that state backward for reasons of politics."
READ | "Article 370 Repeal One Of Our Biggest Achievements": S Jaishankar
Mr Jaishankar explained how he first visited parts of J&K (Uri and Baramulla) in 1979 as a civil servant and how, after he became a union minister in 2019, he went back to the same places.
"I was amazed at how little had changed... and how many things had happened in the rest of India that were not there. For me, from a foreign policy perspective, I saw how the rest of this world used this (Kashmir) issue to pressure us... damage us," he told NDTV, underlining the scrapping of Article 370 as one of the Indian government's biggest achievements - one with "long-term benefits".
