Road for India becoming ‘Vishwaguru’ is through SAARC, not G20: Mehbooba

The forthcoming G20 meeting may be a “good promotion exercise” for the BJP at the international level but holding the SAARC summit and discussing problems in the region would help India in becoming a ‘Vishwaguru’, says former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti

The forthcoming G20 meeting may be a “good promotion exercise” for the BJP at the international level but holding the SAARC summit and discussing problems in the region would help India in becoming a ‘Vishwaguru’, says the last chief minister of erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state Mehbooba Mufti. Mehbooba was speaking to news agency PTI on the preparations for the G20 grouping meeting on tourism in Srinagar from May 22 to 24.

Mehbooba said that G20 “may be a good PR exercise for BJP at international level but it is not going to make India the ‘Vishwaguru’ which they talk about” (PTI Photo)

Amid strain in India-Pakistan ties, the biennial SAARC summits have not taken place since the 2014 meeting in Kathmandu.

“We don’t live close to Australia, America or Japan which are members of G20. We are living in this region and the SAARC caters to the problems of this region and if the government takes the initiative and has a summit of SAARC countries and addresses the problems that are being faced by this region including what is happening in Pakistan” that will help India to be the leader in the region and the world, she said. But the government “has to understand that the road leads through SAARC and not through G20”, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief said.

The G20 event will be the first international meeting being held in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two union territories -- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh -- in August 2019.

“As far as G20 is concerned, it has been made into a BJP event because even the logo has been replaced by a lotus. It may be a kind of good promotion for the party itself and as far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, especially the Valley you have seen the way the crackdowns are going on...,” she said. However, the Jammu and Kashmir police denied any high-handedness saying that only those people against whom there is digital evidence of indulging in anti-national activities have been detained.

Mehbooba said that G-20 “may be a good PR exercise for BJP at international level but it is not going to make India the ‘Vishwaguru’ which they talk about”. It is the SAARC and if the leadership here takes an initiative to have a SAARC summit “that is something that can really establish the leadership of India in this region and ultimately it can establish its leadership in the world,” she opined.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), set up in December 1985, is a grouping of eight countries -- India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.