India on Monday criticised Pakistan for “weaponising women’s rights issues for self-serving political gains” at the United Nations, PTI reported. India’s First Secretary to the UN Paulomi Tripathi said that it was ironic that a country where women’s rights violations go unpunished was making “baseless” comments about India.

The remarks from the Indian side came after Pakistan’s outgoing ambassador to the UN Maleeha Lodhi referred to a picture on the front page of The New York Times of a Kashmiri woman crying after her son died of a snake bite. Lodhi had highlighted the picture to depict the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir since it lost its special constitutional status.

“As we renew our collective resolve to continue to work towards the realisation of women’s empowerment and gender equality, there is no space for weaponising women’s rights issues through empty rhetoric for self-serving political gains,” Paulomi Tripathi said without naming Pakistan at the Third Committee session on ‘Advancement of Women’. “Today, one delegation has callously chosen to politicise this agenda by making unwarranted references to internal matters of my country.”

Tripathi listed out names of female scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation and pointed out the first female President of the General Assembly was Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, thus driving home the idea that Indian women had been an inspiration to many. In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Tripathi said the nation longed for the territory of others and hid between “vile intentions with fake concerns”.

The Indian UN diplomat said the global community remembered that the military of the neighbouring country had allegedly perpetrated sexual crimes against women in Bangladesh in 1971. “We still hear accounts of these gruesome violations at the annual high level general debate,” she said. “We do not wish to engage further on this issue with a delegation with such credibility.”

The UN representative said that even after progress has been made towards gender equality, women and girls across the world continued to get restricted access to education, employment, among other things. She noted that female children are forced to get married, trafficked, and over 800 women die due to avoidable causes, including pregnancy.

Over 1.3 million elected female representatives were part of implementing public policies at the grassroot level in India, Tripathi said. She added that over 197 million women, who were earlier not qualified, now had opened bank accounts through the administration’s financial inclusion scheme. The diplomat also highlighted other initiatives of the Indian government to make sure that women empowerment and equality were championed.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have peaked since New Delhi revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under the Constitution on August 5. Islamabad, which has fought three wars with India for Kashmir since Independence, did not take the decision well. Pakistan responded by suspending trade with India, downgrading bilateral ties and sending back its envoy. It also approached several international bodies, including the United Nations.

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