Measured strength: How India Outmaneuvered Pak at UNSC

Pakistan attempted a charade of internationalizing the Kashmir issue and projecting its peace avatar, positioning the OIC as a surrogate voice and reintroducing multilateralism in India-Pakistan bilateral equations.

- LAKSHMI PURI

General Asim Munir, the de facto ruler of a war-mongering military dictatorship masquerading as a democracy, blatantly warned on American soil that Pakistan would take half the world down with its nuclear weapons.

Only days earlier, its foreign ministry, the "hired culprit," had just floundered defending its peace credentials at the UNSC-"the justice of its imprisonment".

Coming in the aftermath of India's precision strikes under Operation Sindoora response to the horrific Pahalgam terror attack masterminded by it, Pakistan sought to use its presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the only occasion in its two-year term as a non-permanent member that it would occupy this rotating office, to cleanse itself of the appellation-"epicentre of global terrorism".

Leveraging the procedural privilege of the chair, it tried to project itself as a champion of international law, multilateralism, and peace-making.

It focused its presidency on three themes: the peaceful settlement of disputes under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, cooperation between the UNSC and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the situation in the Middle East. Its overarching objective being the advancement of its distorted narrative on Kashmir.

However, even without a seat at the horseshoe table this time, New Delhi shaped positions and ensured the procedural and political terrain did not tilt towards Islamabad's designs, blunting manoeuvres before they could gain momentum.

What followed was a textbook example of strategic clarity and mature diplomacy prevailing over tactical posturing-the pulpit becoming a pillory.