There clearly is more of excitement and less of realism vis-a-vis the UN designation of Masood Azhar as a ‘global terrorist’. He is, no doubt, one; but what would come out of this hard-earned approval for the Indian stand is worth a check. Azhar’s terror outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammad, had been designated in such a manner years ago, and this meant little. It changed its name on paper, and carried on with its heinous acts.
Another anti-India terror outfit operating from the Pakistani soil, the Lashkar e Toiba had been proscribed similarly by the UN, years ago, and nothing happened to it. Its leader Hafiz Saeed is a free man in Pakistan till now, like Masood. Notably, it took 10 years for India to “bring Azhar to book” and that too in a mild manner. It showed how weak the highly respected world body is when it comes to the crunch; and how weak India is.
UN either vacillates or acts in a weak-kneed manner. It generally obliges the US, its base being in New York and the US being its main funding source. UN gives freedom to a small and select group of nations to veto proposals at the Security Council. In the case of India-Pakistan tussles at diplomatic level, China used this power to the hilt, to back Pakistan and hurt India. UN reforms is an idea being floated around for quite some time, but neither the US nor the other key players are interested in this. The present scenario suits them; not others.
India’s own long-drawn diplomatic campaign with the UN to get at Masood Azhar is proof of this nation’s weak leadership profile. It wasted much time to get this much done. Azhar heads a terrorist outfit from Pakistan with ISI support and the huge funds he extracted from Indian government by way of ransom money for freeing of hostages from a Kathmandu-New Delhi flight his brothers had hijacked in 1999. Pakistan harboured him openly and he spearheaded anti-India terror activities from there for many years. India could not lift a finger against this; instead, it ran to the UN.
Two main “actions” that Pakistan took now are of curbing Azhar’s travel abroad, which anyway is not possible, given his global terrorist tag; and of freezing his assets. China saw to it that Pakistan had enough time to help Azhar transfer his key assets and funds to others before this UN action came. The “technical holds” were meant precisely for this purpose; to buy time.