Modi Slams UN for Failing to Gauge Dangers of Terrorism

Modi warned that UN risks losing its relevance if it does not act urgently to address the challenges of terrorism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Photo: Reuters)

In a sharp criticism of the UN, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the global institution was failing to gauge the dangers of terrorism. He warned that the world body risked losing its relevance if it did not act urgently to address the “new age challenge”.

Modi said terrorism needed to be delinked from religion and underlined that the menace could not be eradicated simply by using “bombs, guns and pistols” but by creating an environment in which youth were not enticed into radicalism.

Addressing the Indian diaspora in Brussels, he extended his condolences to those who had lost loved ones in the recent suicide bombing incident in Belgium. He said that while India had been suffering from terrorism over the last 40 years, the world had just realised how “deadly” and “cruel” it could be.

He noted that in the last year, 90 countries suffered terror attacks and took on the United Nations for still not defining terrorism.

...if you ask about terrorism, the UN does not know what terrorism is and how to deal with it. Because it (UN) was born from the dreadfulness of wars and, therefore, they are unable to think beyond that. This (terrorism) is a challenge of the new age, a challenge to humanity and in gauging it, such a major institution is not able to fulfill its duty.

<b>Narendra Modi</b>

He pointed out that India has been pleading with the UN for years to clearly define terrorism.

When India was shouting that terrorism has become a danger for innocent people, the world powers used to tell us that it is not terrorism but “your law and order problem”. But when the earth beneath their feet started moving, then the world realised what terrorism means.

Modi called the fact that the UN was still unable to gauge the deadliness of terrorism a “misfortune”.

India, he noted, has been suffering from terrorism for last 40 years and the country had lost more security personnel to it than in the wars.

Referring to a conference of liberal Islamic scholars held in India recently in which Islamic scholars from several countries participated, he said they unanimously stated that the terrorism is un-Islamic.