SRINAGAR — Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday launched a sharp critique against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that India failed to decisively articulate its historic foreign policy values—particularly regarding global human rights and the ongoing crisis in West Asia—during the recent BRICS summit.
Addressing reporters, the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister asserted that although New Delhi held the rotating presidency and led the multilateral forum, its political leadership missed a crucial opportunity to project moral authority.
“We secured the chair, but our voice remained silent,” Mufti stated, contending that the Prime Minister exercised excessive caution instead of championing the nation’s traditional commitments to non-alignment, democracy, and humanitarian advocacy.
Mufti specifically pointed to the mounting civilian casualties in Gaza and recent escalations across West Asia, arguing that India’s historical posture warranted a much firmer, independent stance.
While welcoming the BRICS New Delhi Declaration—which condemned the Pahalgam terror attack alongside taking note of regional hostilities in West Asia—the PDP chief maintained that New Delhi should have spearheaded the joint text rather than adopting a reactive approach.
The PDP president also alleged that India’s diplomatic posture has grown increasingly selective in recent years regarding the condemnation of violence, emphasizing that civilian casualties carry equal weight regardless of geography. She cautioned that as international relations shift toward a multipolar architecture, New Delhi’s foreign policy risks remaining constrained by an excessive tilt toward traditional superpower alignments.
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