India on Thursday, 23 October delivered a sharp rebuke at the United Nations General Assembly's Third Committee in New York, accusing a UN special rapporteur of bias in reporting on funerals and burials in India while failing to acknowledge the gravity of terrorism and its victims.

India's Core Objection

Bhavika Mangalanandan, First Secretary at India's UN Mission, directly challenged a report by Nazila Ghanea, the special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, titled 'Freedom of Religion or Belief and Funeral Rights in Exceptional Circumstances.' Ghanea's report claimed that bodies of persons killed in security operations in Kashmir were not returned to their families and were instead buried in remote areas. It also alleged restrictions on burials of individuals killed during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), citing 'law and order' concerns.

Mangalanandan rejected the framing as politically motivated. 'Deriving political mileage out of people's pain and loss should not be a topic that SRs should base relevance on,' she said. She further challenged the rapporteur's selective sympathy: 'We are surprised that the fervent advocacy for the rights of terrorists who violate the most sacred right of humans, the right to life, does not similarly extend to the victims of terrorism.'

Terrorism and the Right to Life

India's rebuttal centred on the moral asymmetry in the rapporteur's framing. 'A terrorist not only kills innocent people, but damages the psyche of a nation,' Mangalanandan said, pressing the committee to consider the broader human cost of terrorism when evaluating state responses to security threats. The remarks signal India's continued resistance to what it views as selective international scrutiny of its internal security operations.

Global South Bias in Covid Burial Reporting

Mangalanandan also challenged the report's geographic scope, arguing it painted a distorted picture by focusing exclusively on the Global South during the Covid-19 pandemic while ignoring comparable incidents in wealthy nations. 'As per the report, all discrimination and wrong practices during Covid-19 supposedly took place only in the Global South,' she said. She pointed specifically to New York City, where thousands of Covid-19 victims were buried in mass graves on an isolated island — an incident the report did not mention. 'What benefit does the report derive by not mentioning similar tragic situations in the developed world?' she asked.

Sharp Rebuke to Pakistan at Third Committee

Responding to remarks made by Pakistan during the same session, Mangalanandan drew a pointed historical contrast. 'It is deeply ironic that a state that did not even accept the bodies of its own soldiers who were killed in combat in 1999 in Kargil unabashedly speaks with fervour on faith, religious freedom and burials,' she said. She noted that it was the Indian Army that buried a number of Pakistani soldiers 'with military honours and in accordance with Islamic rites.' India also called on Islamabad to address the rights of minorities in Pakistani-administered Kashmir rather than focusing on India. 'A state that cannot ensure the safety of its own minorities has no standing to lecture India,' Mangalanandan said.

About the Rapporteur and the Forum

Nazila Ghanea is a professor of international human rights law at Oxford University. Special rapporteurs are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, work independently of the UN Secretariat, and are not paid by the organisation. The Third Committee of the General Assembly deals with social, humanitarian, and cultural affairs, making it a regular venue for countries to push back against human rights criticism.