A post is being shared on social media claiming it as former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s speech about the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Organisation (UNO). This post claims that when Vajpayee was sent as India’s representative to the UN during the PV Narasimha Rao led government, Vajpayee expressed his views by narrating a short story of Rishi Kashyap. According to the post, a Pakistan delegate had objected to Vajpayee’s story and admitted that Pakistan was not at all in existence during Rishi Kashyap’s visit to Kashmir. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Former Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s speech about the Kashmir issue at the United Nations organisation.
Fact: The post shared is an edited fictional story published in ‘Kushwant Singh’s Joke Book 9’. This fictional quote of an Indian politician narrating Rishi Kashyap’s story in the UN was contributed by a New Delhi man named Vipin Buckshey. This story has nothing to do with Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On searching for the details of the claims made in the post, it is found out that P. V. Narasimha Rao led Congress Government had sent Atal Bihari Vajpayee to lead the Indian delegation to the 1994 Geneva session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR). The Vajpayee led Indian delegation had successfully thwarted the UN Resolution against India on Kashmir Issue. However, it is nowhere reported that Vajpayee had narrated the story of Rishi Kashyap while addressing the UNHCR. A few responses of the Indian delegation at the 1994 Geneva session of the UNHCR can be seen here, here, and here.
When we searched for the details of this story shared in the post using keywords, it is found out that this story was re-created by editing a fictional joke published in ‘Kushwant Singh’s Joke Book 9’. The link to ‘Kushwant Singh’s Joke Book 9’ in different e-commerce websites can be seen here and here.
This fictional story was contributed by New Delhi based Vipin Buckshey. The screenshots of this fictional story published in the ‘Kushwant’s Singh Joke Book 9’ can be seen below.
To sum it up, a fictional story from ‘Kushwant Singh’s Joke Book 9’ is edited and shared as Vajpayee’s speech in United Nations in the 1990s.
