The press conference, which took place at the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi, has triggered fierce backlash from political leaders.
A diplomatic visit by Afghanistan’s acting Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to India has sparked a political and gender rights controversy, after women journalists were allegedly barred from attending a press conference addressed by him in New Delhi on Thursday.
Former union minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram expressed his dismay, calling the exclusion of female media personnel “shocking” and suggesting that male journalists should walk out in solidarity.
“I am shocked that women journalists were excluded from the press conference addressed by Mr Amir Khan Muttaqi of Afghanistan. In my personal view, the male journalists should have walked out when they found that their female colleagues were excluded (or not invited),” he said in a post on X.
TMC leader Mahua Moitra also took to X to express her shock, questioning how EAM Jaishankar allowed this kind of discrimination to fester on Indian soil.
“How dare our government allow Taliban foreign minister Amir Muttaqi to exclude women journalists & hold a ‘male-only’ news conference on Indian soil with full protocol? How dare EAM Jaishankar agree to this? & why did our emasculated spineless male journos remain in the room?” he wrote on X.
Taking a harder line, Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram directly accused the Modi government and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar of enabling gender-based exclusion in the name of diplomacy.
“I understand the geopolitical compulsions that force us to engage with the Taliban, but to accede to their discriminatory & plain primitive mores is outright ridiculous. It’s very disappointing to note the conduct of the Ministry of External Affairs and S Jaishankar in excluding women journalists from the press briefing of the Taliban Minister,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the government had no involvement in the press interaction held on Friday by Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Delhi.
“MEA had no involvement in the press interaction held yesterday by Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Delhi,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
The Taliban’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amir Khan Muttaqi, is on a week-long visit to India, from October 9 to October 16. This is the first high-level delegation from Kabul to India since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021.
On the first day of his visit, Muttaqi held a bilateral meeting with EAM S Jaishankar and discussed cooperative efforts to strengthen ties between the two nations.
India also announced several new projects for Afghanistan as part of its ongoing healthcare cooperation.
