Politics over national achievements must stop

The opposition first projected the surgical strikes as something done by the Army independently and then in a clumsy attempt raised doubts about the operation.

The responses of the political opposition to the successful surgical strike carried out by our para commandos on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LOC) have ranged from being somewhat reasonable to strangely weird. While hailing the achievement as a great feat of the Indian Army, opposition leaders, with a couple of exceptions, refused to put on record their appreciation of the leadership of the government for showing the courage to call Pakistan’s bluff on cross border terrorism. It is difficult to believe that these leaders did not know that a planned armed offensive across our borders would always be the outcome of three things—decisiveness of the political executive headed by the Prime Minister of the day, fail-safe intelligence furnished by our agencies on which the decision would be anchored, and of course the strength and operational brilliance displayed by our armed forces in executing the plan cleared at the national level.

It cannot be denied that all these years the Pakistan army and the ISI were being allowed to get away with unleashing terrorist violence in Kashmir and elsewhere without the governments of the day in India ever putting Pakistan on notice. Even an assault like 26/11 did not get the then government to put India-Pakistan talks on the back burner. Earlier, India gifted the card of deniability to Pakistan at the Havana summit by granting it “shared victimhood” in terms of terrorism; this the latter used in all subsequent attacks including Mumbai, Pathankot and even Uri. Policymakers and their advisers in India were obviously ignorant of the antecedents of the militant outfits used by Pakistan ISI as the instrument of cross border terrorism against India. It is only in the Narendra Modi regime that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj forcefully told the UNGA not to make any distinction between “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists”, which was clearly a message for the United States too.

India showed great strategic clarity by telling the world that the surgical strikes by the Indian Army were against cross border terrorists and that this country had no intention of initiating a war from its side. The Indian opposition ought to have appreciated the leadership of the government for bringing the external and internal security parameters under control, while effectively executing a military action deep inside POK. This operation was different from the response—on earlier occasions—of spontaneously taking retaliatory firing to the other side of the border in reply to a provocation.

The opposition chose first to project the surgical strikes as something done by the Army independently of the government and then in a clumsy attempt to deny any credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi even raised doubts about the fact of any such operation having been carried out at all. A prominent leader even suggested openly that the Indian Army was possibly lying about the whole operation. This looked like a seditious statement. Again, on the Prime Minister’s participation in the symbolic burning of Ravana on Dussehra in Lucknow, where the organisers had projected the demon

India showed great strategic clarity by telling the world that the surgical strikes by the Indian Army were against cross border terrorists and that this country had no intention of initiating a war from its side.

as the “evil of terrorism”, which that had to be rooted out, many opposition leaders chose to object to the slogan of Jai Shri Ram raised by the PM on the conclusion of his short address. Modi’s address had minimal political content and was devoted to the theme of Ramayan befitting the religious occasion and its criticism, therefore, was clearly out of line. The critics gave the impression of wanting to increase their access to a vote bank.

The Indian Army action is the outcome of a switch in India’s Pakistan policy from a weak-kneed stance in Kashmir in the name of “strategic constraint”, to a transparent approach of stern reciprocity towards a recalcitrant neighbour. Unsurprisingly, this has brought many apologists of Pakistan, including some professionals, to the fore with their arguments and writings designed to blame India’s handling of Kashmir for the recent disturbances in the valley. They just refuse to see that ever since the Modi government became firm that talks and terror did not go together, the Pakistan army and ISI stepped up the infiltration of terrorists into Kashmir and used their agents in the valley to organise stone pelting mobs to create instability. They forget that in the wake of the success of the antiSoviet armed campaign in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s ISI had decided to replicate the Afghan jihad in Kashmir by sending in the Mujahideens of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish- e- Muhammad and in the process had made the Hizbul Mujahideen (of Burhan Wani fame) subservient to Hafiz Saeed. An entirely new level of subversion instigated by Pakistan was in play in Kashmir and any suggestion that Kashmir was witnessing some kind of a “revolution from within” sounded like an endorsement of Nawaz Sharif’s line on Kashmir “intifada”.

What Kashmir needs is a corruption-free and service oriented administration and the retrieval of Kashmiriyat from Mujahideen extremism. The opposition parties had unanimously hailed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for his successful visit to Srinagar where he first struck a stern note against separatists and other apologists of Pakistan. There is no reason why this political unity should not remain intact after the game-changing surgical strike made by our Army on terror launch pads across LOC. D.C. Pathak is a former Director, Intelligence Bureau I feel anger that present day politicians can act so low that they try to make use, to their partisan advantage, even the most delicate matters of defence and security. Previously, the matter of defence was accepted as the country’s concern. That is why Jaya Prakash Narain, who was maligned for his anti corruption movement in Gujarat by Indira Gandhi, had no hesitation to agree to her request to go on international tours to educate other countries about the delicacy of the Bangladesh situation. No one played politics with the country’s security and dignity and the undoubted sacrifice and planning of the defence forces. Now things have changed horribly. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Leader of the Opposition, called Indira Gandhi “Durga” without any hesitation. The Congress did not project the 1971 war as a victory of the Indian Army or its brilliant strategy. Rather it claimed it to be Indira Gandhi’s personal victory and strategy. Nobody grudged that. It’s common to give credit for such things to the current leader, just as the Allied forces won World War II, but in the UK, it was Churchill, and not the coalition partner Labour Party, who got the credit. It is a different matter that England’s electorate was sensible enough to realise that the post war reconstruction required a modest looking Attlee than the bumbling Churchill. The CPM is now taking the same stand as the Congress, which is not surprising since it accepted in the West Bengal Assembly elections the role of a junior partner and so has to follow the lead given by Rahul Gandhi. Need I remind the CPM and CPI that in the war against Hitler it gave all credit to Stalin’s leadership than to the unimaginably courageous Red Army? It is natural in politics that an Army does not want public kudos. It only wants its due recognition, dignity and respect. Following the Uri incident, there was a condemnation of alleged lack of proper response by the government. The healthy conventions of democracies that these matters are left best to be determined by Army and its experts (along with mandatorily consultation with opposition, of course only on general information and not strategic details) were ignored, so when the government claimed that it has done a surgical strike inside the area occupied by Pakistan, the opposition demanded proof, which was an insult to the Army and its achievements. And when pressed into a corner, the government yielded and purported to give proof. There the matter should have rested under mature politicians.

Rahul Gandhi, though in the first instance behaved like a responsible opposition leader, soon let partisan thinking take over and in totally unacceptable language attacked Narendra Modi: “You are hiding behind their blood. You are trading them ( aap jawanon ke khoon ki dalali kar rahe ho).” And purportedly to make his point stronger, he gave the reference to Raj Babbar’s film Insaf ka Tarazu and proudly proclaimed that “Congress has given justice to the people. Congress has respected insaf ka tarazu, which Modi has not.”

Would some of Rahul’s associates explain to him that Raj Babbar’s role in said film was that of a villainous rapist and since he was protected by his riches and cronies, the public especially took upon itself to avenge the insult to womanhood by murdering the villain. Is there any relevance that to the present situation? These election strategies are normal in a democratic state: every political party is perfectly within its rights to take political advantage of such things. I am surprised that the Congress and the Left are behaving in such a cringing and unsportsmanlike manner.

In this game of one upmanship, the Congress spokesperson taunted the BJP by reminding it that as far back as 1965 it was Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who belonged to the Congress, who crossed the LOC. But some cynics may comment that though Congress wants to take credit for Lal Bahadur Shastri’s bold action, although in reality its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi did not consider it their duty to pay homage at the samadhi of the great soul on his recent birthday. Has “Indira” in Dev Kant Barua’s insulting slogan “India is Indira” been substituted by “Sonia or Rahul” in the Congress philosophy? Of course the BJP’s conduct post the strike by the Army is also abhorrent. The BJP’s election strategy for UP is clear from the way compensation has been given to one of the Hindu men who was charged with the murder of Akhlaq of Dadri and who died in hospital. It was also not right on the part of the Shiv Sena to prevent actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui from participating in Ram Lila, even when he volunteered to do so.

In this regard one is feeling uncomfortable that Pakistani actors are not being allowed to work in India even when all permissions have been duly given. Mutual goodwill and ultimate peace between India and Pakistan depend on our countries keeping alive our common lines of communication through films, plays, music and the common heritage of both countries, especially of both Pakistan Punjab and Indian Punjab. Let me repeat what I sincerely believe that India and Pakistan are like Siamese twins. We can either destroy ourselves by our enmity, or become the leaders of the world if we start living in peace and with mutual trust. If this sounds like the raving of a person who spent the first 25 years of his life in Lahore and cannot forget the mutual tastes and culture of both Pakistani and Indian Punjabs, let me be so tainted.