Why Opposition is Right in Asking Tough Questions of Modi & Op Sindoor

The Opposition hit the bulls eye by hammering the issue of the ceasefire and keeping up the pressure on Modi govt.

The seven delegations included 20 members from Opposition parties, visiting a total of 32 countries to influence international public opinion.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

Now that the multiparty delegations which had gone to brief foreign countries about the need for Operation Sindoor vis-a-vis Pakistan have started returning, it’s time to understand if the Narendra Modi government played its cards well during an hour of national crisis and succeeded in protecting national interest and national honour. It may also be time to analyse how justified the Opposition has been in raising pertinent questions underlining the failure of India’s foreign policy. I have no hesitation in saying that, despite the brutal media intimidation and scrutiny, Opposition parties and the Congress in particular have done a brilliant job of putting the Modi government on the mat and asking tough questions since the declaration of ceasefire.

There is no denying the fact that utterances by some members of the delegation belonging to the Congress party did create some confusion in the public sphere, raising concerns if the main Opposition party was speaking in two voices.

But it should be viewed in the context that members of the delegation had no option but to speak in one voice, articulate and reflect government’s viewpoint. Meanwhile, the Congress members in the country had no such compulsion and continued to exercise their constitutional right to hold the government accountable by asking the questions that were on the minds of the people. 

Opposition Hit Bulls Eye

Opposition hit the bulls eye by hammering the issue of the ceasefire. The announcement of a mysterious ceasefire by the government is a death blow to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s idea of macho-nationalism and the ruthless masculinity of the Prime Minister.

India is still grappling with the question of why the government accepted the ‘so-called’ Donald Trump-mediated ceasefire when the Indian Army was apparently dominating and the country was excited with the idea that now Pakistan would be taught such a lesson that it wouldn’t dare repeat a Pahalgam-like episode and fatally wound India in the future.

The ceasefire came as a bolt from the blue, and the whole country was shocked to learn of it, not from our prime minister but from the president of the US. Immediately after the ceasefire, I chanced upon a few Facebook pages of right-wing Modi supporters, and I was surprised to read nasty words used for the PM. These were the people who had earlier not missed any opportunity to pounce on anyone critical of Modi and the BJP.

Nationalism or Zealotry? 

The Pahalgam incident had really shaken the conscience of the nation. Terrorism acquired a new dimension when people were killed after being identified by their religion, in this case Hindus. Terrorism in Kashmir had never targeted tourists, except for a few stray incidents. Since the forced migration of Kashmiri Hindus in the late 1980s, Hindus per se were not attacked this way.

This new turn not only shocked the rest of the country but even Kashmiris, who were deeply upset and raised their voice against the brutal killings. This was the time to show unity, and the Opposition solidly stood by the government and extended unconditional support to the prime minister. This was the time when the country expected a Bangladesh kind of reply to Pakistan. 

The expectation was the creation of the BJP’s own making. Ever since Modi became the PM , the government has projected him as a ‘strongman’ who did not believe in a soft approach while dealing with terrorists and the politics of violence.

Ultra-aggressive masculine nationalism was the Modi government’s signature tune, and after the Balakot surgical strike, it acquired an added halo by propagating the idea, ‘Pakistan ko ghar me ghus ke mara’ (We went into Pakistan and retaliated). Therefore, the whole country expected that now, Modi’s fury would break Pakistan into pieces. PoK would be snatched from Pakistan, and terrorists like Hafiz Sayed and Masood Azhar would meet their fate in hell. But on 10 May, nothing of that sort happened.

The citizens felt cheated when they were told that there had been a phone call from Pakistan’s DGMO, and India believed that Pakistan had learned enough lessons and would not repeat the same offence.

The government’s argument - that India agreed to stop its kinetic operation after damaging nine of Pakistan’s airfields - did not sound logical. The problem was compounded by repeated utterances by Trump claiming to be the one who forced both governments to cease military operations on either side by threatening to stop trade.

India has had a state policy that, in its internal matters, it would not entertain any outside interference and no third-party mediation between India and Pakistan in the context of the Shimla Agreement, which was signed just after the 1971 war.

Opposition Right in Questioning

The Opposition has every right to ask questions once the military operation is paused. Like the whole country, the Opposition has every right to know why the government agreed with Pakistan for a ceasefire when the Indian army was dominating the sky? Why did India agree to an unconditional ceasefire when it could have easily extracted its pound of flesh?

What further confused the whole affair was when the government tried to say that it was not a ‘ceasefire’, but only an ‘understanding’ had been reached between the two sides for the cessation of military strikes, and Operation Sindoor had not been stopped but only paused.

The government shot itself in the leg when Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told the media that at the start of the Operation Sindoor, he had told the Pakistan army that the Indian strike was focused only on terrorist outlets and that the Pakistan army was not being targeted. Rahul Gandhi attacked Jaishankar, asking brutal questions: why did the minister inform the Pakistan army in advance, and was the downing of Indian fighter planes the consequence of that information sharing?

I dare not question Jaishankar’s patriotism, but if the same offences had been committed by the Congress government and if the BJP were in Opposition, would it not have made an issue out of it?

I can bet the BJP would have gone to town with the issue and would have used the harshest words to paint the government as anti-national. Those who say that Rahul Gandhi should not have used the name 'Jai Chand' for Jaishankar, or the term 'Narender-Surrender' while speaking of the 11 times Trump allegedly made Modi "surrender", should watch the TV debates to see what kind of language is used on a daily basis by the BJP spokespersons for Rahul Gandhi.

The days of nice words and lyrical language in politics are long gone. Politics today is a WWF spectacle- it’s brutal, ruthless and vitriolic.

So why to expect good-boy behaviour only from the Opposition and Rahul Gandhi, at a time when BJP spokespersons have called the Congress Party leader’s mother a whore not once but three times, in a live TV debate? 

I still remember how the BJP had viciously attacked the Manmohan Singh government when it had ventured into an agreement with Pakistan in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The BJP did not even wait for the ink to dry and the PM to reach India. So, why are the BJP and the Modi government touchy now? And it should not hide behind the Indian army. It was the same BJP that had made fun of the Bofors gun in a crude manner in the 1980s. Was the party not demoralising the army then?

Let’s not forget the Kargil war proved beyond doubt how good the Bofors guns were, which the then Opposition, including the BJP, tried to prove useless during Rajiv Gandhi’s time in its pursuit to discredit the then Prime Minister.

A Tragic Insult

It's tragic and an insult to the Indian nation that the American President is hurting India on a daily basis, and the Modi government is keeping quiet. Since announcing the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, Trump has uttered the same words in the most condescending manner more than a dozen times, but the prime minister has been silent. Ideally, Modi should have called his great ‘friend’, Trump, and told him to shut up.

If, with his ‘friend’ Modi, Trump can take so much liberty, why can’t Modi take the same liberty from his ‘friend’ Trump?

And if the Opposition wants the government to clarify whether India has accepted third-party mediation, which has resulted in a false equivalence between India and Pakistan and a hyphenation of the relationship between the two countries, how and why should Rahul Gandhi be faulted?

If the first prime minister, Nehru, could be forced by a minuscule Opposition during the China war in 1962 to call a parliament session and face the wrath of the Opposition, then the Modi government can’t run away from a special session of the parliament to discuss Operation Sindoor and developments later. In a parliamentary democracy, the people of the country have every right to demand an open and frank discussion in parliament - why the ceasefire was agreed upon and what security lapse led to the Pahalgam massacre- so that people can form a cerebral and cognitive opinion about the government of the day. 

If people are not aware of how its government and the prime minister functioned when the country was faced with such a grave crisis, then how will they decide if the person and the party concerned should be trusted to lead the nation, or if they are competent enough to be trusted when the country is in a deep crisis?

The Opposition has done its job well, but unfortunately, the servile media, instead of asking questions to the government, is accusing the Opposition of politicising the issue. It is this politics that makes a government accountable in a democracy. If Nehru can face the parliament, then Modi should also patiently reply to the Opposition’s questions. He should not forget that history is most of the time not kind.

(Ashutosh is co-founder of SatyaHindi and a former member of AAP. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)