Manish Tewari Interview: 'Osama Wasn't Caught in Allahabad but Abbottabad...'
The senior Congress leader said it is important for India to have a discussion with China on Pakistan.
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"What the delegations are going to be telling their interlocutors is that if India is targeted by the terror infrastructure in Pakistan, then, notwithstanding the nuclearisation of South Asia, there will be a response. In other words, the nuclear shield cannot be used as an instrument of blackmail in order to repeatedly use semi-state actors to keep hitting India, and especially hitting our innocent civilians," Congress MP Manish Tewari told The Quint in an exclusive chat.
Tewari, a senior leader and MP from Chandigarh, is among the leaders included in the seven multi-party delegations the Centre is sending to various countries in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor and the India-Pakistan conflict earlier this month, to build global consensus against Pakistan and spread its message on anti-terrorism.
In an interview with senior journalist Harinder Baweja for The Quint, Tewari discussed the objective behind India's diplomatic mission, the 'mediation' in India-Pakistan by US President Donald Trump, and Congress's dissatisfaction with the party's leaders chosen for this mission.
Read the edited excerpts:
You have been briefed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. What is the core message that you are carrying to Qatar, Egypt, and the other countries that you're visiting. What are the points that the government wants highlighted?
The essential message is that the terror infrastructure, which has been very assiduously put in place by the deep state of Pakistan and goes back a good 45 years, has been repeatedly and consistently used to target India.
Invariably, in most of the cases the victims or their targets have been innocent civilians in it. Under those circumstances, the events that played out between the night of 7 May and the evening of 10 May was almost like a last straw on the camel's back. Thus, the actions which India initiated in order to try and dismantle this infrastructure of terror was keeping in keeping in with the right to self-defence, which is guaranteed under the United Nations Charter and is also our right to protect our citizens.
The delegations will be apprising foreign capitals about the new normal in India's approach to terrorism emanating from Pakistan. What is this new normal?
What the delegations are going to be telling their interlocutors is that if India is targeted by the terror infrastructure in Pakistan, then, notwithstanding the nuclearisation of South Asia, there will be a response. In other words, the nuclear shield cannot be used as an instrument of blackmail in order to repeatedly use semi-state actors to keep hitting India, and especially hitting our innocent civilians.
That approach of Pakistan is no longer going to work. If there is a terror outrage. There will be an appropriate response using conventional means.
The end result, if I may point out, is that India and Pakistan have gotten hyphenated once again, and Kashmir is back on the table as an international issue. That's what was achieved.
I would tend to disagree. You see, there's a difference between crisis management and mediation. Mediation is when two parties consciously accept a 3rd party as a mediator. In the case of India and Pakistan, India has never agreed to any formal 3rd party mediation.
You might call it hypothetical, but this is a very relevant question that may come up in your discussions when you are, you know, a part of meetings in Qatar and other countries: the terrorists responsible for Pahalgam have still not been arrested or killed as of now. Apart from questions of their identity, who they are, and where they came from, there are also questions about security and intelligence lapses.
None of these questions take away from the larger reality that the principal source of terror in South Asia, not only directed at India, but also directed at their Western neighbours. Obviously, these questions have to be answered. But they have be asked in the Parliament of India by the appropriate stakeholders of India's democratic process.
So far as the delegation is concerned, the principal role is to expose and sensitise global opinion as to how Pakistan, for over four and a half decades, has been this terror factory.
Let's come to the reaction of the Congress party. They are unhappy with the people that the government has picked. The government has picked you, Shashi Tharoor, Salman Khurshid...all former ministers, established senior Congress voices, who are very articulate. Isn't the Congress leadership scoring a self-goal at a time when the country ought to stay united?
I refuse to be drawn into it, for the simple reason that we are looking at a larger objective at this point in time... suffice to say, the whole question of terror is very personal to me, having been a victim of terror. Whenever there is an incident of this kind which convulses your soul, you obviously feel that if there is anything that you can do to expose the infrastructure of this terror, you should do your bit.
It is important to speak to China. The footprint of China is very visible in the Pakistan military stance.
That's an extremely valid question. I think there is a need for the Government of India to have a structured discussion with China about how its support for Pakistan, which it calls an all weather ally, should not start impacting on its relationship with India.
And you're absolutely correct that there is the Chinese footprint, and you have the Pakistan and the Chinese military, which have this cooperation now going back to the early 60s. So yes, that is a very legitimate apprehension, and that's an apprehension that we need to address with the Chinese as also with Turkey.
Why not a dialogue with Pakistan? Why can't two neighbours just sit down and talk like sensible nations? Should India say, okay, we are willing to talk, instead of just being stuck on the position that talks can only be about terror?
It doesn't work, it has been tried. The reason why it doesn't work is the humiliation of Bangladesh is writ large on the institutional psyche of the Pakistani military, and therefore that humiliation is the impetus for this entire infrastructure of terror that they have created.
For the full interview, watch the video.