Three of the seven all-party Parliamentary delegations went to Europe and the Americas. Two of these three were led by Opposition parties' MPs while the third by a senior BJP leader. DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi was leader of the delegation that visited Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Latvia and Russia. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the former BJP minister, headed the delegation to UK, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, and Belgium--to interact with the European Union leaders.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was chosen by government to lead the delegation to the US, Brazil, Panama, Guyana, and Columbia. These delegations covered four of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
While the interactions of the remaining four delegations which went to countries of Asia and Africa were important, these three delegations visited countries that continue to exercise a preponderant influence in shaping global opinion.
The fact that these three delegations, (as also the others), consisted of all parties and two of these three were Opposition-led was noticed in the countries they visited. Despite the fractious nature of Indian politics, the Indian political class showed global leaders it has the capacity to come together on national issues.
Taken as a whole, this class represents and reflects the views of the people of India. Hence, the very composition of the delegations and their leadership carried the message of the vitality of Indian democracy.
The saying that India is a diverse but united country has become a cliché, but in this case, it was practically demonstrated. This was in itself a significant message. Few democracies have the capability to send out the kind of signal of unity which these delegations did.
Tharoor a Hit but Opportunities Missed
Of the three delegations, the one which grabbed the greatest attention was the one led by Shashi Tharoor. His presentation of Pakistan’s decades-long terrorism against India to different interlocutors was masterly. Indeed, some of these are available on YouTube.
They should be shown to Indian Foreign Service probationers at the Foreign Service Institute as an example of how diplomats should make their case before an informed audience—calmly, clearly, and succinctly backed with effective facts.
However, this was the easy part of this delegation’s task. This is because the international community has long recognised that Pakistan is home to violent Islamist groups and that Pakistani agencies use them against neighbours. Tharoor also emphatically made the point that India had decided that it would use force to respond to Pakistani terror.
The difficulty facing India—and this was also confronted by the delegations—is to get Western Countries to make the transition to accept that India has the right to use its conventional forces to respond to a Pakistani terrorist attack. The danger of the conflict escalating to the nuclear domain inhibits them to do so.
India has to forcefully demand that if Europe and the Americas is really concerned about escalation then it logically follows that they should compel Pakistan to abandon terrorism and shut down its infrastructure.
The Ministry of External Affairs website carries notes sent by the concerned Missions on the interactions of the delegations with their interlocutors. The notes of the Indian Missions do not mention that such a demand was made of any country. If that is so, then it was a missed opportunity.
The Missions notes also do not mention that any European country asked about India losing any aircraft during the conflict. Such questions may have been posed to these delegations in private for the Europeans are deeply worried by the advances made by China in the area of defence technology.
Tharoor was asked by the media, (the only time the question was publicly brought up, notably by his son Ishan Tharoor for The Washington Post) if India had any proof of Pakistan’s involvement in the Pahalgam attack. The Thiruvananthapuram MP said that it would not have acted militarily unless it had clinching evidence and that Pakistan’s past record of sponsoring terrorist attacks and its denials showed its complicity.
One Voice Against Pakistan but No Word on Escalation
These delegations delivered the message that the Indian people’s patience with Pakistani terrorism was over. They were now clear that kinetic action has to be taken against cross-border terrorist acts.
There was also full agreement in the Indian polity, reflecting the popular will, that the Pahalgam attack was particularly heinous because its communal nature was designed to rupture the Indian social fabric which has held despite the current and fierce ideological contentions in the country. The three delegations’ interlocutors in governments, legislatures and civil societies would successfully have voiced the strong sentiment in India on Pakistani terrorism.
While these messages were conveyed by the delegations, the question is whether these delegations made any specific requests with their interlocutors and how did they respond to them.
This is significant because terrorism is no longer an international priority for a world grappling with the dislocations brought about by US President Trump.
On the other hand, the threat of escalation of armed hostilities crossing the conventional realm and moving towards nuclear exchanges chills the global spine. The notes on the MEA website mention that all sections of opinion in the countries the three delegations visited condemned terrorism and the Pahalgam attack. They offered their condolences for the victims; their governments had done so earlier.
What is striking is that, generally, the notes do not mention that interlocutors moved from generalities to specifics either in naming Pakistan or accepting that a terrorist attack was the “original escalation” between nuclear states.
It is possible, that in some countries, assurances were given, in confidence, to the delegations that they will bring pressure to bear on Pakistan to desist from terrorist attacks.
However, if this was done privately it was simply insufficient. It is easy to say things in private. It is quite another step to state them in public. This point is especially applicable to the P5 countries, which are responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security
The Indian Mission in Washington note mentions that the India Caucus of the House of Representatives, in its meeting the Indian Parliamentary Delegation, “expressed their support for India's right to respond to terrorism in the spirit of zero tolerance against terrorism”.
Significantly, it is silent on whether other groups of Congressmen and Senators that the Delegation met did so too. And, it is par for the course for the India Caucus to express what it did. Indeed, it would have been surprising had it not done so.
(The writer is a former Secretary [West], Ministry of External Affairs. He can be reached @VivekKatju. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)