Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi put Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a cleft stick when he asked him to say that US President Donald Trump lied when he said that Pakistan had shot down several Indian jets during Operation Sindoor. India had insisted that Sindoor was a success, and that it had not asked Mr Trump to arrange the ceasefire that ended the conflict. The first indicates that India cannot throw its weight around in the region the way Mr Modi has always claimed, while the second opens the door to US intervention in the region, something which India has always decried.
Perhaps the most damaging moment for the Modi government during the entire debate came when former Home Minister P. Chidambaram told the Lok Sabha that the was no credible evidence that Pakistan was involved in the Pehelgam attack which led to India’s launching Operation Sindoor. This knocked out the entire basis of the Indian case, for it meant that its attack on Pakistan, as well as its suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, were shown to have no justification. Mr Chidambaram’s successor, Amit Shah, presently the Home Minister, did not help matters by saying that the attackers had Pakistani chocolate in their possession. The debate in Indian Parliament is uncovering a significant truth: that the Indian government blundered badly in both its false-flag operation and in the ensuing military operation. It should be noted that while the ruling BJP is trying to portray the Opposition Congress as pro-Pakistan, Congress conducted both the 1965 and 1971 Wars against Pakistan, the latter ending with the break-up of Pakistan. All of the evidence against the official version being uncovered merely reflects the Congress urge to destroy the BJP claim that it is the true defender of the nation. There is nothing to indicate that a Congress government would not have been as harsh.
This may reflect an uncomfortable truth: that the Indian masses have bought into the nationalist rhetoric of both the BJP and Congress, and thus India is bent on the destruction of Pakistan. The BJP is more forthright, with its Hindutva ideology and overt caste-ism, but Congress’ lip service to secularism should fool no one. It is equally a party of high-caste Hindu chauvinists. What is being discussed in the Lok Sabha is not the essential wrongress of the Indian attack, but flaws in execution.
