10

Apr

How Top Leaders Are Shaming India

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 10 April 2024

Atul Cowshish

Since the ruling BJP is perpetually in poll mode, hell-bent on winning elections at any cost, the rhetoric FCric of its top leaders before or after the poll announcement is not very different. But there must come a time when the two top leaders of the country, the prime minister and the defence minister, are told that their ‘callous’ utterances, while the poll campaign is in full swing, undermine the country’s reputation and interests.

Two instances that prompt the above observation are Narendra Modi’s resurrecting the Katchatheevu island issue five decades after it was sagaciously settled by India and Sri Lanka, and Rajnath Singh declaring boastfully that India would hunt down ‘terrorists’ even when they escaped into neighbouring Pakistan.

Article at a Glance

The ruling BJP's leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, have been making controversial statements that undermine India's reputation and interests during the election campaign. Modi's resurrection of the Katchatheevu island issue and Singh's boastful claim of hunting down terrorists in neighboring Pakistan have caused strain in India-Sri Lanka relations and damaged India's image.

 Modi's criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi's patriotism is a continuation of his campaign to malign the Nehru-Gandhi family. His claims of no Chinese incursions and Rajnath Singh's statement on killing terrorists in their homes have lowered the credibility of the Indian government.

 Pakistan has denounced Singh's statement and declared that India is behind the mysterious killings of several Pakistanis. India's stance is weakened when its leaders endorse allegations of assassinations on foreign soil.

 

Modi had not thought it fit to raise the Katchatheevu island issue from the time he first assumed power in May 2014 till his X post on March 31, 2024. It would lead to a natural conclusion that he had found nothing fundamentally wrong in transferring the ownership of the tiny island in the Palk Straight that separates India and Sari Lanka under two agreements in 1974 and 1976.

Come the do-or-die 2024 general elections and he has woken up to the potential of stirring up the Katchathreevu issue for electoral gains in Tamil Nadu. This state has been persistently unkind to his BJP. It is a different matter that most observers believe will not yield the desired results for Modi and his BJP in Tamil Nadu. He sees it differently.

But what he also needs to see is how the island issue has injected a needless strain into the India-Sri Lanka relationship. Officially, Colombo may not have made a squelching noise. Still, the media in the island nation has been unanimous in questioning the intentions of the Modi government in raking up an issue that the governments of the two countries had sorted out long ago.

An ominous comment in the editorials and write-ups in the Sri Lanka media is a common refrain of the necessity of Colombo having to consolidate its ties with Beijing at the expense of New Delhi which thinks nothing of virtually going back on mutual agreements.

Modi had spoken of the ‘callous’ manner of Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi in ‘surrendering’ India’s sovereignty. That is a continuation of his perennial campaign to malign Nehru and his progenies. Modi seems to be unaware of India adding vast territories which it was denied at the time of the partition in 1947. India of the yore had incorporated the states of Sikkim and Goa despite criticism and opposition by the West—in addition to incorporating the princely states of Hyderabad and Junagadh. Of course, the Chinese army had grabbed Indian territories in the Himalayas including Aksai Chin. But that is beside the point.  

Modi may not be able to control his pathological hatred for the Nehru-Gandhi family but if he measures their patriotism by the ‘surrender’ of Indian territory under their watch he would do well to remember his record of the recent past.

He was shockingly economical with the truth when he said that ‘nobody’' had entered Indian territory when talking about Chinese incursions. Why should it be left to political and defence commentators as well as Opposition leaders to inform the nation about the big territorial losses to China, corroborated by satellite images, suffered by India since Modi became the prime minister?

Now, consider how irresponsible has been the defence minister in brazenly talking about the Indian policy of killing ‘terrorists’ and other unwanted and undesirables in their homes—even when they flee and seek shelter in a neighbouring country (Pakistan). He made that claim after a report in the British paper, the Guardian, had alleged that India had embarked on a policy of snuffing out targets in foreign countries—an obvious reference to not only Pakistan but also Canada and the US where the governments have accused India of hiring assassins to kill men on the hit list of the Indian agencies.

Indian protests have been ignored. Both the Canadians and the Americans have spoken of ‘credible’ evidence in their possession to justify the allegation of an Indian in the murder of a Sikh separatist in Canada and an unsuccessful bid on the life of another separatist leader in the US.

Rajnath Singh appeared to be confirming these allegations—a very dubious ‘first’ for the government of India. It nullified the government’s efforts—feeble as they appeared—to repudiate the reports of the Indian hand in arranging murderous assaults on foreign soils. If nothing else, it lowers the credibility of the Indian government.

Of course, Pakistan was ‘delighted’ by the over-the-top display of jingoism by the defence minister. Its foreign office denounced his statement with a plea to the international community to come together to thwart the Indian policy of carrying out assassinations of its ‘enemies’ and critics on foreign soil.

Pakistanis are gleefully declaring that they have been saying all along that India was behind the ‘mysterious’ killings of several Pakistanis in the last few years. India dismisses the statements by the Pakistanis which may not have attracted global notice. But India weakens its stance when the defence minister of the country appears to endorse the allegations of the government backing the policy of assassinations on foreign soil.

How does India expect to be accepted as a benign neighbour when the prime minister wants to reopen old issues considered closed after signing bilateral agreements? 

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