congress-should-be-more-circumspect

That there is complete political polarisation in the country with the ruling and opposition parties not prepared to see eye-to-eye with each other is now an accepted fact. For this, the blame lies on both sides. There has been no attempt from any quarter to build a mutual relationship that is important between the opposition and ruling party in a healthy democracy. In India today, the ruling and the opposition parties behave like enemies of each other, even resorting to personal attacks.

Unfortunately, this enmity ignores even the national interest. The principal opposition party, the Congress, does not let any chance go when it comes to targeting the government. When the US President Donald Trump said derisively that the Indian economy is a dead economy, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi seconded him, saying India’s is actually a dead economy.

The Indian economy of course is not dead, but quite vibrant despite so many challenges, including the arbitrary tariffs imposed by the US President. But Gandhi only cut a sorry figure in front of the country for being seen to be siding with someone who has taken a stringently “anti-India” position. Just to corner Modi, he does not need to be seen siding with India’s enemies. Trump is no friend of India.

The Congress stance on the US President’s repeated assertions that he stopped the Indo-Pak conflict is also not in good taste. From day one, when Trump first made such a claim, the Congress tried to corner Prime Minister Modi asking him to clarify, as acknowledging Trump’s role in the ceasefire would suggest accepting third party interference in the India-Pak dispute. The PM had observed a dignified silence on Trump’s claims. That is what diplomatic dignity demands.

As Trump continued repeating his claims quite frequently and the Congress went on relentlessly asking Modi to clarify, the Prime Minister did eventually say categorically that no third country was involved as it was Pakistan that wanted a ceasefire. But the Congress did not buy Modi’s version for obvious reasons.

In fact, Trump’s claim, that he forced India and Pakistan for a ceasefire as he threatened to impose tariffs on the two countries if they did not accept his ceasefire proposal, is flawed and self-contradictory. Presuming, for the sake of argument only, that India accepted the ceasefire at Trump’s behest as he had threatened tariffs, then why would he (Trump) go ahead with the tariffs when the country had accepted his proposal for ceasefire?  Rather, he imposed the double tariff on India; 25 per cent as reciprocal tariff and 25 per cent for importing Russian oil. His imposition of such heavy tariffs on India belies his own claim that he used trade and tariff to enforce ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

Since the narrative that Trump forced Modi to go for a ceasefire suits the Congress, it is sticking to that without going into the details and verifying the facts.
The Congress stance of accusing Modi of succumbing to the US pressure is strange, when its own government had avoided striking Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks. Senior Congress leader and former union Home and Finance Minister P Chidambaram recently made these revelations that the then UPA government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh was asked by the US not to take any action against Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attacks. The attackers were from Pakistan.

And when the Pahlagam terror attack took place, the entire Congress leadership sought action against Pakistan. That was understandable on part of the Congress, as it knew that some action would be taken since the BJP government had taken similar actions in the aftermath of the Uri and Pulwama terror attacks in the past. It obviously wanted to take credit for “forcing” the government to act. When the government acted, it started finding faults with the action.

With Trump’s hostile trade policy towards India, Prime Minister Modi has repeatedly been avoiding meeting him. He first avoided Trump’s invitation to stop over in Washington on way back from the G-20 summit in Canada in June this year.

The second time the Prime Minister avoided meeting Trump by skipping the Gaza peace conference in Cairo. PM Modi has again decided to avoid meeting Trump by not attending the ASEAN meet that will be held in Kuala Lumpur next week.

The Prime Minister is trying to send the right and clear message. Trump cannot go on imposing arbitrary tariffs on India and expect the Indian Prime Minister to be friendly towards him. Trump has, in fact, let down Modi, who in the past had gone out of way to help and support him in the elections for his second term.

Instead of appreciating the Prime Minister’s stance, the Congress has again tried to find fault with him. The party general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, while resorting to his characteristic and usual monotonous rhetoric after keeping the count of Trump’s claims about India-Pakistan ceasefire, sought to trivialise Modi’s message to Trump.

“The reason Mr Modi is not going to (Kaulalampur for ASEAN summit) is simple. He just doesn’t want to be cornered by President Trump who will also be there. He refused an invitation to attend the Gaza peace summit in Egypt a few weeks back precisely for this reason…The PM may well be recalling that old hit Bollywood number: Bachke rehna re baba, bachke rehna re”.

This is not surprising that such a statement with such trivial content on such a serious issue is coming from the principal opposition party of the country. This is reflective of the overall state of affairs taking place in the party, which has restricted and reduced its role to oppose everything for the sake of opposition only.

This serves no purpose for the Congress. As such stances only end up alienating more people, who are well-aware and well-informed already. When Modi deals with Trump, it is not some BJP leader whom the Congress should oppose, but the Prime Minister of the country, who should be supported by everyone, including the opposition parties as well.