The Congress scion seems to think that he has found an issue that could help re-launch him after all the previous launches turned out to be major duds. Looking at his past behaviour during the surgical strikes post-Uri, his urgency to meet the Chinese Ambassador during the Dokalam stand-off, and his tweets during the Pulwama attack, one need not be surprised with this pathetic need to dance on the dead bodies of our brave soldiers. This brings us back to Late Shri Arun Jaitley’s observations on the shahzada “Every time I listen to the views of Rahul Gandhi, both inside and outside Parliament, I ask myself the same question –how much does he know? When will he know?”
The failure of political leadership during the 1962 war with China is well documented. Yet when the Congress shahzada questions the silence of Prime Minister Modi and comments over China’s incursion into the region, he conveniently forgets that the border dispute is baggage left by his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru. Government strategy cannot be bereft of context and ground realities. The former Prime Minister’s strong need to have “people like us” within his coterie of advisors had led to group-think and suboptimal strategies such as the “forward policy”.
This need to have “yes-men” and consensus over dissent within his group led to Pandit Nehru rewarding family ties and promoting nepotism in the 1962 war is well documented in Steven A. Hoffman’s “India and the China Crisis”. The whole role of Lieutenant General Brij Mohan Kaul has been well documented.
Further, it is nothing short of an irony that the Congress President questions the PM over hiding when his own great-grandfather was outside the country for over 25 days just before the 1962 war. The Indo-China war broke out on October 20th 1962. On September 8th, PM Nehru left for London to attend the Commonwealth meeting of Prime Ministers. He further had time to pause in Egypt and did not return till October 2nd 1962.
Perhaps this explains his inspiration for the 250 odd foreign trips that he has taken since 2015 without SPG protection including. Our DNA doesn’t allow us to abdicate responsibility and flee in adversity as he did after resigning as Congress President and running away. This failure to explain his whereabouts during the Lok Sabha debate on Special Protection Group Bill in November 2015, was brought in front of the public by Home Minister Amit Shah. While Rahul Gandhi may think he is taking jibes at the government, our Prime Minister is tirelessly working to mitigate the Covid-19 crisis.
The government wants to take everybody on board and hence the all-party meet on June 19, to forge a broad political consensus on the situation at the border. India is already in the midst of a national health emergency and a political attack on the government on the issue of national security reflects the desperation of the Congress scion.
This is a critical moment when we need to safeguard our national interest and PM Modi has taken the opposition into confidence. Now the ball lies in the opposition’s court – Would Rahul Gandhi, the shahzada, want to continue to exhibit his mean-spiritedness or would he want to respond to the Prime Minister’s call and come together at a time when national unity is paramount.
