Amidst the ongoing tension between India and China, after China unilaterally and violently tried to change status-quo in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh, Congress has been up to its usual politicisation when it comes to external conflict. Ever since the Modi government has come to power, Congress has time and again proved that in its desperation to politically oppose the Modi government, it has turned into a carrier of the propaganda unleashed by enemy nations such as China.
After Prime Minister Modi’s recent statement about the Galwan Valley stand-off, Rahul Gandhi went into a tizzy. He claimed that the Prime Minister had ‘surrendered Indian territory to China’. Factually, his claims made no sense, of course. However, that did not stop him from furthering this platitude. The Chinese troops entered Galwan Valley earlier and were pushed back by Indian Army in early May.
The Chinese Army then came back and while being pushed back, the present clashes took place. PM Modi’s statement simply meant that the PLA has no presence on our side of the LAC after they were pushed behind. His statement came after Rahul Gandhi’s coterie repeatedly insinuated that PLA still has its presence in the Galwan Valley and had “taken over” large chunks of land in the area.
So, after Rahul Gandhi’s own coterie spread a lie, the coterie’s leader took the clarification presented to counter that lie, twisted it, and started peddling his own propaganda to insinuate that PM Modi had himself admitted that India had surrendered land to China.
Even while peddling lies, though, Congress was seen taking an unprecedented, aggressive stand against China which was previously unheard of. The reason for Congress taking a muscular stand against Congress while trying to lie about the standoff and tacitly help China was because after the Congress party yet against decided to undermine India’s interests, their own proximity to the Communist Party of China had surfaced.
Till about the 18th of June, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party’s strategy was consistent with their past treachery – Question India, go soft on China. The strategy was rather clear from his tweets in the first couple of days.
First, Rahul tweeted a perfunctory tweet pretending to grieve for Indian soldiers. However, the tweet had no mention of China or even a soft condemnation of its aggression and barbarity.
Words cannot describe the pain I feel for the officers and men who sacrificed their lives for our country.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 16, 2020
My condolences to all their loved ones. We stand with you in this difficult time.
His next tweet came on 17th June. Again, he attacked the Prime Minister of India, tacitly questioned the Indian Army’s position and furthered the Chinese propaganda that India is “scared of China”. Of course, in his tweet, since Rahul could say ‘India’ without committing political suicide, he chose to focus on the Prime Minister by saying he was “hiding”.
Why is the PM silent?
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 17, 2020
Why is he hiding?
Enough is enough. We need to know what has happened.
How dare China kill our soldiers?
How dare they take our land?
In the meantime, Rahul also shamelessly insinuated that our soldiers were ‘unarmed’. What he meant to insinuate was simple – India is not equipped to fight China and our soldiers were “unarmed” because the Prime Minister does not care about soldiers’ life. This too played right into the hands of China.
However, after this, something rather remarkable happened.
Three very distinct things were revealed:
- It was the Congress government and its ally government in the 1990s that had signed agreements with China assuring that no firearms will be used by either side. Thus, Rahul was simply lying and furthering the Chinese propaganda of India being “weak” as compared to the Communist state.
- Congress signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Communist Party of China, which is the ruling and ONLY political party in China. During UPA1 in 2008, the Congress party and the Communist Party of China (CPC) had signed a deal in Beijing for exchanging high-level information and co-operation between them. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) also provided the two parties with the “opportunity to consult each other on important bilateral, regional and international developments”. Interestingly, the MoU was signed by the then Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and on the Chinese side, it was signed by none other than Xi Jinping himself, who was then the Chinese vice-president and standing committee member of the CPC’s politburo. The MoU was signed in the presence of his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s website has been blocked by the autocratic regime in China while Rahul Gandhi’s website is completely accessible.
The revelations led to severe criticism of the Congress party and questions were raised about their intent behind undermining India. Since then, Rahul Gandhi started pretending to ask “tough questions” to China, without really asking them any questions and behind that pretence, he continued to undermine India. However, that pretence of taking a “tough stand” against China was rather visible in his tweets.
PM has surrendered Indian territory to Chinese aggression.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 20, 2020
If the land was Chinese:
1. Why were our soldiers killed?
2. Where were they killed? pic.twitter.com/vZFVqtu3fD
China killed our soldiers.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 22, 2020
China took our land.
Then, why is China praising Mr Modi during this conflict? pic.twitter.com/iNV8c1cmal
While Rahul Gandhi was continuing to lie about the facts and still tacitly helping further the Chinese propaganda, he started using phrases like ‘Chinese aggression’ and “China took our land” to at least cover up his pro-China feelings behind fancy phrases.
As Congress tried to fire-fight its pro-China sympathies being exposed out in the open, Rahul Gandhi ended up offending another pro-China publication that had helped Congress in building up its Rafale lie. N Ram, one of the foremost members of the Kasturi family that owns The Hindu and the one who runs the show as a Director now was not pleased with Rahul Gandhi even pretending to diss China.
N Ram published two tweets where he made his discontent with Rahul Gandhi and the Congress for attacking China rather apparent.
The Congress has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from history. It should go back not to Jawaharlal Nehru’s, but to Rajiv Gandhi’s playbook: his December 1988 visit to China & meeting with Deng Xiaoping was the constructive breakthrough event in India-China relations.
— N. Ram (@nramind) June 22, 2020
N Ran wrote, “Why is the Congress taking a self-damaging chauvinistic line on the clashes that, according to Indian media accounts, happened on the Chinese side of the LAC? Why is it contesting PM Modi’s factual statement that “no one has entered our territory…”?”.
Further, he said, “The Congress has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from history. It should go back not to Jawaharlal Nehru’s, but to Rajiv Gandhi’s playbook: his December 1988 visit to China & meeting with Deng Xiaoping was the constructive breakthrough event in India-China relations”.
In his tweets, N Ram too only pretended to support the statement by PM Modi. In essence, he was rather clearly insinuating that he was not in support of Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party’s “chauvinistic line” on the clashes that according to Indian media, “happened on the Chinese side of the LAC”.
Essentially, N Ram meant that in this clash, India was the aggressor and Rahul Gandhi now being aggressive (even in pretence) against China was being “Chauvinistic”. N Ram also said that Congress should take a cue from Rajiv Gandhi visit to China in 1988 which “broke the ice”. Interestingly, that visit only “broke the ice” with China because inevitably, “breaking ice” with the Chinese mainly means accepting their hegemony and autocracy.
The Hindu is known to have sentiments that favour China and with the recent revelations and conduct of Congress, it is evident that Rahul Gandhi does too. However, for now, it would appear as if Ram is not really a part of the WhatsApp group and the ‘Change in Propaganda Strategy’ memo by the Congress does not seem to have reached Ram yet.
