From a national point of view, the most worrying development over the last fortnight is the discordant notes struck by very senior members of the Congress and its official spokespersons on issues that matter the most for the country viz national security, relations with Pakistan, India’s internal security and Kashmir. No one has witnessed so much confusion at the top for so long and on so many issues in India’s oldest political party and this should be a matter of worry for all those who abhor dissonance in matters of national security and foreign policy.
Let us examine the case of Balochistan. The Prime Minister first referred to the plight of people in Balochistan at an all-party meeting. Thereafter, in his Independence Day speech on August 15, he thanked the people living in Balochistan, Gilgit, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for expressing their appreciation and gratitude to him (for taking up their cause).
Salman Khurshid, who was India’s external affairs minister in the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by Manmohan Singh, took strong exception to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reference to Balochistan in his Independence Day speech. In his view, the present government’s stand on Balochistan was ruining India’s case on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In a newspaper article, Khurshid accused the Prime Minister of abruptly launching a PoK-Gilgit-Balochistan verbal assault “to the immediate cheers of uninformed jingoists across the electronic and social media”. He has also argued that the reference to Balochistan was ruining India’s case on Pak-occupied Kashmir.
Khurshid was joined by Kapil Sibal, the law minister in the UPA government and a man often deployed by the Congress to defend it or to explain its point of view. He too felt that the Prime Minister’s reference to Balochistan was “unnecessary” and that it would “have consequences”.
The Congress, however, lost no time in distancing itself from these comments. The very day these comments were in the public domain, the party deployed its spokesman to not only contradict them but also to tell the Modi government that it must “aggressively” raise the issue of atrocities committed by Pakistan in Balochistan. These comments made it clear that the party was keen to distance itself immediately from Khurshid’s and Sibal’s views.
The party said human rights violations in Balochistan was an issue that concerned India because the Pakistan Army had been murdering democracy in Balochistan and PoK. The party fielded Surjewala, its communication department head, to emphatically state that all these issues must be raised by India “not just with Pakistan but in the international fora”
As regards the opinion of the former foreign minister Salman Kurshid, the party spokesman said “We all respect Khurshid. He is a senior leader” but his comment that the Balochistan issue is an internal matter of Pakistan may be his “personal opinion”. Significantly, he concluded his comment by saying that “India and the Congress believe that the human rights violations in Balochistan is an issue related to India”.
Interestingly, even as the Congress fielded Surjewala, Anand Sharma, another senior minister in the UPA regime, sang a different tune. While Surjewala said the Modi government must “aggressively” raise the issue of Balochistan, Sharma said PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan was a part of the state of J&K. So, when India spoke about them, it was not interfering in the internal matters of another country. But, Balochistan was different – it is part of Pakistan. ‘We have never disputed that. But at the same time, we have expressed concern over the developments there and the brutal use of force to suppress people”.
But the story did not end here. Some days later, AK Antony, who was the Defence Minister in the Manmohan Singh Government, declared unequivocally that the Congress fully backed Prime Minister Modi’s statement on Balochistan. He declared that the party did not find anything wrong in the Prime Minister’s stand.
Speaking to the media, Antony said neither he nor his party found “any fault”in Modi’s statement on Balochistan. He said he was fully aware of Pakistan’s role in supporting terrorism in Kashmir.
Finally, the latest example of “confusion at the top” in the Congress is the response to the former finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement that the Congress, the National Conference and the PDP should come together to prevent Kashmir from “sliding into a chaos”. As soon as Chidambaram made this statement, the Congress began quickly distancing itself from this view. Chidambaram reportedly said that the the present government in the state would not be able to find a way out of the crisis. “The Congress, National Conference and, if willing, the PDP must come together to find a solution”. But his party lost no time in declaring that it did not agree with him.
This time, Abhishek Manu Singhvi was deployed to inform the media that Chidambaram was indulging in “romanticism’’. Singhvi reportedly said that the party had no desire to chase “idealism”, when it did not have a mandate.
This is indeed a rarity. Such dissonance and confusion is rarely seen in India’s oldest political party, and specially on such sensitive issues. Venkaiah Naidu, the Minister for Urban Development and Information and Broadcasting, summed up the plight of the Congress rather succinctly last week when he said the only thing that is consistent in that party is its inconsistency! In short, the Congress has now become a house of discordant voices – and sadly on issues of utmost critical importance to the nation.
For India’s sake, one hopes that this cacophony will soon end and the nation’s oldest party will soon return to a state of coherence.
A Surya Prakash is Chairperson of Prasar Bharati Email: suryamedia@gmail.com