archive: Trivialising Kargil-- Congress Style
Trivialising Kargil-- Congress Style
Seshadri Chari
Organiser
June 27, 1999
Title: Trivialising Kargil-- Congress Style
Author: Seshadri Chari
Publication: Organiser
Date: June 27, 1999
Congress President Sonia Gandhi has made public her party's threat to
demand from the Vajpayee Government "at the right time" an explanation
of their handling of Kargil. The announcement thus proves that the
party has reservations in its support to the national Government on
the Kargil issue, all along conveniently forgetting its own lapses
over the past half century. Why did the Congress in 1948 let two-third
of J&K territory fall into the hands of the usurper Pakistan? And why
has the Congress till today never attempted to liberate it from the
enemy's clutches? After all in 1965 the Indian Army had reached the
precincts of Lahore, our forces had captured the strategically
important post at Pir Panjal. But at the negotiating table in Tashkent
who squandered away what the jawans had won on the battlefield at the
price of their lives? Was it anyone but a Congress ministry? Was it
not very much a Congress prime minister? In the 1971 war with Pakistan
how deep into their territory the Indian Army had acquired control! As
many as 98,000 Pakistani troops had to surrender. Now what were the
Congress party's 'Compulsions' to hand over on a platter the land
conquered by the jawans? And why were the nearly hundred thousand POWs
released without gaining anything in the bargain? Who else but the
Congress was responsible for this?
Forget about Pakistan. In 1962 China attacked India and annexed
hundreds of sq. km of Indian territory. Have the successive Congress
governments been able to retrieve even a sq inch of the lost
territory? It seems to be quite characteristic of the Congress party
to fritter away at the negotiating table the price of our jawans'
blood. According to military experts the 1948 India-Pakistan war took
a toll of three thousand lives, two thousand in the India-China war of
1962, twenty thousand in the 1965 war with Pakistan and eleven
thousand in India-Pakistan war of 1971. Out of these Indian casualties
account for 17,052. The blood of all these martyrs demands from the
Congress why they threw away at the negotiating table what they had
won on the battlefield. What has the Congress to say?
Well this is about those who laid down their lives in the wars. And
what is the Congress party's 'leadership's' explanation of the 5101
lives (including those of the para military personnel) lost in the
proxy war being waged by Pakistan in J&K? Did the Congress ever come
up to face this proxy war? The Congress style of dealing with the
terrorists is amply demonstrated by the Charar-e-Sharif episode during
Narasimha Rao's regime. Some Pakistan sponsored terrorists had taken
refuge in Charar-e-Sharif. The army laid siege to the shrine
forestalling any possibility of the terrorists' escape. And yet the
Government offered "safe passage" to the diehard desperadoes. It is
this Congress that has been raising hell over a remark by the Defence
Minister George Fernandes' statement to the effect in answer to a
question that other alternative "may possibly be considered".
Around the same time terrorists had also taken over the Hazaratbal
area. For a while the shrine continued to be in their custody. And the
Government was trying to cajole them by serving biryani in the name of
"human consideration". When the Pakistan-sponsored terrorists were
entrenching themselves in Kashmir, the then Governor of J&K Shri
Jagmohan was proving a formidable obstacle for them. The terrorists
could do precious little. In this situation, heaven knows under whose
'inspiration' Congress President Sonia Gandhi's husband the late Rajiv
Gandhi, in his capacity as Leader of Opposition went over to Srinagar
and in an outburst of courtesy demanded the recall of Shri Jagmohan.
What a wonderful coincidence that the anti-Jagmohan agitation by
Congress in the Indian part of Kashmir and the then Pakistan Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto's jehad against Shri Jagmohan in Pakistan and
Pakistan occupied Kashmir were almost identical.
It is these Congress shenanigans that have now grown into a running
sore taking the toll of our valiant jawans on the snow-capped hills of
Kargil. Why, even as recently as last year when the Vajpayee Ministry
went ahead with nuclear tests bringing to the country the status of a
nuclear power, the Congress could hardly stomach it. Thus in another
context when with reference to Kashmir, Home Minister L.K. Advani
talked of a "pro-active" policy, a Congress worthy Kunvar Natwar
Singh, the party's self-styled Henry Kissinger started vociferously
criticising it, not confining himself to the House but coming out on
to the street. However, when the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
boarded the bus to Lahore with his message of peace, even then the
Congress almost pathologically-and pathetically-continued to criticise
the Government.
This Congress penchant for puerile criticism makes one thing
abundantly clear: the party has nothing like a Kashmir policy. The
whole country has been paying the price for this absence of policy and
political opportunism of the Congress. Add to it the loss of services
personnel. Does Smt Sonia Gandhi have an answer? Will the Congress
president pause to think that when the country's soldiers are
sacrificing their lives in defence of the Motherland, mothers are
handing over their darlings at the altar of freedom, sisters are
forgoing the protection of their brothers, wives are relieving their
husbands of the bonds of matrimonial liability, fathers are offering
their offspring, a brother his fellow-brother-let the Congress
president stop fishing for political fry in the nation's troubled
waters. But then isn't this the difference between swadeshi and
videshi?
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