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The Opposition Owes the Indian public Some Answers

Since the opposition parties have chosen to support the government in the outreach, the responsibility falls on them too, to explain themselves.
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Omair Ahmad
May 31 2025
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Since the opposition parties have chosen to support the government in the outreach, the responsibility falls on them too, to explain themselves.
the opposition owes the indian public some answers
An all-party delegation including JD(U) MP Sanjay Jha, Congress leader and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid, BJP MPs Aparajita Sarangi, Brij Lal, Pradan Baruah and Hemang Joshi, TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, CPI(M) leader John Brittas and former ambassador Mohan Kumar with Ambassador of India to Indonesia Sandeep Chakravorty during a meeting with Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Executive Board (PBNU) Ulil Abshar Abdalla and others, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photo: PTI
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India has followed up its military operation against Pakistan with an extensive outreach with cross-party delegations travelling the world. This is an undeniably good thing for India as a whole. Security involves the whole of the Republic, and should not become a political football. That said, it is shameful that the government and opposition parties are travelling the world to speak about an issue but have not felt the need to do so with the Indian public.

Politicians are public servants. They are elected by the people, they are paid by the people, and they need to answer to the people first and foremost. The politicians, press, and public of other countries are – at best – secondary to the work of Indian politicians. Briefing them first, and the Indian public second, is an abdication of responsibility. And ‘confidential information’ is no defence. Whatever can be shared with foreign civilians, media, and politicians is – by definition – information that should be accessible to the Indian public.

Unfortunately, this abdication of responsibility is personified by Narendra Modi, who has rarely explained the choices of the government, or chosen to be questioned. Sadly, we expect nothing from him or the party and coalition he leads. The Opposition, if it deserves to be called as such, needs to do better.

While the mistake of not briefing the Indian public about their mission is a grave one, a bigger mistake, a bigger failure, would be to stay quiet after they come back.

There are three main questions that the delegations will have been asked abroad, and one major one they can answer when they are back.

1. What were the goals of Operation Sindoor, and have they been achieved? If not, why not?

War is only the pursuit of politics by other means, wrote Carl von Clausewitz. No matter how precise, how catastrophic, or how smart any military operation is, if it does not change political realities, it is a waste of lives and material. What political realities did the operation try to change? Have those political realities changed, or not? If not, and if – as the Indian government says the operation is only paused – how does India plan on changing those political realities? Does it have the capability to do so?

In simpler words, does India have a plan for its citizens not to be ritually murdered once again in Kashmir? Did Operation Sindoor manage to move this plan forward or not?

2. Does India have a plan for dealing with the issue of Kashmir?

There has been a lot of bluster by the Indian government on Kashmir. Everything from demonetisation to the dismemberment of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, to the legal chicanery involved in denuding what was left of Article 370 has been justified as a way to end terrorism. The result seems to be even worse. The atrocities in Pahalgam, where Indian tourists were separated based on religion and then murdered, have not been seen before.

Now Modi and his ministers say that the only thing to talk about is the part of Kashmir under Pakistani control. If so, they are implicitly acknowledging that the final status of the former princely state of Jammu & Kashmir has still to be resolved. What is the end goal on Kashmir and what is India’s plan to get there? What is entirely clear is that the government’s current strategy is a stinking failure, and it would be good to hear whether the opposition leaders have a better plan, or if they are also as clueless as the government.

3. What do India’s neighbours think of Operation Sindoor?

One would think that India’s first, and most important, foreign outreach would be to its (and Pakistan’s) neighbours. Has not every government of note in the last two decades talked about a Neighbourhood First policy? But, no, we have chosen not to do that. SAARC remains in coma because India will not allow it to meet because its next venue would have to be in Pakistan. India and Pakistan’s most influential neighbour is China, but we have chosen to send no delegation there.

Still, countries in Latin America, in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Western Europe, all places that have some working (however poorly) regional or sub-regional security arrangements will undoubtedly ask, so what do your neighbours think? If peace is a priority, I am sorry to say, only a fool thinks that the opinion of a small country far away matters more than of a neighbouring country that shares a border. Do we have an answer? Are we prepared even to ask the question?

4. Is India seen as part of the problem or part of the solution?

This question is one that the delegations can only answer after their trips. To be fair, it is a hard one, largely because we do not have a national security strategy, or a published vision for South Asian security, or even a published vision of how to tackle terrorism (let’s not talk about accusations that we are murdering dissidents abroad).

It is, thus, impossible to assess by any official metric whether we are pursuing a strategy that will bring peace to us and to the region or one that begets further violence and greater risk, but what do other countries think of our strategy and the outcomes of Operation Sindoor?

A lot of Indian commentators are offended that Operation Sindoor has led to the re-hyphenation of India-Pakistan as troubled siblings, but the real question is whether foreigners see us as the more problematic country in this relationship. As bad as Pakistan’s reputation is, it is India that is throwing Rohingya refugees into the sea and forcing hundreds across the border into Bangladesh without any due process, it is India that is publicly sidling up to the Taliban, that supported the Sheikh Hasina regime despite its well-documented human rights violations, that continues to partner with Myanmar’s abusive military dictatorship.

Also Read: Modi's Cult-Driven Foreign Outreach Efforts Have Left India Friendless

And this is all without the hideous communal and anti-democratic domestic politics that have dominated the domestic sphere for more than a decade. Add to that it is India that raised the ante by carrying out a major military campaign into Pakistani territory based on no public evidence, and violating a major international agreement like the Indus Waters Treaty.

How does the world see all this, and does this explain why not one major country went out of its way to back Operation Sindoor, while almost all of them loudly welcomed the ceasefire that ended it?

Any responsible government would already have answered these. Ours, of course, feels no need to. Since the opposition parties have chosen to support the government in the outreach, the responsibility falls on them too, to explain themselves, and justify the direction they think we should pursue so that our people are not murdered again.

Omair Ahmad is an author. His last novel, Jimmy the Terrorist, was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and won the Crossword Award.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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