Why a Special Session of the Parliament is Critical to Discuss the Disclosure Made by CDS Chauhan

Winston churchill once said that “in wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

The reports appearing in national and international media that India lost several fighter jets at the aftermath of the Operation Sindoor – launched by Indian Army, Air Force and Navy against Pakistan following the terrorists killing 26 tourists Pahalgam in Kashmir – were not authenticated by the Modi regime.

Attack on press freedom

When The Hindu published a report concerning the loss of a Rafael fighter jet by India, the day the operation began on May 7, it was removed and the publication expressed regret. Similarly, thewire.in removed a news report on CNN’s coverage of the loss of Rafale after the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting informed The Wire at 9:41 pm on May 9 that its presence on their site was the reason for the government ordering to block access to it.

While complying with the unreasonable demand so that its website could be unblocked, the Wire editors took a decision to pursue, among others, legal remedies against the infringement of press freedom.

Revelation by CDS Chauhan

Obviously the truth concerning shooting down of those aircrafts was so sensitive for Modi regime that it was not allowed to come to the public domain and, of course, bodyguards of obfuscation were deployed to hide it.

Only when Chief of Defence Staff(CDS) General Anil Chauhan, on May 31, in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore made a startling revelation that aircrafts were brought down without specifying the numbers, rest of the world got the credible information from the authoritative source.

“What is important is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down. Numbers are not important,” General Chauhan candidly stated.

Describing the claim of Pakistan that six Indian Air Force (IAF) jets were shot down as “completely inaccurate,” General Chauhan stated, “Why they were down, what mistakes were made – that are important. The number is not important.”

More importantly, the CDS flagged that the IAF turned the searchlight inwards quickly after "tactical mistakes" were made by the military during the "initial stages" and those were "remedied, rectified" and subsequently the Indian fighter jets could achieve the desired objectives by hitting deep inside Pakistan.

"So we” asserted General Chauhan, “rectified tactics and then went back on [May] 7th, 8th and 10th in large numbers to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air de-fences with impunity, carried out precision strikes." He proceeded to add very forcefully that the Indian air force "flew all types of aircraft with all types of ordnance on the 10th."

Indication of loss in a combat

What CDS Chauhan revealed was vaguely indicated earlier by Air Marshal Bharti on May 11, 2025. In a press conference in New Delhi while dealing with a question from the correspondent of the Hindu if the IAF had lost any fighter jets, he while saying that in a combat scenario, losses are a part of combat, he informed that our pilots returned safely. Additionally he claimed that objectives of the Operation Sindoor were achieved and comment on loss suffered would help the adversary.

Demand of opposition parties

In an article, “India Breaks Silence: Confirms Fighter Jet Losses in High-Stakes Clash with Pakistan” published in Defence Security Asia on 31st May 20025 it was very strikingly noted, “The initial air clash between the two rival air forces (of India and Pakistan) has been described by observers as “the largest dogfight of the 21st century,” involving approximately 125 fighters from both sides and testing the limits of networked warfare, air-to-air missile envelopes, and tactical coordination.”

All opposition parties including Congress supported Operation Sindoor. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wanted the Modi regime to let the country know the losses suffered by our air force after Minister for External Affairs Jaishankar told the Consultative Committee that just before the strike was conducted by our military on terrorist bases in Pakistan, India informed the Pakistani authorities about it and asked military of that country not to interfere; which they preferred to ignore.

Later Jaishankar contradicted himself when he said in the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs that Pakistan was informed half an hour after the operation commenced. Rahul Gandhi was accused by BJP leaders of speaking the language of Pakistan.
Though there were reports in the international media that Pakistan had shot down Indian fighter planes, including the French made Rafale, but the Modi regime maintained studied silence on the issue.

Claim by Subramanian Swamy

On May 31, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy forcefully claimed that Pakistan shot down five of our aircrafts including Rafales using Chinese fighter jets. "Their performance was commendable, whereas our French Rafale jets were underwhelming," he said. He accused both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah for wilfully ignoring the calls for an inquiry into the downing of Indian jets and alleged that under Modi's leadership, there will be no accountability or debate in Parliament about what went wrong.

Late defence minister Jaswant Singh’s perceptive analysis

The subject indicates the gravity and magnitude of the problem with huge implications for national security. Therefore, the disclosure made by the CDS assumes momentous significance. Jaswant Singh, the former defence minister of India, during the Kargil war, in his memoirs, “A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India” very perceptively outlined the monumetal tragedy of losing a fighter plane compared to the losses suffered in the battle field.

He wrote, “The difficulty with air casualties, as against casualties on land, is principally of imagery. The sheer optical value of the Air Force is so much greater, particularly in a limited and contained conflict. That is why the loss of an aircraft becomes so instantly an issue that catches the public eye, as compared to the loss of even a platoon of infantry."

Past precedents

The admission of loss of fighter aircrafts by General Chauhan has caught the public eye more intensely than the media reports that Pakistan shot down several military jets of India. It is tragic that Modi regime is maintaining deafening silence on it. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru convened the Parliament session when India was facing the Chinese invasion in 1962 and the country was caught in the midst of war.

He did so after not so prominent Jan Sangh MP of that time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, wrote to Nehru to summon the Parliament. A few days After the Kargil conflict was over Prime Minister Vajpayee appointed a Committee on July 29, 1999, headed by defence analyst K. Subrahmanyam, father of current Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, to examine the events of the war and make recommendations for the future. By January 2000 the committee submitted its report to Vajpayee.

The Modi regime must come out and reveal more details about the disclosure made by CDS Chauhan. On June 3, in an open letter to Modi, a special session of the Parliament has been demanded by 16 opposition parties of the INDIA alliance to discuss the developments following the Pahalgam terror attack, Operation Sindoor, the military conflict with Pakistan and subsequent events. Parliament must be convened immediately.

S N Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.

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