Operation Sindoor and Supernatural Times Under the Modi Regime

We are living in cussed and supernatural times. Operation Sindoor has not ended, though the fighting stopped a month ago. At least, that’s what the signboard outside the door says. The causes leading to the action, and its pluses and minuses, have not been discussed by our elected representatives in the country’s highest panchayat. 

And yet, in a time of war, the prime minister has liberated himself from democracy’s requirements and constraints and allows himself to engage in a disinformation war against the main opposition party in parliament. No holds barred. 

His military commanders also do unusual things in the public sphere – and this gives the lie to the idea that the conflict is still on, formally speaking. The convention about not questioning the government seems to apply only to the government’s opponents. 

The real and the supernatural have blended in India’s governmental acts.

Leave alone working for national unity at all times as the leader should, Narendra Modi does not see it his duty to keep the nation united even when the possibility of the continuance of military conflict – the  justification for not calling off Operation Sindoor – has not technically ceased. 

In a time of conflict, Modi has given himself the licence for naked election propaganda in Bihar while fettering his opponents from asking probing questions about the massive government failures that led to the ghastly massacre at Baisaran valley, Pahalgam, and its further failure to catch the terrorists, but for which the May 7-10 military conflagration may not have ensued.

The irony in the situation is enhanced if we recall that the Union home minister, exactly two weeks before the tragedy on April 22, was boasting in Kashmir that the infrastructure of terrorism had been dismantled under Modi ji’s astute and determined guidance – the standard calling card when members of the Modi cabinet latch on to a perceived point of good propaganda for the regime – and the opportunity to be retained in the leader’s good books.

Among the more egregious points made by the PM himself in a characteristically bombast-filled recent vain speech is that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had desired that India seize Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) militarily. The unspoken part is that then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru paid no heed to it. 

When did Patel express this view and to whom? Did he ever say this for the record? And how does Modi know? These questions arise naturally.

What’s plain is that in Sardar Patel’s correspondence (Durga Das ed, pub Navjivan Press, Ahmedabad, 1971) on the subject of Jammu and Kashmir with the leading personalities concerned, J&K’s accession to India in circumstances that were politically and militarily sensitive and complex in the extreme, and framed in a historical moment that had pressing compulsions, nothing can be found that supports Modi’s assertion whose intention appears to be to generate propagandistic noise in his favour and against someone. In this volume, there is also a section on Vallabhbhai’s daughter Maniben Patel’s reflections on her father and his broad thinking.

Through the seemingly indirect (but pretty direct) attack on Nehru, the current PM is aiming to shoot a ballistic missile at the Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi family which plays a strong leadership role in it. This has been his standard petty technique. However, since the missile is a dud as missiles go, and is filled only with heavy-duty untruth, the disinformation war aimed at his most potent ideological adversaries cannot be missed, and needs to be labelled as such.       

In the Kashmir context, it needs to be noted that Patel and Nehru were the key actors from the government’s (and the Congress party’s) side. In fact, they were close collaborators and frequently forwarded to one another confidential material pertaining to the subject sent to them by others. 

On Nehru, however, fell the greater responsibility as there was an international dimension in relation to Kashmir and because he was the head of government. On military matters, both leaders were in close touch with Governor-General Lord Mountbatten, defence minister Sardar Baldev Singh and the top military commanders, and exchanged views regularly.

On the political side, it comes out in the Constituent Assembly debate that Sardar Patel did not oppose autonomy for J&K after accession. For that matter, nor did Syama Prasad Mukherjee of the Hindu Mahasabha, who later became the founder-president of the Jana Sangh, now re-incarnated as BJP. In fact, among the staunch critics of the idea was Maulana Hasrat Mohani, known as ‘the Red Maulana’. 

While Operation Sindoor is still not extinguished in the government’s book, it is not quite clear what the highest echelons of the armed forces have been up to lately. Should they be questioned in public or would that be deemed to be an anti-national act?

At the recent Shangri-la dialogue in Singapore, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan, has given out information which would ordinarily not be disclosed in war time for tactical reasons so that ‘the enemy’ may not benefit. 

For the first time after the May 7-10 active fighting, the CDS acknowledged India losing aircraft, though he did not say how many. He further acknowledged India’s faulty tactics which he said were corrected early. Nevertheless, serious questions arise, such as: What was the extent of damage owing to wrong tactics?  Did erroneous tactics arise from insufficient information about the enemy’s strengths and disposition, or owing to a failure of intelligence? Or, were there planning failures?

Also, crucial time was lost in a very short duration punch-up while the tactics were set right, and aircraft were lost. As a result of this, how long were we prepared to carry on fighting even if we struck all their critical military airfields, rendering them dysfunctional for a time? 

If we were ready for an early exit from the fighting in these circumstances, how would we go about organising this? By asking the Pakistanis to beg us to stop? 

That is absurd, which means the Americans really bailed us out through their intervention at various levels – and that President Trump’s seemingly exaggerated claims correspond to reality in substantive ways, more than our version or the Pakistani version does. 

And for this, at what level does the military – and political – responsibility lie? That is the key question arising from the CDS’s interviews given to Bloomberg and Reuters in Singapore. And no amount of a supra-real presentation of reality through a kowtowing domestic media, or ultra-nationalistic road shows and speechmaking at election rallies – falsely classified as the pinnacle of patriotism – can camouflage what transpired.

General Chauhan’s debut at an international forum may have had a defined purpose even if it gives rise to inconvenient questions, but what about his colleague at the top, the Chief of Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi, a four-star general like the CDS? His recent action is mind-boggling. The whole country, not just the Opposition, needs to ask him what he is up to. The government is unlikely to ask. We may fairly surmise that.

On May 28, with Operation Sindoor still in effect (even if dormant), the Army chief visited the Chitrakoot ashram of Swami Rambhadracharya, also known as Jagadguru – a synonym for Vishwaguru. Videos from well known media houses show him in full military uniform, sitting beside the swami, and in one image standing in front of him with due humility. 

For allegedly tampering with Ramcharitmanas, the blind swami had been belaboured in Haridwar in 2010 by sadhus of the Ramanadi sect of Ayodhya who regard the Manas as their sacred text, according to the journalist-writer Dhirendra Jha, a well-regarded scholar of the RSS and its kindred outfits and their political moves and actions.

Rambhadracharya is said to be associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Modi regime in 2015, i.e. during the presentation of the very first set of the Padma awards in PM Modi’s tenure. Subsequently, he was also honoured by the prestigious Sahitya Akademi for his services to Sanskrit.

The Swami from Chitrakoot, thus, ranks high in the pantheon of the great under the present dispensation. The Army chief received diksha from him, a process of initiation by a guru into a religious sect. This was announced in media videos by Rambhadracharya himself.  

The swami disclosed that after the diksha the Army chief asked what he’d like as dakshina or offering to the guru. The latter calmly said he would like PoK. We do not know the general’s reply. 

But what we do know is that the Indian forces had an opportunity during the May hostilities to try to make this wish come true, but chose not to. Swami Rambhadracharya should have asked his newly initiated shishya why his forces did not even seek to make the attempt. In the fitness of things, the prime minister should answer the same question. The matter is political in the final analysis.

We also know that asking for the political moon is not in the nature of authentic gurus who are known to preach spirituality. Politics are a worldly goal, not a spiritual aspiration. But life has turned topsy-turvy in Modi’s India. The Army chief can take diksha in full uniform, without waiting to retire – and be asked for a politico-military dakshina by a strange sort of guru.

So, is the diksha of General Dwivedi and the dakshina sought by a modern-day avatara of a true guru in the nature of a fixed match with a clear political aim? Is this story to be supplied to the story-tellers and propaganda-makers for the Assembly election in Bihar a few months from now? 

Couldn’t the Army chief have waited just a little to be initiated into religious service, or simply resigned from the Army’s service before hitting out on a path less taken?

Anand K. Sahay is a veteran journalist.

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