Letter to Manmohan Singh: Tell us how many punches you delivered to Pakistan

Respected Dr Manmohan Singh and your former ministers,

I address this open letter to you, and to our former defence minister AK Antony, former home ministers P Chidambaram and Sushilkumar Shinde. I write in my capacity of a former national spokesperson of the Congress, a former Member of Parliament and a citizen. I write to seek answers to many questions that arise today, in the wake of the Pathankot and Uri attacks and subsequent news of our armed forces undertaking what is termed as “surgical operations”.

My questions are not addressing what has been reported. I am seeking the truth among a barrage of information that I am receiving. As a party spokesperson and as an MP, in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack and then during 2011 to 2013, when the “nationalist” anti-Pakistan rhetoric was being built up, we were constantly confronting questions and an increasingly disappointed and angry public that believed we had a soft policy towards Pakistan.

Buoyed by statements from the BJP, and the media, an atmosphere was building up to show the UPA government and the Congress as weak in response to what we could do to Pakistan. On the other hand, right through 2012, 2013, 2014, and even more so now, I have heard numerous military officials, (serving and a few retired) Army officers having served in Jammu and Kashmir, credible journalists (rather difficult to find these days), and even some bureaucrats that the reality during UPA rule - under your premiership - was rather different.

Is this true sir? I do not doubt that your government and our Army and other wings must have done us proud then. But I want to know this in black and white. I know that you are not given to speaking too much on defence matters, and so was the nature of then defence minister.

Chidambaram also possibly took cue from a government that was carrying on with our stated policy of not announcing our covert and overt actions, both on the border and within Pakistan (PoK and rest of Pakistan included). So here is what I have heard and I place it for you, and for your ministers to tell us what really happened.

I am informed that all through the period when the media was reporting cross-border firing from Pakistan, showing your government to be inactive and weak, in fact India was the aggressor on cross-border firings? I am informed that while Pakistanis used a few guns and some shelling, we most often respond with big guns, including the Bofors guns, and have actually been the aggressor in this exchange.

I have been told that while the media and BJP accused us of pussy-footing when there were reports of the Pakistan Army killing our soldiers brutally, actually this was in response to what our Army/paramilitary forces had done earlier to Pakistani soldiers? There is also a report that we killed many more Pakistan soldiers than they have been able to?

I am informed that what the current government is claiming though the media statement of the DGMO is something that has happened quite a few times while you were Prime Minister? Some dates are also floated - 2007, 2009, post-Mumbai, 2011, in January 2013, in early 2014 and so on. Some even say your government took a decision in 2007 to aggressively take on Pakistan on the borders.

These are perhaps not the only pieces of information that need a response from all of you, a confirmation, an explanation or a denial. It was not important then for our Prime Minister to thump his chest and shout “Kreegah Bundolo”.

But in the present scenario, when even routine retaliations of our Army are being touted as signals of a brave and warrior-like Prime Minister, who has suddenly given some b#### to our Army and made a “man” out of them, it is time to speak up and tell them what always happens and what happened under the UPA.

Dear Dr Singh, dear Mr Antony, dear Mr Chidambaram, dear Mr Shinde, your commitment to the nation was never in doubt, neither is your patriotism.

But in the wake of current times, your desire to stick to outdated concepts of “official secrets”, to not saying some things that we have already done, to keep mum when your opponent is trading in street abuse every single moment, your commitment to the important issue of the psyche of a nation, and to the image and honour of the Congress party is now in question.

There is a saying in Sanskrit – maunamsammatilashnam - meaning that silence is evidence of consent. The more you keep quiet, the more people believe in the anti-propaganda. 

The hyperventilation of nationalism based on pride, pathetically based on the subjugation of a non-nation like Pakistan, may not have bothered you in the past. But now that it is the defining feature of the strength of our national polity, the viagra for a media bereft of brains and the brawn to be sentinels of public good and the poor, and succour for a government stuck in its rhetoric, we need to know if you were just this and lot more, or even lesser?

Sir, you had very rightly said “history will judge me better”. However, today if you do not respond, I am afraid history shall judge you harsher. Don’t let what your government and the three armed forces did remain untold in some old-fashioned idea of decency and national interest. There is not national interest except a punch and some blood on a Pakistani's nose. Just tell us how many punches did you deliver, or didn’t.

It is also important that you and your ministers tell us why it was important to refrain from blowing our own trumpets each time we even sneezed on our borders. Why were actions of safeguarding our nation and protecting and promoting the pride of our armed forces kept under wraps? Why sir?

It’s a call for you, and your ministers together to state what happened, to every self- respecting Army officer who engaged in these operations to respond and tell us.

Yours sincerely,

Sandeep Dikshit

Also read: War-mongering media, politicians posing a threat to India's security