Stop being farzical — this is about avenging India
The release of the September 29, 2016 surgical strike video — footage showing Indian armed forces crossing the border and attacking four Pakistani terror launch pads, in retaliation for the Uri terror strike from nine days ago, when 23 Indian soldiers were killed by Pakistani militants — was a surprise.
The politics that exploded over it wasn’t.
Leading the Disapproval Brigade was the Congress. Its spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala, described the video’s release as a move by the BJP-led government to derive political credit via the Indian army. The Congress stated the BJP had already apparently shamelessly politicised the 2016 surgical strike in 2017’s Uttar Pradesh assembly election, swept by a saffron wave.
The past wasn’t enough for Congress leaders to purse their lips over. Veteran Congressman Salman Khurshid, hitting the headlines recently for stating the Congress itself had "blood on its hands", seemingly tried to make up for his Lady Macbeth-like allusions by asking the BJP tartly whether its surgical strike video would help end future ceasefire violations too.
But the Congress wasn’t the only, lonely voice griping here.
Long-standing BJP members — indeed, high-ranking ministers from former BJP governments — Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha also added their two cents worth. Yashwant Sinha steered the ship of sourness to staidly salty waters, stating the video was released keeping only the 2019 polls in mind. Arun Shourie was more entertaining — he claimed the strike had turned from 'surgical' to 'farzical', a propaganda farce, with an eye on the political horizon where the clouds of 2019 are already gathering apace.
But, amidst all these twisting charges, of the BJP using the surgical strikes video for political gain, here’s my straight question — why not?
What is "shameless" about a government taking credit for a hard decision which empowered the Indian armed forces to go do the right thing, in the best possible way?
Further, is the Congress, by arguing such behaviour is apparently shameless, then accusing Mrs Indira Gandhi, who took great credit for 'breaking Pakistan into two' and creating Bangladesh in 1971, also of the same?
In truth, 47 years after the event, the Congress is still dining out on Bangladesh.
If it believes highlighting an executive’s decision to empower the Indian armed forces — which exists for the service and protection of the Indian people — to do its job is 'shameless', why was it singing its Bangladesh ballad till one day before? Perhaps to weakly cloak Mrs Gandhi’s imposition of Emergency on India?
Shameless, much?
But such see-through sanctimonies aside, the truth is, there is nothing wrong with a government or a party using its decision — and this is perforce a tough one, because the irony is, a moaning, groaning "dialogue"-with-terrorists-and-rogue-states-type 'peace' that goes nowhere beyond the junket-circuit, is way easier — to allow a nation’s armed forces to protect or avenge its people.
The West — whom we quote endlessly for all things civilised, Constitutions, Cognac, Copernicus to Cezanne — has been doing this for decades. Think of all the US Presidents who used footage of wars, WWII to Afghanistan, to woo their electorates. It was their images of victories in — or rather, thrust on — Iraq that won the Bush father-son duo 16 years of the American Presidency between them.
And before our desi liberals crumple their linen kurtas (beige is the colour of the season, darling, in keeping with the Undeclared Emergency, you know) with glee at the Bush comparison, let’s not forget that iconic image — Barack Obama, in his 'Situation Room' in May 2011, surrounded, from Hilary Clinton to Joe Biden, by the topmost members of his team, closely watching live footage of the secret armed forces mission to get Osama bin Laden.
The Democrats, who are far cooler than the Republicans (and this is possibly the only real difference between the two, given the realpolitick they practice) used this image — over the jazz bars, gourmet salads and stirring speeches for peace made in peaceful places such as Berlin — actually used this image repeatedly, to drive home their toughness, their perseverance at nailing enemies of the US, their ability to call the shots, metaphorically and literally, winning Barack admirers even in Red states.
Given our real-world circumstances, both this prevalence, and this use of war, and its appendages — stealth missions, preventive attacks, drone campaigns, et al — is here to stay. It is far better to have governments that acknowledge this fact, rather than pretending we live inLa-La-Land.
Or worse, treating war as a closed door, from where all citizens get to hear are whispers of choppers and their deals, coffins and their gates, odd tales of guns and brokers and their very mysterious bank accounts.
In contrast to this, the Congress should have been open and upfront when in power on how exactly it saw war — and the armed forces. Are these a milch cow? Or a fighting-fit weapon? Did it empower the armed forces to go do what it had to do? Did the armed forces return to say, mission accomplished?
We — the tax-paying Indian citizens who pay for both netas and soldiers — would have liked to know.
Heaven knows the Congress didn’t lack moments to inform us.
Remember 26/11, 2008? When a handful of jihad-junkies from across the border sneaked into Mumbai — questions of how exactly they got in and stayed, accumulated weaponry, how this made its way into the multiple locations selected for their terrorism, who helped them in India, still await answers — and wreaked havoc in the city for four days. The 26/11 attackers killed 164 people and wounded over 300. The 26/11 attackers ruined a historic hotel, ran rampage across an iconic station, shot their way through landmark streets. In addition to murdering an unarmed Jewish rabbi and his wife, the 26/11 attackers also killed Hemant Karkare, India’s top anti-terror squad chief, and several policemen, including ASI Tukaram Omble who held onto terrorist Ajmal Kasab’s gun, taking several shots, but managing to arrest Kasab, even as the jihadi planned to move beyond Girgaum Chowpatty, from the Queen’s Necklace into the heart of Mumbai.
The violence of 26/11 shocked India to the core.
Was there a surgical strike on Pakistani terror camps after that?
Why were we not told?
Unlike the time of Bangladesh, 26/11 was technologically advanced enough for a government to allow our armed forces to record footage of such a strike and show it to a people wounded at the violation of their land, their tolerance, their peace.
But we saw nothing.
In not showing us what they could do — or had done — the Congress scored a massive self-goal.
Instead, they followed up 26/11 with the Sharm-el-Shaikh Summit where, through a joint statement at the 2009 Egypt event, then-PM Manmohan Singh apparently legitimised Pakistan’s shrill howls about alleged Indian terrorism in Pakistan.
It is indeed funny to hear the Congress speak of 'sharm' today.
But let’s keep the Congress’ confusions aside and come to criticism from clearer quarters.
With his clever description of the surgical strike video, Arun Shourie evoked another ‘farzical’ event — one where farce met catastrophical. The breaking of the Babri Mosque in 1992, followed by the Gujarat riots of 2002. Between these two extraordinary events, both soundly condemned by secular Indians, Shourie managed to become the Reading RSS Man’s pin-up boy, be appointed a cabinet minister, conduct disinvestment and attend the Rajya Sabha over several years.
It was only, unkind critics say, when the current BJP government, different from Mr Shourie’s friends-in-powerful-places like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani (both around when the Babri Mosque was broken and Gujarat burnt, the latter earning a farcical banality about keep to ‘Raj Dharma’, old chap) didn’t bestow on Mr Shourie any particularly powerful position that his secular heart apparently began to beat.
'Farzical' has thus been yet another expression of how creative you can become when you switch sides, from communal to secular, zealot to zealous, extremist to liberal, all in a trice. With his wordy creativity, Mr Shourie has exposed not how the surgical strike video is farzical, but how farzical — or farcical — his protestations now plus the eager applause of his "We-hate-Modi-too" liberal fan-club is.
But that’s a different story, folks.
For now, the real story is the Indian armed forces doing us proud with what we see in the surgical strike video. I applaud the video — and its release. For, more than the economy, more than squabbling over Modi, more than all the already-boring 2019 predictions, for me, what matters is this video comes at just the right time — the 19th anniversary of the Kargil War. When we lost multiple Indian soldiers who fought bravely to push back Pakistani intruders from our hills, valleys and dales, before they could arrive in our towns, villages and homes.
Our soldiers gave us — their nation, their people — their supreme sacrifice.
There are so many to recall. Captain Vikram Batra. Aged 24. Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey. Aged 24. Captain Anuj Nayyar. Aged 24. Major Mariappan Saravanan. Aged 26. Major Rajesh Singh Adhikari. Aged 28.
And many others who will never come back. Who will never know life beyond those young years.
There is nothing 'farzical' about war, folks. It’s a hard reality some of us die for. Any government that cringes from this reality is being cynical or hypocritical. And only preparing the way for more of us to die.
The release of the surgical strikes video is politics, of course.
But, the truth is, it's also about having pride. Any party with a brain will recognise that. But all parties should have the heart to celebrate it. To celebrate how some of us are willing to even die, only to protect or avenge our fellow citizens.
There is nothing farzical about that.