A weak Indian leadership surrenders to Trump

 

A weak Indian leadership surrenders to Trump

On 22 April 2025, five armed terrorists attacked tourists in Pahalgam, Jammu& Kashmir, killing 26 civilians, the deadliest since 2008 Mumbai attacks. The Resistance Front (TRF), supposed to be an offshoot of Pakistan-based, the UN-designated Islamist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) claimed responsibility for the attack. That the attack took place in an area that had three-tier security cover demonstrates intelligence failure and major security lapse.

 

TRF linked the attack to the Indian government policy that allows non-Kashmiris to live and work in Kashmir, resulting in non-local settlement. In a statement on the social media platform Telegram, TRF opposed the granting of domicile certificates to "outsiders", and voiced discontent at resulting demographic changes in the region. It claimed that "these non-locals arrive posing as tourists, obtain domiciles, and then begin to act as if they own the land. Consequently, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally." The Indian authorities have linked the Pahalgam attack to Pakistan, with digital traces leading to safe houses in Muzaffarabad and Karachi. They concluded that forensic evidence and intelligence intercepts suggest potential support from operatives based in Pakistan.

 

Following the request by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, to convene an all-party meeting to discuss the incident, the union government held the all-party meeting on 24 April, when all the opposition parties assured full support to the government for whatever action it might take. The meeting was presided over by the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in the absence of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who preferred to address a political rally in Bihar instead, making the statement that the terrorists would be hunted wherever they are on the earth, caught and punished. He didn’t visit Kashmir; nor offered condolences to the victims’ families.

 

After creating a huge hype and high-pitched confrontational rhetoric, for two weeks, of teaching lesson to the terrorists and their supporters across the border, in the early hours of 7 May, Indian armed forces carried the ‘Operation Sindoor’, striking and destroying nine terrorist hubs, including the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen, across the border in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and other terrorist hubs in Pakistan. The next day, that is 8 May, the government convened all-party meeting to brief about the Operation Sindoor, when the entire opposition reiterated its support for the action. Narendra Modi again chose to remain absent at the meeting. It is inconceivable that the Prime Minister didn’t think it obligatory to attend and preside the all-party meetings convened by his government to discuss the serious issue of attack by the terrorists, resulting in loss of 26 lives of innocent civilians, and the threat to national security. It shows how insensitive, irresponsible and indifferent Modi is. He is answerable to none.

 

As expected, Pakistan retaliated. It launched drone strikes at 26 locations along the border from Baramulla and Srinagar in North to Bhuj in West. It opened heavy artillery fire on multiple forward Indian posts along the LoC. India shot down the drones and inflicting serious damage to Pakistan. According to the press briefing by the DGMOs of Indian armed forces, the Operation Sindoor killed more than 100 terrorists, including high-value targets like Yusuf Azfar, Abdul Malik Rauf and Mudasir Ahmed who were involved in the IC-184 hijack and the Pulwama terror attack. India struck Pakistan’s airbases, command centres, military infrastructure, air defence system across the entire Western Front. The nation stood behind the Indian armed forces for their valor and was expecting the Pakistan would be taught a lesson once and for all for supporting the jihadi terrorists.  

 

In fact, the IAF kept pressing on the escalation pedal. At the meeting held by Modi on 10 May, with the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Advisor A.K. Doval, the Chief of Defence Staff Anil Chauvan and the three service chiefs – General Upendra Dwivedi, Admiral Dinesh Tripathi and Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh – and chiefs of IB and RAW Tapan Deka and Ravi Sinha, all of them were unanimous on consolidating the upper hand that India had. The meeting took into account the advantages India had going forward: high morale of forces, firepower, and the ace in the form of ‘blue water’ Indian Navy. It was an opportunity to eliminate terrorism emanating from across the border and extract an unequivocal commitment from Pakistan that it would stop training terrorists and promoting terror camps.

 

Then comes the abrupt declaration of ceasefire through a tweet by Donald Trump from Washington DC in the afternoon on 10 May, and India and Pakistan accepting it. He said: “Pleased to announce the Governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.” It was unbelievable, unprecedented. How could Trump get involved and make such announcement? It came as a surprise to many who scrambled to find clues to the sudden turn. It is an abject surrender. A weak Indian leadership acquiesced in to the diktat of a man who lost the moral authority to govern America. Why did Modi suddenly accept the ceasefire brokered by Trump? Was there any compelling reason behind? Or was it out of panic?

India had compromised her independent foreign policy of non-alignment that stood the test of time and brought her laurels from countries across the world, including the two super powers – the USA and the USSR – who sought India’s mediation during the cold war to resolve international conflicts. What a climb down – from playing the role of a mediator to defuse many an international crisis during the Nehru era to seeking mediation from a third party on a bilateral issue in Modi’s regime!

It may be recalled that China, unable to reconcile with Nehru’s growing international stature and his influence on the community of nations, chose to attack India in 1962 to discredit him. And when Nehru appealed for military aid, 83 heads of states and governments, including Pakistan, Israel, France, Britain, the United States and the USSR, had pledged support to India. The fact that both the Western and the Communist blocs were willing to give military aid was an indication of the strength of Nehru’s India. This had isolated China from the community of nations. The strong expression of indignation by several countries, cutting across political systems, against the Chinese aggression forced China to retreat unilaterally from Indian territory much before the arrival of arms supplies in India from foreign nations.

To Richard Nixon, a quintessential cold warrior, when he was the Vice President in the Eisenhower administration, non-alignment was a sin, a clear jab aimed at Nehru. And yet, he kept Nehru’s portrait on his credenza. Despite his dislike for India being a non-aligned nation, he kept Nehru’s photo in his workplace. There was another photograph of Nixon which had Churchill, De Gaulle on his credenza and side by side was Nehru with these two giants of the 20^th century. That respect came from real appreciation of Nehru’s depth, intellect and sterling leadership. Thoughtful people realise what leadership is all about, not bragging but inspiring respect among giants of the world.  

And the irony lady of India Indira Gandh had displayed extraordinary political leadership and rare courage in handing a humiliating defeat to Pakistan in 1971. India declared war on Pakistan on 3 December, when Pakistan launched pre-emptive air strikes in North India. The Indian army entered East Pakistan to fight for the liberation of Bangladesh. India was fighting the war on two war fronts. Some 10 million Bengalis fled to India, creating an unprecedented refugee crisis for the Indian government. America and China were supporting Pakistan. The US Seventh Fleet, comprising the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, entered the Bay of Bengal, ready to strike at India. The Soviet Union vetoed twice in the UN Security Council the US sponsored resolution to stop the war, enabling India.to register a decisive victory. She was not deterred by the threat of President Nixon and even refused to take his calls. And four days before the Pakistan Army surrendered to India in Dacca on 16 December, she wrote a letter to President Nixon on 12 December, giving background to the war and rebuffed the pressure from America. Lt. General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, Chief Martial Law Administrator of East Pakistan and Commander of Pakistan Army forces signed the Instrument of Surrender in Dacca with Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora. More than 93,000 Pakistani troops had surrendered unconditionally, making it the largest surrender in history, securing the greatest military victory for India. 

In contrast to the international standing of India during the Nehru and the Indira Gandhi periods, as the leader of the non-aligned movement and the champion of the third world countries, and the principal spokesman of the Afro-Asian Bloc in the UN, today there is no international support to the Modi government for the ‘Operation Sindoor’. This is in spite of the fact that Modi made more than 90 tours abroad, visiting more than 70 countries, since he became the Prime Minister. Even India’s immediate neighbours have not come out openly to condemn the terror attack in Pahalgam. India lost the moral compass that she once had when she had no economic and military muscle, unlike today.

It is intriguing as to why Modi succumbed to Trump’s pressure. Trump has repeated his claim that he mediated between India and Pakistan to agree for the ceasefire to avoid nuclear war between them, and that he used the trade to bring pressure on them. minutes before Modi addressed the nation on 12 May. Modi has not refuted Trump’s claims. This is what he said in his address: “Operation Sindoor is our unwavering commitment to justice…Operation Sindoor has carved out a new benchmark in our fight against terror and has set up a new parameter and new normal…if there is a terrorist attack on India, a fitting reply will be given.” It means anticipating future terror attacks and responding to them, and, in a way, conceding India finding herself in a perpetual war-like situation.  

Trump again repeated in Saudi Arabi, while addressing the Saudi-US Investment Forum on 13 May, that he “successfully brokered a historic ceasefire” between India and Pakistan and that he “used trade to a larger extent to bring the two countries together”, lauding his Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who is also the NSA – and the Vice President J.D. Vance for working out the ceasefire. He made no distinction between the perpetrator and the victim by equating India with Pakistan. He made no reference to the terror attack on Pahalgam. The three bigwigs - the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and the External Affairs Minister - remained silent and refused to refute Trump’s claims. This is inexplicable. What pressure was exerted on India? The nation has the right to know the understanding reached between India and Pakistan at the behest of America.

This is no solution to the menace of terrorism and the intermittent terror attacks. The terrorist encounters with the security forces in J&K continue unabated. The terrorists attacked an Indian army outpost at Uri, J&K, in 2016 that killed 19 soldiers. In the Pulwama terror attack in 2019, 40 CRPF personnel were killed. And the attack in Pahalgam is the third. The Union government seems to have no clue to eliminate terrorism and prevent terror attacks across the border, except making empty rhetoric. What has India gained by the ceasefire? The terrorists in Pulwama are not caught. Nor are all the terror hubs in Pakistan destroyed, so as to cripple the terror hubs permanently. No assurance from Pakistan is extracted that the terrorist groups will not be funded, nurtured and sheltered by its military establishment and the ISI. Terrorism needs a permanent solution, and whipping jingo religious sentiments to derive electoral dividends can’t find a permanent solution.

Pakistan was created by violence and being preserved by violence. The idea of Pakistan as an Islamic democracy that offered space for other religions and cultures to coexist within an Islamic State vanished with the death of its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a year after its birth. Its unstable politico-military relationship impedes its evolution as a modern state. Islamisation of Pakistan armed forces began under General Zia-ul-Haq and the present army chief General Asim Munir was the product of his regime. Then irony is that Pakistan is ruled by the Islamic fundamentalists, while India is under the grip of the Hindu majoritarianism - an Islamist nationalist heading Pakistan 's most powerful institution, its army, and a Hindu nationalist ruling India, making any reconciliation and reproachment difficult.