This evening (May 5, 2019), on a TV channel, 4 former army officers rubbished Congress’ claim of ‘surgical strikes’ during the UPA rule. They said that the earlier actions were small-scale ‘cross-border actions’ taken by local commanders without permission of their seniors and information to them after the actions. Such actions had no political implications while ‘surgical strikes’ are major military operations taken only after government permission.
The retired Armed Forces officers explained that what the Modi government did in 2016 and 2019 were major actions by the Indian Armed Forces with the permission of the central government and resulted in heavy casualties inside POK in 2016 and inside Pakistan in 2019. They said such actions have been taken only thrice after the Second World War. Israel did it in Uganda during Idi Amin’s dictatorship and the US did in Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. They said, had surgical strikes of 2016 or 2019 failed, the Modi government would have fallen.
They said, never before Modi had any government given free hand to the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces were feeling helpless and frustrated when terrorists attacked the Parliament or when terrorists attacked Mumbai in 2008 because they were not allowed to retaliate. The Armed Forces’ morale had never been so high as today, the added. Another important thing with a said that had the Modi government publicly paraded the jawans and officers of the Armed Forces who carried out operations in 2016 or 2019 to take credit, that would have been politicisation of the Armed Forces; referring to the bravery of the forces in 2016 or 2018 does not amount to politicisation.
When Army did not allow Sonia Gandhi to gift Siachen Glacier to Pakistan
Introduction
During their visit to Beijing in August 2008, Sonia Gandhi, children and grandchildren had a meeting with Benazir Bhutto’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, also. (Source: Tweet of @amitmalviya of BJP IT cell.) Wonder, if the meeting of two ‘royals’ was arranged by the CCP leaders for joint strategy or to get Sonia Gandhi’s support for Pakistan. (https://www.devendranarain.com/sino-sonia-syner…-indias-security/)
Congress’, especially Gandhi-Vadra family’s, love for Pakistan is well known. When the Modi government carried out a “surgical strike” in POK or bombardment of terror camps in Balakot, Congress was disturbed and refuse to believe the claim of armed forces.
It is also a well-known fact that the Sonia-controlled UPA government tried to demilitarise Siachen Glacier that was tantamount to surrender of the Glacier to Pakistan. Before that, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 and Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in 1992 had a similar plan. These successive Congress governments were determined to commit the mistake similar to what Nehru had committed in 1948.
Siachen Glacier and its importance
Perhaps, Pakistan discovered Siachen Glacier in 1970 and used it for mountaineering. An Indian army officer noticed Pakistani activities in 1981 and sounded the alarm bell. Both India and Pakistan tried to occupy it in April 1984. On April 13, the Indian Army launched its “Operation Meghdoot”. Within 48 hours, the Pakistani army also reached. The two armies fought battles in the extremely cold climate. Ultimately India took control of the 70-kilometre-long (43 mi) Siachen Glacier and it’s tributary glaciers, as well as all the main passes and heights of the Saltoro Ridge immediately west of the Glacier. The Siachen Valley remains in the possession of Pakistan.
The 70-kilometer-long Siachen Glacier at the height of 24000 ft prevents direct link between POK and China. From there the Indian army can watch Gilgit and Baltistan regions of Pakistan and also infrastructure built by China beyond the LAC. It is considered natural protection to India.
Between April 1984 and 2003, Indian and Pakistani armed clashed several times for the Siachen Glacier and surrounding areas. Musharraf mounted an operation in Kargil in 1999 to avenge Siachen but failed, suffering over 700 casualties. The ceasefire declared during Ramzan in 2003 continues. What Pakistan failed to get in battles, the Congress governments wanted to give on a silver platter.
Because of the below -60-degree temperature, the constant threat of avalanche, and high-speed winds, it is the deadliest and costliest area to maintain for the security of India. The daily cost of keeping 5000 army personnel is about Rs. 50 million. (ET Online, Nov 20. 2019) Between 1984 and 2019, 850 (790 between 2000 and 2003 alone) Indian soldiers died due to hostile weather.
UPA (read, Sonia Gandhi) government’s attempts to surrender Siachen Glacier
In his book, “How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century”, Shyam Saran, India’s Foreign Secretary (31 July 2004 – 1 September 2006) has written that at least three times – in 1989, 1992 and 2006 – India and Pakistan nearly agreed on demilitarising the Siachen Glacier. Note that all these attempts were made by the Congress government.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was first to take initiative, within five years of the Indian occupation of Siachen Glacier, in 1989. Saran says that his initiative failed because of Pakistan’s disagreement over the deal. (Maybe, some powerful person was pressurising Rajiv Gandhi.)
(However, according to a Wikileaks report in 2017, the agreement almost finalised by Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi could not be sealed due to opposition by the Indian army.)
The second attempt – to withdraw forces from the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) – was made in 1992 when the P.V. Narasimha Rao government was Prime Minister. However, the decision was deferred.
Before looking into the third attempt, it would be relevant to look into the attempts to create an environment in favour of demilitarisation.
On June 13, 2005, addressing the soldiers at the Siachen base camp, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that living in Siachen, the highest battlefield was very difficult. He added that ” Now the time has come that we make efforts that this is converted from a point of conflict to the symbol of peace.”
In 2007, a paper titled “Demilitarisation of the Siachen Conflict Zone: An Idea Whose Time Has Come”, written by a strategic analyst, Brigadier (Retired) Gurmeet Kanwal of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (available on internethttps://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep09054), prepared a case for demilitarisation of Siachen. He argued that “To justify a prolonged conflict, a piece of land must provide significant military advantage and open up options for seeking major military gains. Siachen does not qualify as an of strategic importance on any of these grounds though it has now become a politically sensitive issue.”
The strategist gave a very naïve suggestion that “After demilitarisation is successfully completed, the Siachen DMZ can be declared a ‘science park'” as if our neighbours are very gentle persons who would visit the science park for pleasure and knowledge!
Surprisingly, a retired brigadier was considered a strategist should underestimate the importance of natural defence.
Before as well as after him, suggestions were made to demilitarise or financial consideration. It was argued that the Indian Army was unnecessarily spending more than ₹ 3000 cr. every year to maintain a hold over the Glacier where hundreds of soldiers died due to extreme cold weather.
The Army’s stand has been (except, as discussed below, when an Army Chief had temporarily become soft) that what it had captured the force cannot be allowed to be handed over to Pakistan. After 2003, there has been very little casualty due to hostile weather. The Indian soldiers are well protected.
As Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran was directly involved in the third attempt. On the order of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he prepared a proposal with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Mohammad Khan to take back Indian troops and give away Siachen Glacier to Pakistan. Singh had also asked him to obtain a consensus of all stakeholders for which he held series of meeting with officers and ministers of defence, home, and finance ministries, and also Army Chief JJ Singh and all chiefs of the Intelligence Agencies. He writes that the Army gave its consent.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the Cabinet Committee on Security met to consider the proposal. Perhaps, what happened in the meeting was beyond the anticipation of the FS.
The then National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan strongly opposed it. His reasons were: (a)India’s military position in the northern sector vis-à-vis both Pakistan and China would be compromised, (b) Pakistan could not be trusted, and (c) there would be political and public opposition to any such action.
General J. K. Singh who had happily agreed to the proposal before, had now decided to join Narayanan. He agreed that the Siachen deal was not safe and would put India in grave danger.
Initially, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, however, stayed quiet. However, when the NSA suggested that the issue of Siachen should be taken off the agenda in the India-Pakistan talks on the border issue, Mukherjee supported the militarisation on the ground that as Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had acted to include Siachen in the Indo-Pakistan dialogue.
Shyam Saran who had authored the proposal along with his Pakistani counterpart supported the proposal.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh kept quiet throughout the meeting.
The CCS could not approve the proposal.
(The common knowledge is that India and Pakistan had major differences. While India wanted Pakistan to authenticate the 110 km actual ground position line (AGPL) along the Siachen-Saltoro ridge, Pakistan insisted on reverting to the pre-1984 position. How Saran and his Pakistani counterpart prepared agreed proposal is not known.)
Shyam Saran has covered the attempts only up to 2006.
The attempt was revived in 2012. On April 30, Defence Minister A. K. Antony told the Lok Sabha that the Government was “holding meaningful dialogue with Pakistan to demilitarise the Siachen Glacier.” According to a write updated May 05, 2012, in India Today “Siachen demilitarisation: Could PM gift away to Pakistan what Army has won?”(available on the internet:https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20120514-siachen-glacier-demilitarisation-indian-army-pakistan-758307-2012-05-05), after that statement, the then Army General V. K. Singh pressed the panic button. ”officers of the military operations directorate in Army Headquarters had prepared a presentation t to brief the National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the strategic disadvantages of demilitarising Siachen.”.
More sensational disclosures were made by Wikileaks.
May 18, 2006
‘We cannot rule out the possibility of a surprise deal emerging, except to note that if it does, it will probably come not from the negotiating teams themselves but from the senior-most political levels, Were any deal to crystallize, PM Singh would need buy-in from the Army and the BJP to avoid handing himself a political firestorm. (Reference was to the deal considered in May 2005)’
‘Fortunately for the PM, Congress’ coalition partners are unlikely to obstruct a Siachen deal. The most vocal and difficult to manage UPA partner, the Left parties, generally favor policies that promote Indo-Pak rapprochement and cutting the defense budget; demilitarizing Siachen would likely advance both these goals. … ‘
In a release dated September 9, 2013, Wikileaks stated:
In November 2006, the American view was that “India has repeatedly come `very close’ to an agreement on the Siachen issue in 1989, and again (less so) in 1993…The Indian army is resistant to giving up this territory under any condition for a variety of reasons – a strategic advantage over China, internal army corruption, distrust of Pakistan, and a desire to keep hold of advantageous territory that thousands of Indian soldiers have died protecting.”
NSA MK Narayanan told American officials in May 2005 that “the PM had instructed all his subordinates that `we need to accept Musharraf’s bona fides, even on Siachen’.
According to the US confidential diplomatic cables released recently, the Indian Army was held responsible for the ongoing deadlock with Pakistan over the Siachen dispute.
In 2006, the US Embassy in New Delhi sent a cable that “PM Singh would need buy-in from the Army and the TDP to avoid handing himself a political firestorm.” The cable sent by the embassy added that “India would not make a deal on demilitarisation without Pakistan signing a map laying out Indian andPakistani troop positions before the withdrawal. The primary purpose of this would be to justify action if Pakistan reneged (went back) on the withdrawal.”
In September 2008, the US embassy in New Delhi informed (the US administration) that the Indian Army’s stand was that withdrawal from Siachen was tantamount to ceding the area to Pakistan due to the difficulty of retaking it should Pakistan occupied it.”
In 2017, the Wikileaks had revealed a sensational document that showed how the UPA government under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had decided to give away Siachen Glacier to Pakistan.
Conclusion
Manmohan Singh being just a puppet of Sonia Gandhi, who owed the high office of Prime Minister to her and held for 10 years due to her continued pleasure, could not have taken such a crucial decision on his own. He must have acted on the order of his boss Sonia Gandhi. There are reasons to believe that Rajiv Gandhi also acted under Sonia Gandhi’s pressure. I cannot say who pressurised or influenced Narasimha Rao.
With the change in the government in 2014, Sonia Gandhi’s desire to present strategically crucial Siachen Glacier to Pakistan on a silver platter remained unfulfilled. I wonder if the politicians have received a strong message that when the political leadership acts against national security, the armed forces would not keep quiet. Had the armed forces (and NSA in 2006) not taken a firm stand, India would have lost the strategically crucial Siachen Glacier to Pakistan.
Any suggestion that Siachen Glacier should be demilitarised or given to Pakistan because it was very costly to maintain it, was suicidal. A nation’s security, a nation’s honour, armed forces’ honour cannot be subjected to cost-benefit analysis.
The bottom line is that the Congress party that was once in the forefront of the freedom movement has declined so much under Sonia Gandhi that what is in the interest of the Congress (read, Gandhi-Vadra family) is not in the interest of the country and what is in the interest of the country is not in the interest of the Congress
MOU, a symbol of Sino-Sonia synergy, being signed on August 07, 2008
In the previous article “Why did Gandhi family and Chinese Communists sign an MOU?” (https://www.devendranarain.com/why-did-gandhi-f…ists-sign-an-mou/ ), I analysed the reasons what made the Gandhi family and Chinese Communists sign an MOU. Though the details of the MOU are not in the the public domain, the sequence of events shows that for the Gandhi-Vadra family headed by Sonia Gandhi nee Sonia Maino, their personal interest is above the interest of Indians.
In fact, a careful look at the developments during and after the UPA rule should not leave anyone in doubt that their friendship ( “Sino-Sonia synergy”), symbolised by the MOU, is a serious threat to India’s security. During the ten years of the UPA rule, India’s ‘de facto Prime Minister’, Sonia Maino, acted like China’s good friend, keeping India’s interest subordinate to China’s interest. During the current tension between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), she and her children are repeatedly giving the message that ‘enemy’s enemy is friend’. Whether in or out of power, she has missed no opportunity to prove that ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed.’
Proofs of threat to India’s security by the Sino-Sonia synergy during the UPA rule
There are several examples of how the de facto Prime Minister helped China during 10 years of her rule, albeit through her puppet Prime Minister
(1) Refusal to give permission to activate strategic airstrip in Ladakh
Recently, retired air marshal Pranab Kumar Barbora, the Commander-In-Chief of the Western Air Command in 2008, has made a shocking, revelation about the apathy, rather firm opposition, of the UPA government to strengthen India’s defence despite the constant threat of Chine incursions.
During the Chinese aggression in 1962, an airstrip, known as Ladakh’s Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO), was built at an altitude of nearly 17,000 feet, one of the world’s highest advanced airstrips, in Ladakh. It was not used after 1965. It had suffered some damage in an earthquake in 1966.
Just 9 km northwest of the Aksai Chin LAC, this airstrip is strategically very important. During the UPA rule, several times the Airforce requested the government for permission to reactivate it to provide logistical support for troops stationed in the difficult terrain and to stonewall Chinese incursion. Every time the reply was a firm “NO” though no reason was given.
Air Marshal Barbora decided to act without government permission. In a closely guarded secret operation, in May 2008, he himself flew an an-32 aircraft to this strategic airstrip. Even Defence Minister A. K. Antony was not taken into confidence, He was informed only after law Air Marshal had done what he wanted to do.
Air Marshal Barbora told a news agency that when the government asked him ‘why did you do it? We said it is the Air Force’s responsibility to maintain troops’ logistics support and it falls within our jurisdiction, within Indian territory.’
Five years later, in August 2013, a Super Hercules transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force was flown to the airstrip to prove its usefulness. It is now playing a critical role in the face-off with China. The Indian Army maintains helipads and a gravel airstrip and Air Force also carries routine sorties to provide relief and supplies to the troops stationed nearby. (Sources: OpIndia Staffhttps://www.opindia.comand WION New Delhi Jun 09, 2020)
(2) Delay in the construction of border roads
One of the reasons for the poor show by the Indian Army in Ladakh in 1962 was that there was no motorable road. The ill-equipped soldiers had to walk for a week to reach the border.
Way back, in 1999 when Atal Behari Vajpayee was Prime Minister, the government decided to construct 73 “strategic roads” ( 3,812 km in length) by 2012. The UPA government delayed the construction of roads along the entire border and the LAC. By March 2016, only 22 roads were completed. The common excuse given for the delay was ‘delay in getting environmental clearances. Note that for almost half of the period UPA, I and II, ruled, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in charge of the Environment Ministry. The independent ministers in charge of the Environment Ministry were also known for delays in giving clearances. Delay in land acquisitions, difficulties in availability of construction material, shortage of manpower, and damage due to natural disasters such as flash flood were other regions cited.
The main reason was the Chinese objection to the construction of border roads. The Chinese did not want development of infrastructure that would facilitate fast movement of armed forces and supplies to the border areas. This was confirmed recently when the Chinese objected to the construction of roads and bridges leading to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the Indian side. The Modi government completely ignored Chinese objections. But the Sonia government did not want to displease the Chinese. During last few months, the Border Roads Organisation of India has constructed roads and bridges with load-bearing capacity of 70 tons.
During the UPA rule, even border roads were not free of scams. The construction of 255 km long Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road, connecting Leh to Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), started in 2000 and was scheduled to be completed by 2012 at an estimated cost of ₹ 320 cr. “An inquiry conducted by the Chief Technical Examiner (CTE), on the instructions of the CVC, discovered in 2011 that the road had been laid on flat terrain and not on the mountains as per the approved plan, as reported in an Indian Express report. The construction of the road in such a manner meant that it got damaged every summer due to the flooding of the Shyok River caused by melting snow.” He alleged that about Rs. 120 cr. had been misappropriated from the project. Moreover, ‘much of the road would have to be realigned and reconstructed.’
(3) Keeping armed forces weak
Despite threats from China, the UPA government did not take any action to strengthen our Armed Forces. The government ignored the repeated requests of the Air Force to acquire new fighter planes. India had not acquired a new fighter plane for decades. The negotiation for the acquisition of Rafale fighters had become an endless.
After defeating Sonia Maino in 2014 Narendra Modi is acting fast to make India strong.
In May 2014, a politician (by virtue of marriage) for whom personal and family interest was above the national interest was replaced by a person without family and personal interest, whose only interest is to make India diplomatically, economically, and militarily strong. He acted fast.
Within less than two months of taking over in 2014, Prime Minister Modi took several measures to expedite the construction of border roads. The government to scrap the need for approval for every project and gave a “general approval” for building a road network of border roads including outposts, floodlights, and fencing, by the Border Roads Organisation. modern construction equipment, men and material – to expedite completion of DSBDO. The building of roads and other infrastructure facilities up to the LAC at a fast speed – at Galwan, India completed a road leading to an airfield in October despite Chinese objections – is believed to be the main reason for the current misadventure by the Chinese. 32 more border roads are also on the fast track. Modern construction equipment, men, and material are airlifted to expedite completion of border roads. (Source: OpIndia andhttps://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-china-ladakh-face-off-result-of-infrastructure-building-not-weakness/ )
To make the speed of road construction faster, recently the Central government transferred the power of giving environmental clearances for the border roads to the defence Ministry.
During last few months, the Border Roads Organisation of India has constructed roads and bridges with load-bearing capacity of 70 tons. Heavy army and civilian vehicles as well as tanks can now move very fast to the LAC near Galwan Valley, the site of physical fight between the Chinese and Indian soldiers in mid June 2020.
Modi acted equally fast to strengthen the armed forces. The government renegotiated to get Rafale fighters at lesser cost and faster. To give a complete account of all the measures taken since 2014 to strengthen the armed forces will require a separate detailed article. Suffice it to say here that today our Armed Forces are well-equipped to meet any threat from China anywhere along 3400 km border. The Armed Forces have been given autonomy to buy arms and ammunition up to ₹ 500 cr. without seeking government approval. There have also been given full freedom to deal with the Chinese at the LAC. Our allies – USA, Russia, France and Israel – are extending all help to make India militarily strong. The first set of Rafale jets is expected by July end. USA and Russia have committed early delivery of arms and ammunition. Israel is supplying an in-service air defence system. India is going to acquire more fighter planes.
Gandhi-Vadra family continues to help the Chinese friends
The frustration of the Gandhi-Vadra family is quite natural. Sonia Gandhi’s plans to delay the construction of border roads and to keep India armed force weak. The family adopted new strategies to help the Chinese friends.
(1) Maintenance of the line of communication with the Chinese. Whenever occasion permitted, Rahul Gandhi met the Chinese leaders to reassure them of support.
In 2017, during the military stand-off with China at Doklam, Rahul Gandhi was highly critical of the Modi government for not taking action against the Chinese. In the midst of that crisis, he called on the Chinese Ambassador. No one knows what they discussed. When the news leaked out, as expected, the Congress party described it as ‘fake’. The party had to eat humble pie when a post on the website of the Chinese embassy confirmed the news of the meeting. Later, the post was deleted.
In September 2018, during Rahul Gandhi’s trip to Kailash Mansarovar, a couple of Chinese ministers had met him. Initially, the Congress kept it secret but later Rahul himself, albeit accidentally, revealed that he had met them. Why should Chinese ministers come all the way near Kailash Mansarovar unless some important notes were to be exchanged?
(2) Attempt to sabotage acquisition of Rafale aircrafts
They tried to do so by painting Narendra Modi as corrupt. As the negotiation progressed, Rahul Gandhi’s frustration became too obvious. During the election campaign in 2019, he became desperate. He coined the slogan “Chowkidar chor hai” (‘The guard is a thief’) and chanted it like a mantra every day several times. Reference was to his allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal. Fortunately, barring diehard Modi haters, no one believed him. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, the BJP won more seats in 2019 than in 2014, winning 303 seats as against 282 in 2014. (https://www.devendranarain.com/on-rafale-deal-rahul-gandhi-played-a-dangerous-anti-national-game/)
(3) Insult to armed forces before the current crisis at the LAC.
Here are concrete examples before and after the current tension and the LAC’s
The Congress refused to accept the claim of the Indian Air Force that on 29 September 2016, it conducted “surgical strikes” against militant launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and demanded proof.
When in the early hours of February 26, 2019, the Indian Air Force conducted Balakot airstrike and dropped bombs in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan to destroy terrorist camps, the Congress again asked for proof
On December 30, 2009, Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit openly abused the then Army Chief General Bipin Rawat by calling him a ‘sadak ka gunda‘ (a road-side goon). Though he apologised after public outcry, the party did not take any action against him. I do not think the son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit who was very close to Sonia Gandhi would have used such an abusive language for the Army Chief unless he was sure of no action by the party.
(4) Insult to the Armed Forces during the current crisis.
While the Chinese army is creating problems at the LAC, the Sonia-Vadra family is extending support to the Chines by attacking the Modi government on a daily basis. While all other opposition parties, barring the communists, are pledging support to the government, the family is showing its loyalty to the family friend Xi Jinping. There are numerous examples of this.
They do not want any Congressman to be critical of China. In May, the leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had tweeted against China for aggression along the LAC, warned China while pressing the Indian forces. The show of anger was short- lived. Under pressure from above, Chowdhury deleted the tweet.
As if to say ‘our apology for Chowdhury’s unfriendly act’, Congress leader Anand Sharma tweeted that “The views of Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in China are his own and do not reflect the party position;” He further tweeted that “The Indian National Congress recognises and values the special strategic partnership between India and China. As two ancient civilisations and large economies of the world, both countries are destined to make a significant contribution in the 21st Century.” No other proof is needed to show where the loyalty of the Congress party controlled by Gandhi-Vadra family lies.
On June 22, a week after physical clash between Indian and Chinese armies in which 20 Indian soldiers had become the martyrs and (according to the American sources) 43 Chinese soldiers were killed, Prime Minister Modi held a meeting 20 political parties. He apprised them of the seriousness of the problem, briefed them about the state of preparedness and status at the LAC. He told them that there was no intrusion on the Indian territory along the LAC and no post of Indian Army had been captured by the Chinese. All opposition parties, except Congress, maintained the tradition of solidly supporting the government’s diplomatic, strategic and military.
Sonia Gandhi did not believe Prime Minister’s claim that there was ‘no Chinese intrusion into Indian soil’ and wanted to know the date on which the Chinese troops intruded into Indian territory, the date on which the intrusion was discovered, the sequence of events, whether the intelligence agencies had discovered unusual activities, whether there was a failure of the military intelligence and whether the government was regularly receiving satellite pictures of the area. One wonders, why Sonia Gandhi needs all these military details, especially about the role of the military intelligence. Does she want the information to be shared with the Chinese friends?
Almost every day Rahul Gandhi is asking Prime Minister Modi to speak up and tell the truth to the country on whether China has occupied any Indian territory.
As part of their campaign, “Speak up for our jawans” campaign, as part of the campaign, on June 26 all the three top leaders of Congress i.e. three members of the family, Sonia, son Rahul, and daughter Priyanka, issued three separate statements to give the message that the Chinese troops have occupied Indian territory.
In a video message Sonia said, the prime minister claims that China did not infiltrate India’s land, but on the other hand, the Defence Ministry and the Ministry of External Affairs keep discussing it.
Rahul said, “A few days ago, the prime minister said – no one has taken even an inch of Indian land [and that] no one is inside Indian territory – but we are hearing, satellite photos have shown, people in Ladakh are saying and retired generals are saying that China has snatched our land. Not in one place but three.”
Not to be left behind, in her statement virtually mocked the PM. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked, “What happened during the discussions that PM Modi had held with the Chinese that they were so emboldened to take over our territories?”
The allegation that the Chinese have occupied Indian territory is based on a misinterpretation of satellite imagery section of media (Indian as well as foreign) that the new Chinese structures have come up at the site of the violent clash in the Galwan Valley. However, an Indian news channel India TV has given the just opposite information based on the same satellite images. On June 25, India TV’s Rajat Sharma, while showing the images on the TV screen pointed out that a fake news was circulating in the media that the structures visible in satellite image were made by the Chines on the Indian side of the LAC, ‘whereas the truth is that those are Indian structures on the Indian side’.
The family is not bothered either about the truth or about the implications of their statements and tweets. When Rahul Gandhi says that ‘Narendra Modi has surrendered to China’, he does not realise that he is saying that the Indian armed forces have surrendered to the Chinese armed forces. This is not only contrary to the truth but also an insult to the brave Indian soldiers.
In his 66th “Man Ki Baat” radio talk, Prime Minister gave a clear message to the Chinese Communists and their Indian friends. He said: “India knows how to maintain friendship but also look our enemy in the eye and retaliate if the need arises. Our brave soldiers have proved that they will not let any harm come on their motherland. The world has seen India’s commitment to protecting its borders & sovereignty. In Ladakh, a befitting reply has been given to those coveting our territories.”
What Rahul Gandhi keeps on describing as the Indian territory that the Chinese had occupied is really the “No Man’s Land” which is patrolled by both sides. He knows the truth but believes in the Fascist Germany’s propaganda minister Goebbels’ theory that a lie repeated several times starts sounding like truth. What Rahul Gandhi does not want people to remember that during the last four years of the UPA rule, the Chinese army had entered Indian territory 1278 times: 228 times in 2010, 213 times in 2011, 426 times in 2012 and 411 times in 2013. Those inclusions did not disturb Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh perhaps because the intruders were friends of Gandhi-Vadra family.
(5) Chinese donations to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF)
The RGF headed by Sonia Gandhi is a private trust. Actually, it should be called a family trust established to collect money from all sources. As Finance Minister and then as Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh was very generous to the foundation. The Chinese also gave a few crores of rupees. They know that the foundation has no thoughts of money. The amount they gave is not much but gifts from time to time keep the friendship warm. If money has been given through any other channel, there is no information in the public domain.
Conclusion
The Gandhi-Vadra family must be feeling disturbed that India’s military capabilities and state of preparedness to thwart any Chinese intrusion anywhere along the 3,488 km Line of Actual Control (LAC) were never so high in the past. Army and air force are alert 24/7. Our specialised high-altitude warfare forces are far superior to their Chinese counterpart. Despite grave provocations, Chinese engineers constructed a 66-metre bridge over the River Galwan in freezing temperatures in less than 72 hours.
The propaganda the Global Times is doing for China from Beijing, the Gandhi-Vadra family is doing from Delhi. Both are claiming that the Chinese forces are in stronger position.
Members of Gandhi-Vadra family are letting out their frustration by chanting “Modi has surrendered to China”, reminiscent of their chanting “Chowkidar Chor hai’ during the 2019 election campaign. They failed in 2019. They will fail now and in the future.
The bottom line is that the Indian National Congress that was once in the forefront of the freedom movement has declined so much under Sonia Gandhi that what is in the interest of the Congress (read, Gandhi-Vadra family) is not in the interest of the country and what is in the interest of the country is not in the interest of the Congress.