In a vibrant democracy, national security should be debated and some of its aspects even contested. Of course, security and safety of military personnel is a very valid issue for debate.
In the cut and thrust of an election, barbs are exchanged, and accusations made. Much of this is, of course, campaign rhetoric. Yet, even after accounting for what is par for the course during electioneering, the back-to-back statements by former Punjab chief minister and Congress Working Committee member Charanjit Singh Channi cross an important line. On Sunday, Channi all but called the attack by militants in Poonch — in which an Indian Air Force corporal was killed and four others injured — a false flag operation. “This is a stunt to make the BJP win, there is no truth in it. Getting people killed and playing politics over their bodies is what the BJP does,” he said. This even as his leader Rahul Gandhi called the attack “sad and shameful”. The BJP accused Channi of disrespecting military personnel’s sacrifice and demanded an apology from the Congress leadership. Rather than doing so, Channi doubled down a day later. While he expressed pride and admiration for soldiers, he also accused the BJP-led government of not doing enough to probe the 2019 Pulwama attacks — in which 40 soldiers were killed — for political reasons.
In a vibrant democracy, national security should be debated and some of its aspects even contested. Of course, security and safety of military personnel is a very valid issue for debate. What is not is to bring in the imperatives of electoral politics to a terrorist attack. Senior leaders of the ruling party and government have often alluded to military operations to score political points on the campaign trail. One popular refrain has been to underline how the government goes “inside enemy territory to strike” (ghar mein ghus ke maartein hain) or how a political party has been a “disciple” of Pakistan.
This conflation of military operations, national security, and muscular nationalism may be good politics but it’s certainly not good strategy. Mud flying thick and fast on the campaign trail doesn’t exactly lend itself to reasoned debate and discourse on national security. It also reduces the sacrifices of India’s armed forces a pawn in games of political one-upmanship. That’s why the Congress should get Channi to apologise to the families of the soliders — and accept that he crossed a line.
