Why Modi was wrong to call Kanpur train tragedy a conspiracy from Pakistan in a rally
Narendra Modi, the prime minister, has damaged the foreign policy fabric and hurt India's diplomatic interests and objectives vis-a-vis Pakistan during his ongoing election campaign in Uttar Pradesh as Narendra Modi the politician. How? Read on.
Forget the polemics about India-Pakistan relations and what trajectory they are going to take in the coming months.
Forget the theorisations about the much-awaited and perhaps long overdue India-Pakistan bonhomie.
Forget the age-old cyclical pattern of India-Pakistan bilateral relations which invariably witness a cardinal law of physics: whatever goes up, comes down, thereby implying that the current trend of frosty ties with Pakistan is going to be reversed, no matter howsoever temporarily or fleetingly.
Modi the prime minister is working at cross purposes with Modi the politician. This rings out to be the alarming picture when Modi is adjudged in the context of foreign policy - and even more so in India's Pakistan policy.
The problem with Modi is that he has always been in campaign mode during his prime ministerial tenure of 33 months - a personality trait exhibited by none other than US president Donald Trump. Even into the second month of his office, Trump continues to be on campaign mode, demonstrated by the tone and tenor of his public speeches.
Modi can derive huge quantum of solace from the fact that the most powerful leader of the world has been aping his tactics even after he won the presidential election, by copying Modi's ways to the hilt as presidential candidate.
The only current parallel of the Modi brand of politics in vogue internationally is Trump's America and Modi can pat himself on the back that he has been driving Trump's politics, consciously or unconsciously.
Modi's flawed approach came to the fore a couple of days ago when he terribly mixed up foreign policy with domestic politics. He said at an election rally in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, that the recent Kanpur railway accident was a terror attack choreographed from across the border - an obvious reference to Pakistan.
Well, there is nothing wrong in stating facts and if the available evidence points the needle of suspicion towards Pakistan, so be it. It doesn't behove a PM to blame a neighbouring country for a terror attack at an election rally and when the Indian government is yet to share evidence of such a thing before courts and the relevant court is yet to take a call on the matter.
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| Not only PM Modi can be seen here as influencing the judiciary by his remark at an election rally, he can also be held guilty for jumping the gun and making snide remarks about a neighbouring country that could have been best avoided. Photo: India Today |
Not only PM Modi can be seen here as influencing the judiciary by his remark at an election rally, he can also be held guilty for jumping the gun and making snide remarks about a neighbouring country that could have been best avoided.
In one stroke, PM Modi has pronounced his own verdict which poses a huge problem before the appropriate court. It puts the relevant court in a quandary and seeks to influence the mind of the judge.
In case the relevant court dismisses the foreign conspiracy angle and the alleged involvement of Pakistan in the Kanpur rail accident - the second biggest terror attack in India in recent times since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in terms of lives lost, considering that 150 people perished in the Kanpur accident - the Modi government will turn itself into a laughing stock.
Most importantly, Modi's comments on the Kanpur accident at the Gonda rally came close on the heels of a carefully-crafted positive statement from Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif, wherein he extolled the virtues of the India-Pakistan peace process and stressed the need for eschewing conspiracy theories that derail this process.
PM Modi should have been more responsible and temperate in his remarks and ought to have known that his government would inevitably be under pressure from the International community to have at least a semblance of resumption of talks with Pakistan, once the Assembly election process is done and dusted with on March 11.
Modi is likely to meet Trump in May in Germany on the sidelines of an international event. After having taken a maximalist position vis-a-vis Pakistan at an election rally, he has done more harm than good to his government's foreign policy, particularly India's Pakistan policy.
It doesn't happen quite often in India that Pakistan is dragged into domestic politics. Even more importantly, it doesn't happen very often in India when the prime minister plays the Pakistan card during Assembly elections.
Quite understandably, PM Modi made his Pakistan-specific remarks at the Gonda rally with the immediate political objective of polarising voters.
But by making such intemperate and avoidable remarks, PM Modi has erroneously made Pakistan an election issue in India, not very different from how the Trump administration has dragged many foreign countries in domestic politics.
While foreign policy can never be divorced from domestic politics anywhere in the world, PM Modi needs to be more temperate and diplomatically correct in bringing foreign countries into his electoral gambit.
This is a dangerous and flawed tactic. The sooner this tactic is discarded, the better it will be for Indian diplomacy.