Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 23: A couple of days before India will be observing the 13th anniversary of the gruesome terrorist attack in Mumbai killing over 160 people and injuring scores of others, a senior Congress leader has provided yet another ammunition to the rival BJP to beat the party with by slamming the then UPA government for inaction after the 26/11 attack.
Within weeks of the veteran Congressman Salman Khurshid helped the BJP by allegedly comparing the right wing “Hindutva” leaders with some terror groups in his book, Manish Tewari, a former minister in the second UPA government, in his book said India should have acted against Pakistan after the 26/11 prompting the BJP to attack the former Congress government to be the most “useless” unconcerned even about the national security.
The BJP after the Narendra Modi government launched a surgical strike over the Jaish-e-Mohammad training camps across the border in the Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to avenge the terror attack on a CRPF convoy at Pulwama killing 40 jawans, had been criticizing the Congress-led government for allowing the 26/11 attack go unanswered and Tewari’s book would only add fuel to the fire on the eve of the major Assembly elections within the next few months in five states including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab.
Tewari’s book – which says India should have acted against Pakistan after 26/11, when the party-led UPA was in power – has triggered a fresh row just days after controversy over comparisons between “Hindutva” and Islamist terror groups by Salman Khurshid in his book.
The ruling BJP – which ripped into the Congress on Khurshid’s book, has got another opportunity from Tewari’s book calling it a “confession of the failures of the Congress.”
“(With reference to) what Manish Tewariji said in his book, which we all have seen in the media, it would not be wrong to say that the facts that have come out. It would be appropriate to call it a confession of the failure of the Congress…” the BJP spokesman Gaurav Bhatia told reporters.
“The gist of this book is that restraint can be considered weakness… India should have taken strict action (after the 26/11 attacks)… Today it became clear the Congress government was insincere, useless… they were not even concerned about issues like national security,” he added. “Congress President Sonia Gandhiji, Rahul Gandhiji will you break your silence today? Sonia Gandhiji, our question is why India’s brave army was not given permission and free will at that time?” he said.
Tewari responded saying he was “rather amused” by the BJP’s reaction to one excerpt from a 304-page-book. “I am rather amused at BJP reaction to one excerpt from a 304 page book that tries to dissect responses to national security situations that impacted India. I wonder would they (the BJP) react similarly to some “hard analysis’ about their handling of the National Security Remit also?”
The row is over Tewari’s book – ’10 Flash Points; 20 Years – National Security Situations That Impacted India’. The section was shared by the ex-Union Minister who said the book “objectively delves into every salient national security challenge India has faced in the past two decades.”
“For a state that has no compunctions in brutally slaughtering hundreds of innocent people, restraint is not a sign of strength; it is perceived as a symbol of weakness. There comes a time when actions must speak louder than words. 26/11 was one such time when it just should have been done. It, therefore, is my considered opinion India should have actioned a kinetic response in the days following India’s 9/11,” Tewari wrote in the book.
Tewari is part of the G-23 (group of 23 Congress leaders) who have expressed concerns about senior leadership, including the Gandhi family. He was also critical of Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for describing the Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan as his “bada bhai (elder brother).
The BJP’s Amit Malviya mocking the Congress on Tewari’s book, posted, “After Salman Khurshid, another Congress leader throws UPA under the bus to sell his book. “Manish Tewari in his new book slams the UPA for weakness in the name of restrain post 26/11. Air Chief Marshal Fali Major is already on record saying IAF was ready to strike but UPA froze,” Malviya tweeted with a screenshot of a note with excerpts from the book’s publishers.
Ahead of multiple Assembly elections next year, including in the politically key state of Uttar Pradesh and in Punjab (which shares an extensive border with Pakistan), Malviya also slammed the Congress’ “muddle thinking on national security,” declaring “… (it) made India a weak state”.
With elections due next year (and one eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha election), the BJP has ratcheted up pressure on the Congress, fuelled initially by the controversial excerpt in Salman Khurshid’s book. Khursihid in his book on Ayodhya, had compared “Hindutva” with the Islamist terror groups like ISIS drawing howls of protests from the BJP. Several Congress leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, also a member of the G-23 like Tewari, had also questioned Khurshid’s conclusion calling the comparison illogical. Khurshid, whose Nainital home was vandalized and burnt, later defended his comparison, “I have not called these guys terrorists. I have just said they are similar in distorting religion.”
As many as 166 people were killed in the Mumbai terror attacks carried out by 10 Pakistani terrorists at different places in Mumbai. The attacks began on November 26, 2008, and went on till November 29. Nine terrorists were killed and the lone surviving attacker – Ajmal Kasab – was arrested and executed November 11, 2012. The gruesome attack took place as the Congress-led UPA was in power at the centre. Between 2012 and 2014 Tewari was I&B Minister in the second UPA government.
