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Opposition’s Bid To Use China Card Against PM Modi Riles Even Apolitical Jaishankar

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India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar is not given to wasting his time and energy on domestic politics.

But the attempts by the Opposition, particularly the Congress, to use the December 9 incident on the India-China Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh to show Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a poorer light has undoubtedly even riled him.

Jaishankar has delivered, perhaps, the best rebuff to Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders who are desperate to show that the government is compromised on China.

“If we were in denial, why is the Army out there? They didn’t go there because Rahul Gandhi asked them to go. The Army went there because the Prime Minister ordered them,” said Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar on Monday at India Today’s Indo-Japan Conclave 2022.

Trashing Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the “government is sleeping” when China is readying for war, Jaishankar said India has done the biggest-ever LAC deployment to counter Chinese deployments, which were scaled up since July 2020 when the Galwan Valley clashes took place.

“The Army is deployed to counter any attempt to unilaterally alter the LAC, that is the commitment of the Indian Army. If we were in denial, then the Army won’t be deployed there,” he said.

Jaishankar’s strongest statements came as the ruckus over the issue in Parliament entered the second straight week.

The Opposition has seized upon the Tawang episode as if it was the only issue to corner Modi, knowing fully well that neither the government nor the BJP can go on an overdrive in political rhetoric on China without consequences.

That is why Jaishankar, who avoids responding to polemics on serious issues like foreign policy, decided to counter Rahul Gandhi and his team. They have been at it since the Galwan Valley incident of 2020, in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed and many Chinese too met a fatal end.

Defending India’s stance of deploying an increased number of soldiers at the border, Jaishankar told Parliament on Monday that the nation would not allow any country to change the status quo of LAC unilaterally. In the Lok Sabha, Jaishankar even reacted to Rahul Gandhi’s remark that Indian soldiers had been “thrashed” by the Chinese, saying that the word ‘pitai’ should not be used for jawans.

“We have no problem with political criticism but we should not disrespect our jawans. I have heard that my own understanding needs to be deepened. When I see who is giving the advice I can only bow and respect,” Jaishankar said in his dig.

Refuting the insinuations of Rahul Gandhi, Jaishankar asked, “If we were indifferent to China, then who sent the Indian Army to the border. If we were indifferent to China, then why are we pressurising China for de-escalation and disengagement today? Why are we saying publicly that our relations are not normal?”

A day ago, the Congress hit a new low by attempting to link the BJP’s “silence” on the issue of Chinese incursions in India with the son of the external affairs minister. At a press conference in Rajasthan, on the sidelines of the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, Pawan Khera, chairman of the Congress’s media department, claimed that the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), where Jaishankar’s son Dhruva Jaishankar works, has received funding from the Chinese Embassy in India.

“It is important to reveal a piece of information today. The foundation, whose unit in the USA is headed by the son of the Foreign Minister, has received funding from the Chinese Embassy, not once, not twice, but three times. This has happened recently. Why was this funding received? What is the reason? What is the reason for which the government of India repeatedly maintains silence over China?” alleged Khera.

Khera’s accusations were seen more as a belated response to Union Home Minister Amit Shah who had hit back at the Congress last week for disrupting Parliament, raising the issue of Chinese donations to Congress-run Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF). Shah had said the RGF received Rs 1.35 crore from the Chinese embassy and its registration was cancelled because it fell foul of the rules of the Foreign Contribution (Regulations) Act (FCRA) rules. Last October, the Union government cancelled the licence of RGF under FCRA.

Previously, the BJP has attacked the Congress over links with the Communist Party of China (CPC), alleging favours to China during the Congress-led UPA government during 2004-14. The Congress has been unable to explain the 2008 agreement with the CPC “to promote regular exchanges between the two ruling parties.”

The agreement was signed by Rahul Gandhi, then the Congress general secretary, and Wang Jia Rui, Minister of the International Department of the CPC. Sonia Gandhi and Xi Jinping, who later became Chinese president, were present during the signing.

Apparently, the signing ceremony was preceded by a 30-minute meeting between Rahul Gandhi and Xi.

In January 2021, the BJP connected the MoU with the rise in India-China trade that favours China. BJP IT department chief Amit Malviya had said, “After Rahul Gandhi signed an MoU and RGF received donations from China, India’s trade deficit with China, during UPA-1, increased more than 17x, and 88 per cent under UPA-2. Under the UPA, the overall trade deficit with China increased 33x, i.e from $1.1 Bn in 2003-04 to $36.2 Bn in 2013-14.”

So, two days ago, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh threw seven questions to the PM. As the BJP demanded Rahul Gandhi’s expulsion from the party for his statement that Indian soldiers were beaten up by the Chinese side in Arunachal Pradesh, Ramesh said it is the political duty and moral responsibility of the Prime Minister to give his ‘Mann ki baat’ to China.

However, the government is firm on countering the opposition that is looking to issues like tension with China on the border to puncture Modi’s image as a strong leader.

So far, the Chinese troops’ attempts to transgress the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh’s Yangtse sector on December 9 seem like a godsend for the Congress.

Interestingly, the opposition leaders know very well that, as in the case of the Galwan Valley push, the government cannot go public with all details of the military stand-off— lest the other side mistakes it for fresh belligerence.

The government can organise a special briefing for all opposition leaders and Members of Parliament on the episode. It had done so after the Galwan incident. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had also spoken to the opposition leaders then.
However, the opposition does not want to know the details. Rather, they want an opportunity in Parliament to corner Modi. With Modi’s bid to make the G-20 summit in India in 2023 a big success, the opposition feels it must deny the BJP any political advantage in its narrative ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The December 9 episode is not the first face-off in the sector. In October 2021 too, Indian and Chinese soldiers were involved in a tense face-off in the Yangtse area. The Indian Army and PLA have been locked in a standoff along LAC in eastern Ladakh since May 2020. That standoff is in its third year.

True, a full resolution is still not in sight even though the two sides have had partial success in disengaging frontline soldiers from some friction areas on LAC and talks are on to end the deadlock.

(The author is a senior journalist and a well-known political commentator)

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