Operation Sindoor and Parliament
The lengthy debate on Operation Sindoor in both houses of Parliament concludes that American President Donald Trump is not being truthful. Trump has claimed 29 times that his mediation halted the war between India and Pakistan. It is widely known that a military conflict occurred between the two nations from May 7 to May 10. The war was ongoing when Trump tweeted on the evening of May 10 that India and Pakistan had agreed to cease hostilities. However, soon after, India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri held a press conference announcing the ceasefire, stating that Pakistan's top military officer (DGMO) had requested it from his Indian counterpart. Nonetheless, it is also accurate that Trump announced the ceasefire before India did. The issue of ceasefire was the most serious in the debate that lasted for 16 hours in the Lok Sabha and 9 hours in the Rajya Sabha. Therefore, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi cleared the fog in his statement in Lok Sabha and declared that ceasefire was not due to the intervention of any world leader, rather India has accepted Pakistan's request.
Opposition leader Shri Rahul Gandhi had cornered the Modi government on this issue in his statement in Lok Sabha and said that this war was not fought by Pakistan alone, but China also fought by keeping a gun on Pakistan's shoulder. Being an opposition MP in diplomacy, Rahul Gandhi can make such a statement but no responsible minister sitting in the government can support it because the government is the protector of the country's security and its sovereignty. Keeping this in mind, any government presents its measured stand in bilateral matters. It is clear that when Pakistan infiltrates terrorists from its side into India, then the government had launched Operation Sindoor against the terrorists and their masters in its name.
In democracy, the opposition has the freedom to ask the harshest questions to the government and make every effort to expose the government. If we look at the recent political history, we will find that when the Bharatiya Janata Party itself was in the opposition, it used various tactics to corner the Congress governments. In 1971, when the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi signed a 20-year military treaty with the Soviet Union, its copies were burnt in a public meeting held at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan under the leadership of BJP (Jan Sangh) leader Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The same was done with the Shimla Agreement signed with Pakistan in 1972, but when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Prime Minister of the country in 1998 and 1999 till 2004, he admitted in the Lok Sabha itself that you have a lot of freedom while being in the opposition, but when you come to power, you have to bear the responsibility of the entire country. This statement of Shri Vajpayee made it clear that opposition parties have to do a lot to pursue their politics. The level of debate on Operation Sindoor can be said to be decent. But it would not be wrong to say that the government did not answer the question that how many fighter planes of India fell during this operation. This question is directly related to the morale of our forces and is a part of the army's strategy.
The question is whether we were successful in Operation Sindoor? The answer is that we have won 100% because within just four days we destroyed 11 air bases of Pakistan and razed nine terrorist hideouts to the ground. When the Prime Minister said in the Lok Sabha that Pakistan had attacked with a thousand drones and missiles and the Indian forces had destroyed all of them in the air and targeted 11 air bases of Pakistan, thereby rendering the security system of Pakistan Air Force useless, every Indian felt proud. Therefore, the opposition's insistence on knowing the number of fighter planes killed is against national interests. In this debate, the issue of the Indus River Water Treaty signed with Pakistan in 1960 also came up. Prime Minister Modi also cleared the fog on this and said that India has cancelled this treaty because it is against national interests. There is a provision to give 80 percent of the water of three rivers to Pakistan. The facts presented by Shri Modi while revealing this in the Parliament can surprise any citizen of the country. But now it is the 21st century and due to terrorism, there has been a qualitative change in the relations between India and Pakistan and the global scenario has also changed completely. We have to keep our national security safe in the light of the changed international circumstances, otherwise how can a stubborn and illegitimate country like Pakistan make us a victim of terrorism. A democratic nation like India will have to decide its path keeping in mind all the international circumstances. We will have to take steps on this front that will give far-reaching results while protecting the national interests. As far as the issue of China and Pakistan's embrace is concerned, this work has not happened today, but is the result of the events going on between the two countries in the last 25 years, as Foreign Minister Shri S. Jaishankar told in the Rajya Sabha.