The newly released Congress manifesto has come under fire for its seeming pusillanimity on issues of national security. Finance minister Arun Jaitley called the manifesto “positively dangerous”, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was a “document of Pakistan’s conspiracies”.
An NGO’s dream come true (and if rumours are to be believed, drafted by the same NGO-types), the Congress manifesto promises amendments to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA, and the Code of Criminal Procedure so that bail becomes the default mode for crimes rather than pre-trial incarceration.
Obviously, the BJP has jumped in on this and used it as proof of the Congress’ weak security credentials, although the reality is far more complex.
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Not just in India, but across the world, the Left is seen as weak on national security and the Right as strong, sometimes contrary to facts. In Israel, it is said that “the Left can’t make peace and the Right can’t make war”. This is an allusion to the fact that the Left political parties there, being seen as peaceniks, get a free ticket to pursue aggressive military action. The Right, nursing a reputation for military bellicosity, gets far more wriggle room than the Left ever would in peace negotiations, but faces immediate international censure for military actions. This is a pathology that one sees across the globe, including the US.
Let’s be clear about the fact that the Congress in India is no spring chicken and tends to be far more ruthless on internal and external security than the BJP. To date, no Congress government has ever attempted to dilute the AFSPA. The party has introduced a slew of draconian internal security legislation (such as the TADA or the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act) and repealed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), but only when the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act had been strengthened considerably to make the POTA redundant.
The Congress set up the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and made changes to the Evidence Act as well when it was in power.
One can safely say that in hindsight, India’s response to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks was one the of most significant security policy thrusts of the country in the last 20 years. There were even talks that India had purportedly riled up Pakistan’s Baloch insurgents post the attacks (a policy the NDA foolishly abandoned in 2014). Although former home minister P. Chidambaram had denied it later.
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In fact, former PM Manmohan Singh’s policy of conventional military restraint in the wake of 26/11 gave India much-needed international leverage to go berserk on covert operations. It did this by getting international political support in restraining Pakistan, and ended up bogging down the Pakistani military in a manpower and resource-intensive military operation for almost 10 years. Even in person, I have found Congress leaders to be far more aggressive on national security than their BJP counterparts. Congress leaders have a far greater understanding of the tools of state power and its second and third order effects.
So, why then does the Congress have such an ill-deserved reputation on national security? My hypothesis is two-fold.
First, it can be deliberate, not from the electoral point of view (and to me, it was revealing that this was not an electoral issue for the Congress but a security policy one) but much like Singh’s 26/11 response, which was meant to cultivate a “peaceful image” internationally, allowing the Congress governments to get away with a lot more.
The second, more recent (and worrying) factor is the fact that the Congress may have become weak, internalising a European social democrat outlook on national security that is hopelessly incompatible with India. This second factor is much more visible in the younger leaders of the party, and is potentially toxic given their unwillingness to listen to the sage advice of the old guard, compounded by a lack of experience (and hence a lack of understanding of the limitations of state powers).
To test these two hypotheses, I decided to talk to a few Congress leaders, specifically on the issue of AFSPA.
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The senior leaders were crystal clear in their thoughts that AFSPA had two effects: the desirable and the undesirable. The desirable effect was the shielding of the armed forces from scapegoating and frivolous litigation. The undesirable effect was the corrosion of character (read corruption and human rights abuses, which usually leads to criminality in one form or the other) that such a shield enabled.
The party seniors were clear that the protections of the AFSPA could be migrated onto other legislation, which would end up providing the same level of shielding. They were equally clear that the negatives of the AFSPA could be mitigated by technology measures like helmet cams, that would act as a guard against scapegoating and legal harassment. As one leader said with a deliciously evil smirk on his face, “Do you think I am Irom Sharmila? Do you know how many votes she got?” On the other hand, some of the younger leaders (not all) betrayed a near total lack of knowledge of the problem and the issues involved.
Their reference points were the first world countries and international laws rather than domestic reality. Although even in the younger set, a disproportionate number were hard-nosed. In short, the problem isn’t with the Congress, it’s with its president, Rahul Gandhi.
The problem seems to be one of messaging and disconnect between Rahul Gandhi and his own party. There is a fine line between being Left-liberal and being an NGO, and unfortunately, Rahul Gandhi does not seem to understand this distinction unlike many in his party who do. The credibility deficit seems to be coming up, because if this power equation translates into a government, it won’t be the old foxes of the Congress running the show, but the inexperienced young activists.
However, the selection of Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath as chief ministers gives hope that this may not be the case. So, is the problem only Rahul Gandhi then? Or are we concocting a problem where none exists?
The author is a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. He tweets @iyervval