Senior Congress leader and former Home Minister P. Chidambaram has once again given such a statement which has put pressure on the party leadership. First his revelations on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and now his statement calling Operation Blue Star the “wrong path”, both have put the Congress in an uncomfortable position. The question is, why is Chidambaram continuously speaking on such sensitive topics which conflict with the official line of the party? Is this a display of intellectual honesty or part of a political strategy?
Chidambaram says the Army’s 1984 crackdown on the Golden Temple was “wrong” and “Indira Gandhi paid for it with her life.” He also added that it was not just the Prime Minister’s failure, but the collective failure of the army, police, intelligence and civil administration. Frankly speaking, this statement challenges the historical narrative of the Congress on the basis of which the party has been arguing the “indispensability of national security” for three decades. In the backdrop of the political complexities of Indira Gandhi’s time and the extremist era in Punjab, Congress always underlined that Blue Star was a necessary step to “protect the nation”. In such a situation, Chidambaram’s call of “wrong path” shakes the moral ground of the party.
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This is not the first time that Chidambaram has created such political inconvenience. A few weeks ago, he had openly said that after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, India had not taken military action against Pakistan due to “international pressure”. He also mentioned the advice given by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which India was asked to exercise restraint. The statement gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi an opportunity to repeat the charge on Congress of “bowing to foreign pressure”. The result was that once again Congress had to explain the words of its own senior leader.
From a political point of view, both the statements pose a double threat to the Congress. First, it gives the opposition an opportunity to say that even within the Congress there are disagreements about its past and security policy. Second, it creates confusion among communities and voters who are already emotionally sensitive due to these incidents. Sikh sentiments in Punjab and the “national security” image at the national level are both delicate areas for the Congress. In such a situation, Chidambaram’s “introspective” comments may prove to be suicidal for the party.
But the question is also whether a senior leader in a democratic party should not have the right to have an independent opinion on history and policy? No doubt it should be, but time and context also have value in politics. When the party is already under electoral pressure, when its leadership is under challenge to maintain unity, then such statements become more suicidal than introspective.
Chidambaram is an experienced politician and also a scholar. His views may certainly be valuable at the level of academic discussion, but when the same views come to the public stage amid political allegations, they become a liability to the Congress. This is why the party leadership has indicated that “this should not become a habit.”
In fact, this entire incident highlights the old conflict of thought and discipline within the Congress. Is the party ready to honestly re-evaluate its past, or will it brush off every question as an “inconvenient statement”? Parties that avoid encountering history often become lost in their present. But both sensitivity and political wisdom are necessary when encountering history and this balance seems to be absent from Chidambaram’s statements at the moment.
The lesson to be learned from this controversy for Congress is to have the courage to introspect, but not to commit suicide. Honest discussion of history is fruitful only when it is done within organizationally set boundaries and not through personal statements. What Chidambaram said may not be wrong in principle—but in politics “truth” is not just fact, but also effect. And this time the effect is clear that Congress is uneasy, the opposition is excited and history is once again at the center of political debate.
-Neeraj Kumar Dubey
(This article expresses the author’s own views.)