Shamelessness, brazenness and crass apathy are mild words to express one�s outrageousness at the utterly politically insulting remarks made by Congress Party MP, Rashid Alvi on July 16, 2009 in a TV interview on the tenth anniversary of Indian Army�s heroic victory over Pakistan in the Kargil War. Belittling the valor and sacrifices of over 500 Officers and men of the Indian Army, this Congress Party MP boldly and shamelessly asserted to the TV channel that there was nothing to celebrate about the Kargil War victory as it was the BJP�s war and not India�s war. In rebuttal one is tempted to ask this Congress MP whether he and the Congress Party would own up India�s military debacle in 1962 against China because of Nehru�s strategic follies? Kargil was a splendid military victory in contrast. Sadly no one at the apex level in the Congress Party has chastised this Congress MP.

In an embattled security environment in which India today survives, the politicization of national security challenges and issues by the Congress Party is condemnable by all right thinking Indians. The Congress Government in power ignored the Kargil War victory and arranged no official celebrations presumably more out of regard for Pakistan�s sensitivities in view of this Government�s US-prodded renewed openings to Pakistan.

What a contrast when one saw the TV visuals only a month back of the Heads of State of USA, Britain and France gathered at the World War II cemeteries on the Normandy Coast in France to honor the war martyrs who sacrificed their lives against Germany.. The least that the Congress Prime Minister and the Congress President could have done was to go and lay wreaths at the India Gate Amar Jawan Jyoti.

This Congress MP would not have dared to make such outrageous and insulting remarks against the Kargil Martyrs had this issue not been debated within the Congress Party which probably led him to brazenly make these offensive remarks nonchalantly as the TV visuals indicate.

The BJP as the main Opposition Party and the Indian media also need to be taken to task as their reactions were muted and not vociferous in their condemnation of these insulting remarks. Editors-in-Chief of the media who pontificate on inconsequentials otherwise, should have risen up to chastise the Congress Party

The brave Officers and men of the Indian Armed Forces fight valiantly and sacrifice their lives for India and Indians. As the father of one of the Kargil Martyrs so eloquently answered on TV that it was a kind of �Junoon� that impelled them to do so. India�s soldiers do not fight for a political party or politicians.

But then such noble and higher sentiments are beyond the intellectual grasp of most of the Indian MPs who warm the benches in our Parliament House. The Congress Party�s own brigade of �Young MPs� signally failed to rise to the occasion to condemn their own Congress MP for insulting the Kargil Martyrs. Was it lack of intellectual grasp of these �Young Congress MPs� or was it intellectual bankruptcy to raise their voice out of political considerations

Regular readers of this Column would recall that last year too I had touched on this issue and highlighted the Government�s apathy to honor India�s war dead. My Column on July 02,2008 was entitled �Kargil Remembered: A Home to India's Martyrs". This Congress Government�s apathy seems to have only increased by its victory in the last elections.

India�s politicians do not realize that more than demoralizing the Indian Armed Forces by such insulting remarks against their sacrifices, such detestable remarks by MPs and especially from those of the ruling party would only generate contempt and not respect for them. 

July 19, 2009

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