Sending VK Singh for Pakistan National Day event was a big mistake by Modi govt

Narendra Modi’s Pakistan policy has come full circle in less than ten months after he took over as the Prime Minister of India. The wheel has come full circle from the point in May 2014 when he invited leaders of SAARC and Mauritius to attend his swearing in on 26 May to the high-octane event of Pakistan National Day at the nation’s high commission in New Delhi on 23 March. The Modi government’s biggest mistake was to send retired Army chief VK Singh to the Pakistani event as the government’s representative. The government probably sent Singh as he is Minister of State for External Affairs. But the government ignored the fact that Singh is the former chief of army staff. Sending a former top soldier to the civic reception of a country with which the Indian armed forces have fought three and a half wars (the “half” war being the Kargil conflict of 1999 where Pakistan armed forces were not directly involved in the conflict) was fraught with danger. [caption id=“attachment_2169709” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] VK Singh at the Pakistan National Day celebrations. PTI image[/caption] The former Indian army chief is no small fry and he has been the leader of an army which is over 1.3 million strong. But then the appointment of Singh as MoS in the Modi government is itself a blunder as its a bad administrative decision. And Singh accepting the post is even more questionable, as it shows his thirst for power. Former army chiefs have been governors and in other important advisory roles. It was for the first time that a former army chief was appointed as MoS. In a way, the whole debate on the relations between the two nations has now come to centre on Singh. He roiled the waters with a series of tweets, which he could he have done without. Unfortunately for the MoS, these tweets were nothing but a self goal. Gen Singh’s tweets about “duty” and “disgust” seemed to indicate that he was not happy to be there. Sample his tweets:

  The tweets imply that he was unhappy over the job the government had assigned to him – to represent India at the Pakistan National Day celebrations. Nonetheless, he went to the Pakistan high commission, attired in a green jacket, something that may not have been micro-managed by the Modi government. However, in all this, the victim is not the poor MoS, but the Modi government. The Modi government has tied itself in knots with its management of the Monday event. It is all the more galling from a government whose top leader is billed as the biggest event manager of all times in Indian polity. Monday’s fiasco is something that the Modi government could have done without and the government evidently under estimated the angry reactions from the common man. Those who don’t believe just how much outrage the Modi government triggered with the decision to send VK Singh to represent India at the function, just need to look at the comments on social media. The criticism in social media has been largely been about the fact that Modi, who ridiculed the UPA government for serving biryani to the neighbour’s envoy when Indian soldiers were being beheaded on the Line of Control, is now courting the very same enemy. The images of a laughing VK Singh in company of the Pakistan high commissioner will haunt PM Modi and his government for a long, long time. The point though, is that Modi’s Pakistan policy is no different from the UPA government’s. Thankfully for the Modi government Parliament is not in session and there are no elections round the corner. And that gives the Prime Minister time to still rectify his Pakistan policy to align it with the wishes and aspirations of the man on the street. There are interesting times ahead in the bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. Monday was just the beginning of a tug of war between the two nations and it would be wise to expect more fireworks shortly, perhaps on a day-to-day basis. Modi began his prime ministerial innings on a high by conjuring up visions of much more bonhomie between the two nations. That seemed very unlikely after Monday. What a pity!