An Open Letter to Sonia Gandhi

However, I am deeply dismayed that this effort at revival of the Congress Party has begun on a wrong and disturbing note. Ever since you became President of the party, some of your prominent leaders have begun speaking the language of our enemy, Pakistan. It is not the first time, but at a time when India has decided to try a new course of action to resolve Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) problem, the renewed attempts of leaders like Mr P Chidambaram and Mr Mani Shanker Aiyar to put India in the dock before the international community nearly amounts to treason.

When the world has refused to take cognizance of the rantings of Pakistan who has been working on the doctrine of ‘1000 cuts to bleed India’, these two leaders have given wind to their attempts and international media, specially Pakistan, is having a field day quoting these two worthies. Earlier, the eternal princeling of Congi Mr Rahul Gandhi had also sought to discredit Indian claim to peace in J&K by claiming widespread violence etc., without a shred of evidence or data. But, he did not go to the extent that these gentlemen have gone to.

P Chidambaram, a former Home Minister, who had handled without success the issue of J&K and knows the real issues there, tried to communalise the abrogation of dilution of Article 370 and removal of Article 35(A) by claiming that Article 370 was removed because the state is a Muslim majority state. Thus, he destroyed the legacy of founding fathers of the Constitution at one stroke.

This is not a place to go into the history of Article 370 and 35(A). But this narrative of Muslim persecution is handy for Pakistan and their media friends. He forgot that these two clauses have been major cause of separatist ideology and oppression and violence against other minorities in J&K. He forgot that there was the ethnic cleansing of nearly half a million Kashmiri Pandits and oppression of hundreds and thousands of minorities, Dalits, women and other groups in J&K under the guise of the distinct identity of J&K. The distinct identity of J&K is that it is the fountainhead of Indian civilisation with more than 4000 years of documented history of Hindu kingdoms and knowledge creation by rishis before it was Islamised. So, every citizen of India has something at stake in J&K – his/her own civilisational identity.

We have Mani Aiyar, who famously asked Pakistanis to support the Congi to defeat Mr Modi before 2019 elections. Rahul Gandhi, to his credit, had silenced this perpetual hunter for headlines, at least for some time. But now that you have returned, he is back in business. He has claimed that India has created a Palestine in ‘Kashmir’. Does he fully understand the implications of this statement? Do you understand the implications of this statement? Are you aware what is the Palestine problem? That Palestinians believe that Jews have got their land vacated to from Palestine, and they have been waging war to finish off the Jews and vacate the Jews from their own ancient land? They refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist. Does it in anyway bear any resemblance to J&K? If at all, a cry of demand for justice on these lines was justified, for it was Kashmiri Hindus who were thrown out of their ancient land. But, probably this may be too much to ponder for your lieutenant and your good self.

We, the ordinary citizens of India, didn’t lose our cool when your son, Mr Rahul Gandhi ganged up with the Tukde Tukde gangs of JNU and Urban Naxal crowds to score points against Mr Modi. We kept quiet when Mr Y S R Reddy went full throttle to run conversion campaigns in Andhra Pradesh with his son-in-law who is an evangelist and went to the extent of defining the sacred Seven Hills of Bhagwan Tirupati Balaji. We didn’t react strongly when your party stood with Communists to get bail for the terror accused of Coimbatore mass bombing. We let your party have its way when NAC nominated certified Urban Naxals, some of them either facing terror charges or convicted of terror. We laughed away at your party’s attempts to ridicule surgical strikes and Balakot to counter Pakistan’s perfidy.

We chose electoral methods when your party tried to divide Hindu society into caste and sects. We responded electorally when your government, under your benign leadership created a macabre narrative of Saffron Terror. We chose to respond through democratic means and kept our calm, fighting ideas with ideas because these were all internal matters of India. This did not damage India and its prestige in the international

But, now when Pakistan openly calls a few Indians, including Congis and Communists as their friends, it is time for us to raise our collective voices. When international media quotes Mr P Chidambaram and Mr Mani Aiyar to defame India and attempt to disturb this government’s attempts to try a new path to get over the stalemate of 70 years, it is time we sit up and raise our voice. These worthies are too senior and no other leader but you have to come out openly to criticise them and take them to task, even to the extent of throwing them out of the party. As a party that presided over failed policies over J&K for more than 60 years out of 72 years since Independence, it is your bounden duty not to create hurdles to this new solution being tried by Mr Modi. Recall, that your own party PM, Mr Narasimha Rao took along entire opposition to silence Pakistan in 1994 in UN on J&K, and entire opposition co-operated. That is how this nation has treated national security and foreign affairs.

On the eve of our sacred Independence Day, I appeal to you to stand for India.

An ordinary citizen of India,

Ratan Sharda