Courtly Rot

The Congress party’s vendetta against Shashi Tharoor over Operation Sindoor is a case study in political self-harm. A statesman with decades of diplomatic experience, a best-selling author and arguably the Congress’s last remaining figure with any moral gravitas, Dr. Tharoor has been treated not as an asset but as a threat. His patriotism has been politicised by his party’s ‘high command’ while his loyalty miscast as lèse-majesté.

In the wake of the brutal Pahalgam massacre and Operation Sindoor, the Modi government launched a multi-party diplomatic blitz to expose Pakistan’s hand on the global stage. Tharoor, with his UN pedigree and gravitas, was a natural choice to lead one of the delegations. His moral clarity throughout the crisis has been admirable and has been justly lauded by his legions of supporters and fans.

Instead, the Congress ‘high command’ - an archaic euphemism for the dynastic triumvirate of Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi and their sycophants - has reacted with pettiness. Led by the sanctimonious Jairam Ramesh and the ever-vacant Mallikarjun Kharge, it bleated about protocol, alleging they had submitted alternative names to the Modi government. Of these, Syed Naseer Hussain is best known for the company he keeps, including supporters who chanted ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ inside Karnataka’s legislature. Another is MP Gaurav Gogoi, whose wife has faced serious questions over her alleged proximity to Pakistani officials.

Dr. Tharoor is everything the Gandhis are not: articulate, globally respected and popular beyond Kerala. To watch Rahul Gandhi’s clique snub him for standing with the country against terror is to see how far the Congress has sunk into its own bile.

The Congress’s allies seem to sense this rot, as do younger faces within the party itself. The DMK’s Kanimozhi and NCP (SP)’s Supriya Sule have joined the delegations without fuss. Even habitual critics of the government like Asaduddin Owaisi and Omar Abdullah have displayed sterling statesmanship and moral clarity in the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, setting an example that the Congress high command and its ecosystem of self-righteous sycophants would do well to emulate.

In contrast, Congress’s dogged refusal to stand in unity with the government exposes not ideological commitment, but political decay. Rather than focus on Pakistan’s terror apparatus, their obsession with undermining Modi has blinded them to the basic decency of supporting the nation in moments of tragedy. The rot has extended beyond 24 Akbar Road, into the editorial rooms of ‘left liberal’ or some ‘far left’ portals and newspapers, who, always suspicious of the tricolour, have reduced themselves to a parody of paranoia.

For Tharoor, the episode may mark a turning point. His quiet dignity, even as his own party snubbed him, has won plaudits across the aisle. For the Congress, it is yet another self-inflicted wound in a body already scarred by electoral defeat and ideological drift. A party that cannot accommodate Tharoor does not deserve to speak of tolerance, merit or unity.

It deserves exactly what it is fast becoming: irrelevant.