Strategic Self-Harm

India’s primary opposition party, the Congress, has often struggled to look like a government-in-waiting. But rarely has it sounded so eager to undermine the very idea of the state. Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and veteran Congressman Prithviraj Chavan’s remarks on ‘Operation Sindoor’ - India’s military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack - do precisely that. They are not just ill-judged but are a case study in strategic self-harm, delivered with the assurance of a man who should have known better.

Chavan, long regarded as one of the Congress most erudite faces, told a press conference in Pune that India was “completely defeated” on the very first day of the operation. The air force, he claimed, was “fully grounded” for fear that Pakistani defences would shoot down Indian aircraft. He went further, questioning whether India even needs a standing army of 12 lakh soldiers in an age supposedly dominated by missiles and aircraft.

Such claims are not just implausible but reckless. India has officially refuted suggestions that its fighter jets were shot down. No serious military analyst believes the Indian air force was paralysed by fear given the mauling that we delivered to Pakistan, which rattled even the United States.

That this provocation echoes the talking points of Rahul Gandhi is no coincidence. The Congress leader has made a habit of questioning the competence of India’s armed forces and the credibility of military operations. Whenever confronted with a national-security moment that rallies public opinion behind the government, the Congress seems to choose scepticism bordering on self-sabotage.

The timing makes the performance even more puzzling. Maharashtra is heading towards crucial civic elections, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. The Congress is already the weakest link in a fragile MVA.

In 2012, before the start of the civic polls elections under a Congress-led state government, Chavan had made similarly dramatic statements that handed political ammunition to the then undivided Shiv Sena and the BJP. The result was a rout for the Congress.

What explains this compulsion? One answer is weakness. Parties confident of their ground game do not need to manufacture outrage. They do not gamble with national-security narratives to stay relevant. Another is a deeper malaise within the Congress is an inability to distinguish between legitimate scrutiny of the government and gratuitous denigration of state institutions.

Chavan’s suggestion that future wars will be fought without ground forces betrays a startling naïveté for someone who once occupied the CM’s office. Modern warfare is indeed evolving. But no serious doctrine - Indian, American or Chinese - has dispensed with the centrality of ground forces, especially in contested, mountainous terrain like Kashmir.

More troubling is the signal such statements send beyond India’s borders. Pakistan does not need to invent propaganda when Indian opposition leaders are willing to supply it. Nor do India’s soldiers, deployed in difficult conditions, need to hear their relevance questioned by a former head of government.