THE LIE NAILED
| Date :10-May-2019 |
FINALLY, the Directorate General of Military Operations (DGMO) has nailed the lie the Congress party was trying to foist upon the nation by asserting that the Army has no record of the six surgical strikes being claimed by the party. There are no records of any surgical strikes before September 2016, the DGMO has said in response to a query under the Right To Information (RTI) Act. Union Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh, too, has insisted that there were no surgical strikes during the regime of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Just as the DGMO was refuting the false information being floated by the Congress party, Ms. Francesca Marino, a free-lance Italian journalist, came out with a clear-cut revelation about how successful were the surgical airstrikes at Balakot undertaken by the Indian Air Force. Her account states clearly that at least 170 terrorists were killed in the IAF airstrikes and 45 injured ones were still undergoing treatment in the Shinkari Camp of the Pakistan Army.
The details of this coverage are damning to all those who suspected if the airstrike ever took place. These two coincidentally parallel revelations prove how the Opposition has tried to raise political ruckus around surgical strikes, while accusing the Government of politicising the success of India’s brave and professionally sound Armed Forces. There are obvious dichotomies in the Opposition claims. On one hand, the Opposition claims that the surgical strikes never took place, and on the other hand they accuse the Government of extracting political mileage out of the Armed Forces’ Ops. On the third count, they also claim to have conducted similar surgical strikes during the UPA regime, a statement that the Army and the Government have refuted point blank.
The nation had never heard such a confused narrative from any political organisation. The people had never experienced such attempts to foist falsehood on them. At least from now on, we expect the Opposition to stop playing political pranks around surgical strikes. At least from now on, we expect such elements to stop suspecting the integrity of the Armed Forces and the Government on security-related issues. For, when the Opposition tries to create a web of lies, it only embitters the minds forever. There is no doubt that every political party has a right to promote its own ideology and push its own narrative. But when falsehood is woven in that discourse, it only vitiates the atmosphere. It is unfortunate that India has been suffering from a deliberately falsified narrative in its socio-political discourse.
The country has suffered a lot for decades as some elements tried to build an absolutely wrong and misleading story of India by adding dirty colours to the national picture by foisting falsehood on the people. The attempts to malign the narrative at the point of surgical strikes was part of that deliberately disturbed discourse. In no uncertain words, we condemn all such attempts. We condemn all those elements that do not hesitate to promote lies even as regards national security. We believe that the attempt to smudge the success of the ground and air surgical strikes had an anti-national tinge, and we condemn it fully and unequivocally. We hate any such attempts since they smear the patriotic thought and action of the Government -- no matter who is in power -- and the Armed Forces. It is time the Opposition learned right lessons from this experience. It is time the Opposition decided once and for all that it would indulge no longer in any attempt to malign the Armed Forces. To the political community in general, we make an appeal: Please keep your good sense alive and intact as you put forward your narrative and do not mess up with national interest.