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One of the most popular articles on the website of the Istanbul-based Hurriyet Daily News is an ironic piece titled “Unusual: Erdogan ‘off-air’ for almost four days”. “President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan has stayed off-air from Turkish broadcasters for longer than 94 hours - an unprecedented length of time considering his relentless TV speeches in the months before the general election,” it began. It was a strategic silence from an otherwise amazingly vocal Turkish president after his party’s bruising in the recent general election.
It is a pity that the National Democratic Alliance government did not adopt a similar strategic silence after Indian special ops forces launched a successful cross-border sortie to flush out north-eastern militant groups sheltering in Myanmar. Instead, the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore chose valour over discretion to air ill-advised comments.
Sycophantic tweets on the lines of #56inchrocks, an oblique reference to the prime minister’s big-hearted courage as reflected in his alleged chest size, are worthy of a first-year undergraduate. Not content with such metaphorical chest-thumping, the minister added dire warnings to Pakistan and all other neighbours that India would not tolerate countries that harboured terrorists. You can almost hear the diplomats groan.
Negotiating cross-border operations – and this week’s sorties were hardly a first -- are tricky exercises that demands close cooperation, not least for intelligence and logistical support, from the neighbours concerned. Shooting may have been Rathore’s skill in the Olympics but he displayed Olympian ignorance in shooting off his Rambo-style messages. Worse, it showed scant respect for the deaths of 18 soldiers from the army, an institution that Rathore once served.
Expectedly, it was Pakistan that responded swiftly with Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan replying in kind: "Those having ill designs against Pakistan should listen carefully that our security forces are capable of matching response to any adventurism. Indian leaders should stop day dreaming."
But why blame the inexperienced and somewhat gormless Rathore for succumbing to undignified triumphalism. An experienced politician like Sushil Kumar Shinde, home minister under the United Progressive Alliance, was visibly unable to contain his glee on national television after Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the November 26-29, 2008 attack in Mumbai, was hanged in Pune in 2012.
Shinde was seen laughing and smiling, as though celebrating an achievement by the Indian cricket team rather than discussing the death of a young man in the aftermath of one of the worst terrorist attacks on Indian soil.
It is hard not to compare the undignified elation of our politicians following such tragedies with President Barack Obama’s stern, restrained dignity when he announced the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. That too was the result of a covert cross-border operation and it too contained salutary messages for Pakistan. Obama understood that he didn’t have to spell it out; his country’s power spoke for itself. When it comes to South Asia at least, Indian politicians would do well to understand that too.
