Congress MP Shashi Tharoor unleashed a fiery 13-minute speech blasting Pakistan on terrorism, declaring India-Pak ties are 'all snakes.' He slammed Islamabad’s double standards, reminded of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and invoked Hillary Clinton’s famous warning. The viral clip has social media hailing Tharoor’s boldest attack yet on cross-border terror.
00:00When 2611 happened, and the horrors of it, and the 166 deaths on our soil of our own citizens, of all faiths I might add, was a chilling reminder of what Pakistan was capable of wreaking on our soil.
00:19And then, of course, our government took the very mature and responsible decision not to retaliate, to find instead a method combining diplomatic pressure with the support of allies around the world.
00:39Allies is the wrong word, but partners around the world, or well-disposed countries with great influence in Pakistan around the world, to bring Pakistan to heel.
00:49We compiled an extensive dossier. We caught one of the terrorists alive.
00:53And not only our intelligence, but intelligence agencies from the Western world even recorded the chilling voice of that handler in Pakistan, giving minute-by-minute instructions to the killers in Mumbai.
01:05All that evidence copiously collected, handed over to the Pakistanis, and to this day, no one has been prosecuted, let alone punished, by the Pakistanis for their participation in this horrendous crime.
01:20Even the Americans managed to convict two conspirators, one of whom has now been extradited to us, but Pakistan has not.
01:27Pakistan, of course, exists only because of the pernicious two-nation theory, disproved, as many essayists in this book have pointed out, by the very birth of Bangladesh in 1971.
01:41M.J. Akbar's essay is eloquent on that subject.
01:44And as General Kapoor's essay observes, cast themselves as the defenders of Jammu and Kashmir, which as recently as this year, the so-called field marshal has described as Pakistan's jugular vein.
01:57These well-worn justifications have enabled the army to tighten its grip on power by portraying India as an existential threat.
02:07And this is where it became increasingly clear to me that there was something about the makeup of the Pakistani state that made the candlelight at Wagah flicker out rather than positively in my own heart.
02:24And that is the realization that, to paraphrase Voltaire on Prussia, that whereas in India the state has an army, in Pakistan the army has a state.
02:33And that because there is no army in the world, in any country in the world, that commands a larger share of their country's GDP or national budget, not just the defense budget, the overall government budget, no army in the world controls as much as Pakistan does.
02:53The army's vested interest in maintaining its dominance is colossal, as has been pointed out in Ayesha Siddiqua's famous book, you don't join the army in Pakistan to defend the country, you join the army in Pakistan to run the country.
03:06And you're there even after retirement in a wide variety of businesses, import-export, petrol stations, real estate, you name it, universities, think tanks, academic institutions.
03:20To be in the army is to be in a position of privilege.
03:22I remember an Indian friend in the days of good relations with Pakistan visiting there, and his host happened to be somebody with an army background, or his brother had an army background, I've forgotten the details.
03:37And his friend recounted how they went to a tourist site with an enormously long queue.
03:41And this friend of his was not even in uniform, just walked up to the head and said, I'm from the army, two tickets please right now.
03:47And that was it. Off they went in, bypassing an hour-long queue.
03:51And that's simply the way the country is. It wouldn't work here, it does there.
03:55And so, we have to confront the fact that every Indian-initiated effort at peace, from Nehru's pact with Liaka Talik Khan in 1950,
04:06to Vajpayee's bus journey to Lahore in 1999, and Modi's Lahore outreach in December 2015,
04:16when he went, I mean, it was an amazing story, which I'm sure all of you are very familiar with,
04:21of how he was reminded by his foreign secretary, when the delegation visiting Kabul was all sitting in their cars about to head to the airport,
04:30that he had to call Nawaz Sharif to wish him on his birthday.
04:33And so, Modi makes the call, and Nawaz Sharif says to him,
04:37listen, you know, I'm on the way to Delhi, why don't you stop and celebrate with me?
04:42It's also my granddaughter's wedding.
04:43And Modi, in an impulsive moment, says yes, at a time, as I think D.C. Raghavan knows well,
04:50that the high commissioner in Islamabad didn't even have time to get to the airport to receive his prime minister.
04:57And off goes the prime minister of India to Lahore.
05:00An amazingly spontaneous gesture, a very wonderful day of bonhomie and affection and exchange of gifts and so on.
05:07And three weeks later, what do we get?
05:09We get a terrorist attack on Pothankot.
05:11And our prime minister is so disbelieving that this could be possible,
05:14that he calls Nawaz Sharif and invites Pakistan to participate in the investigation into that terrorist attack,
05:22still assuming a level of good faith.
05:23And to the horror of the Indian intelligence community,
05:26the Pakistan intelligence sends people to look at the Indian airbase firsthand,
05:31and then they go back to Pakistan and now, and so the Indians did it to themselves.
05:35That, I think, was the last straw.
05:37That was the sense of betrayal there.
05:39It was so colossal.
05:41The old intent articulated by a Pakistani general to bleed India to death by a thousand cuts
05:50was clearly manifest.
05:52And though, indeed, as one of our speakers today, I've forgotten which one, so forgive me,
05:59pointed out, there were fleeting signs of progress and gestures, such as the 2021 ceasefire.
06:06Was it you, Amitabu, pointed that out at a time when we had awkward relations with China?
06:11And they renewed their commitment to the 2003 ceasefire, which had been actually perhaps the best one we'd had for quite some time.
06:24Even though they did that in 2021, a change of personnel at the top of the army is all it took
06:30for Pahelgam to happen on April 22, 2025.
06:35And so, at the end of the day, I don't think India had very much choice in how to react about all this.
06:44In my book, Pax Indica, which was published in 2012, I had warned that if there was ever another Mumbai,
06:51another attack of comparable impact with clear evidence of Pakistani complicity,
06:56that the restraint we had shown in 2008 might be impossible and all bets would be off.
07:02And, indeed, that's exactly what happened.
07:04And I didn't feel that any democratic government, least of all India, with all the record of betrayals by Pakistan,
07:11one after the other, could sit idle while a neighbor assaults its civilians and innocent holidaymakers with impunity.
07:20And that's why that warning found its response in Operation Sindhur.
07:26And some of you may be aware that a couple of days after Pahelgam, I wrote an op-ed in the Indian Express
07:31advocating precisely this.
07:34The headline they gave, it was a good headline, was
07:37hit hard but hit smart.
07:39That is, hit hard because kinetic response was unavoidable.
07:42We simply could not afford to turn the other cheek.
07:45We cannot let them believe they can do this with impunity.
07:48At the same time,
07:50don't forget that development is
07:52our larger goal.
07:53We can't afford this to be seen as the first salvo
07:56in a protracted war.
07:58Therefore, hit smart, precise, calibrated, targeted attacks.
08:01And you can imagine my satisfaction and semi-disbelief
08:04that I didn't realize that anybody in Delhi would be reading my op-ed.
08:08I did exactly that.
08:10And Operation Sindhur, a few weeks later,
08:13followed, which is why I was such an enthusiastic supporter of it.
08:16It followed exactly the course of action
08:18I had advised in my op-ed just after Pahelgam.
08:21So, to my mind,
08:25with Balakot of 2019
08:26and now Operation Sindhur,
08:28India has sent a very clear
08:30and unambiguous message
08:31that we would not hesitate to go to war
08:33if terrorism is unleashed in our soil
08:36in this manner.
08:38And I think the fact that we battered their defenses
08:40as much as we did
08:41with the 11 air bases being struck,
08:45the significant demolition of facilities,
08:48there was a command and control center
08:49that were so badly damaged
08:51that subsequently it has been dismantled
08:53as commercially available satellite pictures have demonstrated.
08:59And the devastating effect of the Brahmos
09:01was demonstrated as well.
09:04I think that we are,
09:07we've now sent an unambiguous message.
09:09Now, I take the point of those who said today on stage
09:12that surely we don't believe
09:14that this is going to end terrorism from Pakistan.
09:16Of course we don't.
09:17The facilities we've destroyed
09:20can all be rebuilt within six to nine months
09:22and probably will be.
09:24But the intent may have been shaken a little bit.
09:28And certainly the successful strikes
09:31of the night of 9th, 10th May
09:36and the ability of India to intercept
09:41the attempted Pakistani response
09:44when they sent missiles to Delhi
09:46on the morning of the 10th,
09:48I think was what contributed undoubtedly,
09:51and not Mr. Trump,
09:52to the call by the Pakistani DGMO
09:56to his Indian counterpart asking for peace.
09:59Yes, General Munir, or Field Marshal Munir,
10:01has been rattling the nuclear saber thereafter.
10:04He has already announced in Washington
10:07that if Pakistan were attacked,
10:10they would take half the world with them.
10:12I am not particularly inclined
10:16to worry too much about this kind of bravado.
10:21And I think as Major General Mehta
10:23put it aptly in the first chapter of this book,
Be the first to comment