00:00So, will we see a broad national consensus now emerge on the West Asia war?
00:08Joining me now is Manish Tiwari, Senior Congress MP and someone who's been speaking out on the war.
00:15Appreciate your joining us, Manish Tiwari.
00:18Has the Prime Minister assuaged all the concerns that the opposition had
00:22or does the opposition still want a full debate inside Parliament on the West Asia war?
00:30Rajdeep, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me.
00:34It's always a pleasure to have a conversation with you.
00:37The Prime Minister essentially tried to sensitize Parliament and the nation with regard to the gravity of the crisis,
00:48given that Hormuz is blocked, 3,000 ships are idling in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
00:56It's not only about crude oil and natural gas, but fertilizers, food, essential life-saving drugs.
01:08There is a lot which is in play, given that India's most critical supply line has been disrupted.
01:18But however, the crisis in West Asia or the war in West Asia has raised certain very serious questions
01:27with regard to the conduct of Indian foreign policy.
01:31And that is why the opposition had given a notice under Rule 193,
01:37even before the Prime Minister made a statement on the floor of the House,
01:42demanding that there should be a full discussion on the evolving situation,
01:48which fortunately now seems to be dialing down a bit,
01:53given that President Trump has put out on Truth Social that they are having some back-channel negotiations with the
02:02Iranians.
02:03But these serious questions that I allude to, Rajdeep, are as follows.
02:09Should India really be accepting and staying silent on the doctrine of coercive regime change?
02:19Should India be accepting the targeted assassination and abduction of functionaries of sovereign governments?
02:33Should India not have criticized the assassination of a sitting president,
02:39as also condoled the deaths of 196 innocent school children,
02:46who, going by the New York Times report, were ostensibly killed by a U.S. missile strike.
02:55Similarly, there has been damage all around West Asia.
03:01And we have a very large diaspora, and the Prime Minister alluded to that,
03:06that 10 million people live and work there.
03:09So, given the fact that we have human security concerns, energy security concerns,
03:15food and fertilizer security concerns, our dependence on crude oil in the past 12 years,
03:22import dependence has increased from 77% to almost 86%.
03:28LNG dependence has gone up from 30% to 47%.
03:32Why refining capacities and upstream exploration wasn't really energized?
03:38So, therefore, there are a lot of very, very vital questions connected with India's economy,
03:47India's national security, India's foreign policy,
03:50which need to be debated in a very mature and in a very restrained manner.
03:56This is what the government claims, that the Congress party is determined to oppose the government at every stage,
04:02whatever the government does.
04:03Your leader, Rahul Gandhi, according to the government,
04:07is determined to oppose Prime Minister Modi at every stage, saying,
04:10Narendra surrender.
04:11So, once you set the terms in Narendra surrender,
04:14then the government says, where is the scope for any kind of bipartisan consensus?
04:19So, therefore, it needs two hands to clap.
04:22It does not need one hand to clap.
04:25And if I may remind you, the responsibility of running the House
04:30is that of the government primarily and not the opposition.
04:35Having said that, I do not want to get into a he said, she said
04:39about how two parliament sessions were completely wiped out in the November of 2010
04:45and the monsoon session of 2012, when the current gentlemen were in opposition.
04:51So, therefore, I do not want to get into that, he said, she said.
04:54The fact is that this parliament has had extremely mature and restrained debates
05:01on foreign policy and national security,
05:04going back to the seven-day debate between the 7th of November and the 16th of November 1962,
05:12when the border war with China was actually at its zenith.
05:16There was fighting going on in the Northeast,
05:19and 163 MPs spoke in the Lok Sabha and in the Raj Sabha,
05:24and the government replied to that debate.
05:28In 1965, when the war was going on with Pakistan,
05:32Prime Minister Shansh Sri kept parliament abreast of what was happening.
05:38In 1971, when we were liberating East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh,
05:44the winter session of parliament was on,
05:47and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Defence Minister Jagjeevan Ram,
05:51other senior ministers like Swaran Singh regularly kept parliament briefed.
05:56So, therefore, to say that because there is a crisis,
06:00parliament should suspend its functioning,
06:03and therefore, there is only one voice which should be heard,
06:08I do not think is the correct characterization of how a democracy should function.
06:14Maybe at the end of it, there will be a resolution.
06:18After all, this parliament passed a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir being an alienable part of India,
06:24and the only unfinished business of partition being the reclaim of the areas occupied by Pakistan,
06:32namely Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and northern areas in 1994.
06:37This same parliament retreated that resolution in 2012.
06:41Okay.
06:43Will there be, though, that debate that takes place in parliament,
06:47or will all the debates only take place in TV studios on issues of national importance?
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