With the Right Vision, We can Convert Crisis into Opportunity

The debate on Operation Sindoor in both houses of Parliament served little purpose. A directionless, polarised and manifestly unproductive discussion, with partisan grandstanding on both sides, revealed nothing new, and demonstrated once again how completely the institution is broken, in terms of its constitutional functions.

- Ajai Sahni

The government stonewalled all substantive questions, with the Minister of Defence arguing facetiously, “Results matter in any exam, not whether a pencil broke or a pen is lost.” The ‘broken or lost pencil or pen’, in the present case, possibly includes three Rafale jets, each acquired at a cost of over 2,300 crore. More significantly, in suppressing this information, the government also refuses to disclose the lives that may have been lost, and others who were grievously wounded, because they were forced to go into action under irrational conditions imposed by the political leadership. It would truly be a national disgrace if we fail to honour the fallen pilots, simply to cover up incompetence and promote the false narrative of an untainted victory.

But while nothing may have been learned in Parliament, the truth is crystallising bit by bit in the national and international discourse. Among the realities that are being exposed, perhaps the most significant relate to the maelstrom of unintended consequences Op Sindoor, and reactions to it, have unleashed.