From Beijing To Bhutto: The Congress Party's Soft Spot For China And Pakistan

Congress' Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Communist Party of China (CPC) is a well-known fact and has been a cause of controversy for many years.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has raised the issue multiple times and questioned the Congress over its motives.

While the exact contents of the MoU are unknown, media reports say it was done to facilitate 'regular high-level exchanges' between the parties and allow them to 'consult on important bilateral, regional and international developments.'

Before this controversy could fully subside, another controversy erupted with the images of India's Gandhi family and Pakistan's Bhutto family meeting in Beijing around the same time, when Congress signed the MoU with CPC.

The Bhutto family represents the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which too, later in October 2008, signed an MoU with the CPC.

The occasion where the two political families met was the 2008 Beijing Olympics, held from 8 August 2008 to 24 August 2008.

The chairperson of the then-ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Sonia Gandhi arrived in Beijing with her family on 7 August 2008. Gandhi was accompanied by his son and member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi, daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, son-in-law Robert Vadra and their two children.

The MoU was signed between Rahul Gandhi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping who was vice-president and standing committee member of the CPC's politburo then on 7 August 2008.

The next day, the Bhutto family, comprising PPP's chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and his two sisters Bakhtawar and Asifa, arrived in Beijing along with senior PPP leaders including Jahangir Badar and Rehman Malik.

On 8 August 2008, the two families met for around 30 minutes. However, the images of Sonia Gandhi hugging Bilawal's sister and Priyanka Vadra shaking hands joyously with her, tell a tale of their bonhomie.

The surfacing of these images at a time when Congress is facing accusations of voicing Pakistan's claims of damage to Indian aircraft in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor raises questions against the party.

What Congress did wrong

After the 22 April Pahalgam attack, India launched airstrikes against terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) on the midnight of 7 May, but Pakistan retaliated militarily.

After the armed conflict between the two nations for days, a ceasefire was agreed upon with mutual understanding on 10 May. While India did extensive press conferences to give proof of the damages caused to Pakistan's air bases, Pakistan ran propaganda claiming damages to Indian military infrastructure.

One such propaganda was that Pakistan shot down several aircraft of the Indian Air Force including the newly acquired Rafale, a deal that Congress had staunchly opposed. The Indian side did not confirm any such losses but asserted that all our pilots were safe.

However, falling for the Pakistani propaganda, and even further exaggerating it, Congress MP and leader of the opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi started questioning 'How many Indian aircraft did we lose'?

Going a step ahead, Gandhi even misinterpreted External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar's statement and accused him of 'informing Pakistan at the start of our (airstrike) attack', claiming that we probably lost aircraft to Pakistan because our adversary knew about the attack beforehand.

This was not the first time when Gandhi appeared as flowing along with the Pakistan propaganda. He was even used by the Pakistan Army in their press conference after Operation Sindoor when a clip of his conversation with former J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik.

In this video clip, discussing the 2019 Pulwama attack, Malik alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to use the attack for elections and Gandhi was seen agreeing to it. This clip was used by Pakistan to allege that India has a history of killing its own innocent people for political objectives.

Other than Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also featured in Pakistan's press conference. In a video clip, he was seen questioning how a security lapse happened in a three-tier security system. The video was intended to show India in a bad light and blame the victim country for the Pahalgam attack.

Since the Pahalgam attack and even after Operation Sindoor and the ceasefire, the opposition Congress kept questioning the Modi government, suiting the Pakistan propaganda. (Read here for more details).

A look back at 2008

In August 2008, while the Congress signed MoU, PPP, despite being there at the same time, did not do so. This might be because, at that time, a power struggle was going on between then-Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Bilawal's father, Asif Ali Zardari.

Despite forming a government after the 2008 general elections, the PPP was working under the military rule of Musharraf. Ultimately, when Musharraf resigned on 18 August 2008, civilian rule was established with PPP chief Zardari becoming the President.

When the political crisis settled in Pakistan, the PPP might have decided to move forward with an MoU with the CPC after consolidating its power. Thus, in October 2008, during Zardari's four-day visit to China, the PPP signed the MoU with the CPC.

Again, the contents of this MoU are not exactly known, the press briefing after the MoU mentioned its usefulness for 'more regular exchanges between the two parties in the future, as well as a new starting point to further develop their relations,' quite similar to that of Congress' MoU.

However, this MoU did not create any political uproar in Pakistan, given its friendly relations with China for a long time. On the other hand, Congress' MoU appeared to be out of place in the context of India-China relations, especially since the 1962 war.

Over a month after the PPP-CPC MoU, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks happened where 10 operatives of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) killed over 170 civilians and injured hundreds of others.

Despite an attack of this scale, which kept our economic capital hostage for days, India did not respond militarily and instead opted only for diplomatic ways like giving dossiers to Pakistan with proof of its involvement.

Many military and intelligence officials have claimed that after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, India considered military action and had even identified terrorist camps in Pakistan but refrained from taking any armed action.

According to a statement of EAM Jaishankar last year, India decided to do nothing considering the 'cost of attacking Pakistan.' A few critics link India's inaction to the bonhomie between the ruling parties of both countries: Congress and PPP at that time.

What happened after this

The bonhomie might have its roots in similarities between the two political families. Both lost their key political figures in assassination attempts during election campaigns.

Similarly, Bilawal Bhutto lost his mother on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi when a gunman opened fire at her as she was waving to supporters from the sunroof of her SUV in the 2008 election campaign.

Another similarity is that both Congress and PPP, are centred around a single political family, Gandhis and Bhuttos, respectively.

The third similarity is that the political clout of both parties has been reducing in recent times. The last time, the Congress was able to form government, was in 2009 when the party retained power in the coalition front named UPA.

Similarly, the last time the PPP was able to form a government in Pakistan was in 2008. Since then, it has been reduced to a regional party and currently, is the third largest party in the National Assembly.

However, as long as the Congress remained in power from 2009 to 2014, it took a soft stance on both Pakistan and China. Just after the 2009 election, then PM Manmohan Singh met his Pakistani counterpart Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and issued a joint statement.

Although the joint statement mentioned the fight against terrorism and the need for action against Mumbai attacks, it also mentioned Pakistan's concerns regarding 'threats in Balochistan' and other areas.

This was perceived as giving a concession to Pakistan, by accepting that it too, is allegedly fighting terrorism and putting it on the same pedestal as India, which is not true.

There were also attempts for dialogues on the Kashmir issue, without breakthroughs. Meanwhile, repeated ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) continued, along with attempts to increase people-to-people connections.

For instance, the cricket series resumed briefly and business visas liberalised. However, all these were viewed as attempts for normalisation without accountability.

None of these diplomatic efforts were fructified as Pakistan showed its true colours in January 2013 by 'beheading' an Indian soldier near the LoC in J&K and denied doing any such thing. Even then, India did not retaliate.

Notably, during this complete period when the aforementioned events happened, the PPP was in power in Pakistan.

Similar softness towards China

During the 2009-14 period, India adopted a very soft stance towards China, both on the border issue, as well as the economic front.

India and China held multiple rounds of border talks, primarily at the Special Representatives (SR) level, to address their territorial dispute, but an agreement on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) could not be reached.

Notably, then PM Singh met both the Chinese presidents, Hu Jintao and later Xi Jinping, during their respective tenures, for economic ties and border peace, but nothing concrete for India could be achieved.

Meanwhile, China started benefitting from India economically by becoming its largest trading partner. India's trade deficit with China nearly doubled from 2009 to 2014, with critics calling it growing economic overdependence.

On the borders, India did not militarily respond to the intrusion by the Chinese troops into the Depsang Valley (Ladakh) in April 2013 but tried to resolve it diplomatically.

On one hand, China continued improving its border infrastructure along the LAC, but India did not undertake any such efforts. The construction of border roads was happening at a very slow pace and the development could not reach border villages.

This changed after the BJP came to power in 2014. The construction of border roads was fast-paced and the development of border villages was taken care of with the Vibrant Village programme.

Even the Chinese attempts at border incursions were dealt with strongly, whether it was the 2017 Doklam standoff or the 2020 Galwan Valley clash. India held border positions so strongly, that a disengagement could be achieved after over four years of the Galwan clash.

But despite these efforts, Congress continued to voice the Chinese propaganda of China taking over a certain land parcel of the Indian territory after the Galwan clash. Its various leaders, especially Rahul Gandhi claimed, "China has taken away India's land."

While the claim was categorically denied by the Indian government, this did not deter Gandhi from parroting the claim across various platforms, whether in Parliament or in his public addresses in India or abroad.

Congress in opposition

One interesting aspect is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It aims to enhance connectivity between China’s Xinjiang region and Pakistan’s Gwadar Port through a network of roads, railways, pipelines, and energy projects.

However, India objects to CPEC because its proposed alignment passes through Gilgit-Baltistan, a part of Indian territory that is occupied by Pakistan, as India considers it a challenge to its sovereignty. The project is now facing several setbacks due to local sentiments against Chinese development.

Since the project was launched in 2015 after Congress went out of power, we would never know how the party would have responded. However, given its past track record of softness towards China and Pakistan, expecting the same response as the current government would be quite optimistic.

And if we think about the worst-case scenario, Congress might have even entered into a trilateral agreement with China and Pakistan for the CPEC and its spokespersons would be selling this as a major achievement for the country's economic development.

Nonetheless, we would never know, what could have really happened. But what we know now is that while being in opposition, Congress has tried to pressurise the Indian government to improve its relations with China and Pakistan, regardless of the response India gets.

For instance, in 2020, Rahul Gandhi accused PM Modi of destroying the 'web of relationships that the Congress built and nurtured over several decades' and asserted, "Living in a neighbourhood with no friends is dangerous."

At the same time, when the neighbouring countries attempted to harm India, the Congress called on the Indian government to take 'stricter actions' and always questioned the outcomes, irrespective of what it did.

For instance, after the 2019 Balakot air strikes, Congress questioned the lack of transparency on casualties of terrorists and its use for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Similarly, after Operation Sindoor, Congress questioned whether India informed Pakistan before the strikes and about the loss of aircraft.

It is debatable what political purpose such statements would serve, but for a nation, these statements are definitely demoralising, especially at a time of national security crisis.

After the signing of MoUs with the CPC, both Congress and the PPP didn't last in power for long, hence, we don't know how that could have played out. But even being in the opposition, Congress has become useful for China and Pakistan in many ways.