It has been argued that successive invasions from the Hindu Kush mountains has shaped the geo-psychological consciousness of the Indo-Gangetic plains, which partly explains the antipathy regarding Pakistan (that was subsequently exacerbated by the trauma of partition and numerous wars).The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)’s responses to the recent parliamentary debate on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor were designed to weaponise these fears, presumably to serve its electoral and ideological ends.However, when Bharat Mata was attacked, the whole nation stood unitedly. The Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties even deputed its leaders to join an all-party delegation to 33 nations to present a national case.This bipartisan effort has historical precedent, in Prime Minister Narasimha Rao deputing Leader of Opposition Atal Bihari Vajpayee to lead a government delegation to present India’s case against Pakistan at the United Nations in 1994. Similarly, in keeping the national interest paramount, INDIA unequivocally supported the Government of India to present India’s case to the world. India stood united after April 26, and still stands unitedly in the face of terror.The BJP government consciously chose to ignore structural fault-lines.But it is in furtherance of the national interest that a serious national introspection is necessary, both to ensure a Pahalgam never happens again and to safeguard our fellow citizens. Unless this manthan is done seriously and sincerely, we will not gain the amrit we seek (of a safe, secure and prosperous India).Unfortunately, the BJP government’s line of argumentation was neither constructive nor geared to safeguard India’s national security. On one hand, in focusing on history, in belligerently attacking the opposition for asking questions, and in avoiding accountability, the BJP government consciously chose to ignore structural fault-lines.On the other hand, this approach towards parliamentary debate reflects a certain condescension on BJP’s part – that it exclusively knows what’s best for India, and doesn’t need the wisdom or institutional memories of experts. In doing so, it sacrificed the national interest at the altar of partisanship.Yet, every conscientious patriot must inevitably ask these questions (which INDIA constructively tried to do), which the BJP government inexplicably ignored.Firstly, there were numerous intelligence and counter-terrorism failures before and on 26 April, which need to be urgently redressed. For example, the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) police has had extensive experience in intelligence gathering and has excellent counter-terror capabilities. It’s under this same state police that terrorism declined in the last decade as per Home Minister Shah’s own submission in Parliament.Yet, with J&K now a Union Territory (and law and order with the union Home Ministry), the operational independence of the local police has been gutted. Key posts are manned by the AGMUT cadre unfamiliar with local dynamics, and even routine transfers are cleared by advisors appointed by the union government. The situation is exacerbated by the J&K police’s budget being slashed by Rs. 464 crore in 2025-’26, no funds for police modernisation being released for the past three years and 8000 J&K police posts lying vacant for five years.Increasing terror attacks in Jammu and KashmirSimilarly, contrary to home minister Amit Shah’s assertion that “in 2019, we ended terrorists’ grip on Jammu and Kashmir”, in 2024 alone, 11 civilians and 12 security forces were killed in 69 terror attacks (marking a 415% jump in average monthly civilian deaths compared to the previous 10 years). Equally worryingly, it took the BJP government four years to declare the Resistance Front (a major terrorist group formed in 2019 which conducted 25 terror attacks in India) a terrorist organisation. This situation shatters the illusion of a fortified internal security framework.Similarly, the Gujjar and Bakarwal communities in J&K have traditionally supported the Indian armed forces by providing precise information on infiltration. That’s how India was able to expeditiously repel Pakistani forces in Kargil. But what has changed now? Did the Gujjar and Bakarwal communities alert security forces, but did the government fail to act in time? Or is there some trust deficit with them, which needs to be resolved through special efforts? Separately, why was there inadequate security cover in a tourism hotspot like Pahalgam?At the time of the attack, the nearest units (a battalion of Rashtriya Rifles and a battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force) were positioned nearly 10 kilometres away. Who made this decision to keep our fellow citizens in a tourist hotspot unprotected? These troubling questions needed to be asked in Parliament (which INDIA did). Now, if the BJP government was genuinely interested in keeping India safe and secure, it would have honestly answered these questions in Parliament and worked to plug these fault-lines.Secondly, on the tactical and operational front, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed in Parliament that “Indian armed forces were given full freedom (operationally to attack Pakistan)”. Yet, this assertion was contradicted by a former Defence Attaché who revealed that the Indian Air Force suffered avoidable losses due to political instructions barring strikes on Pakistani military installations and air defence systems.Disconnect between govt’s muscular posturing and the operational constraints it imposed on India’s armed forcesThis exposes a troubling disconnect between the government’s muscular posturing and the operational constraints it surreptitiously imposed on India’s armed forces. Likewise, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated in the Rajya Sabha that, “Pakistan could not cause any damage on the Indian side”. This assertion was also directly contradicted by India’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) who confirmed that the Indian Air Force lost fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan.Equivalently, the Indian Airforce has is severely handicapped with only 29 operational squadrons, against a sanctioned strength of 42. This is especially alarming given Pakistan is set to receive the J-35, a fifth-generation aircraft from China. Similarly, nearly all BJP’s ministers overlooked the human costs of the war, when at least 15 Indians were killed and 59 injured due to Pakistani shelling.These collectively suggest a deliberate attempt by the BJP government to obfuscate the true costs of the operation, presumably to protect Prime Minister Modi’s strongman image. This seriously impairs our national security, especially given there are bound to be future conflicts with hostile neighbours. Unless we ask ourselves uncomfortable questions, how will we course-correct and emerge stronger?Thirdly, on the diplomatic front, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar heralded “Operation Sindoor” as a foreign policy coup, claiming that “only three countries apart from Pakistan opposed us” out of 193. But this claim belies the thinness of actual support. If global backing was so widespread, why did the BJP government feel the need to dispatch all-party delegations to 33 countries to lobby against Pakistan?Moreover, while the BJP trumpeted endorsements from the Quad and BRICS groupings, it glossed over the fact that those statements were formulaic and stopped short of naming Pakistan directly. They were weaker than the Hyderabad resolution that 100+ progressive parties (of which over 25 are in government) endorsed at the Telangana government organised Bharat Summit in April 2025.Crucially, the BJP government also obscured the fact that it failed in diplomatically isolating Pakistan. Not only has Pakistan cumulatively received roughly US $43 billion in funding from the International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, it also assumed Chair of the 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee in June, as well as Vice‑Chair of the 1373 Counter‑Terrorism Committee (both at the United Nations).Essentially, the BJP government was unsuccessful in stopping Pakistan’s global propaganda which managed to create a false equivalency between Pakistan (an aggressor, using terrorism to achieve political goals) and India (a victim, rightly defending its national security).Failure to stop Pakistan and China coming together in an iron-clad embraceThis is entirely a political failure, and has nothing to do with our diplomatic corps, or the all-party delegation’s efforts. After all, after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the United Progressive Alliance government’s strategic diplomacy isolated Pakistan globally, and contributed to UN sanctions on Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders involved in the plot. Additionally, the UPA government’s diplomacy led to the arrests of suspects who ventured outside Pakistan and strengthened international counter-terrorism partnerships with Saudi Arabia etc.Even China proactively shared information about Pakistan-based terror groups (See “Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy”, by Shiv Shankar Menon) (unlike today, when it provided Pakistan real-time battlefield intelligence during Operation Sindoor and openly fetes Pakistan as an “all-weather strategic partner”).This is perhaps the BJP government’s biggest strategic failure, in that it has failed to stop Pakistan and China coming together in an iron-clad embrace, threatening our whole northern border, something Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi was rightly highlighted.Fourthly, the BJP government repeatedly attacked the INDIA bloc for its supposed national security failures. Without dissecting the merits of BJP’s multiple assertions, it is worth acknowledging that every government has made mistakes. To claim infallibility would smack of hubris and an unwillingness to learn (and course-correct) from mistakes.Such an attitude would prioritise the maintenance of power over the national interest, or even the well-being of Indians. Unfortunately, that is what the BJP government seems to be doing. For example, whilst attacking the opposition, PM Modi claimed that “the masterminds of terrorism used to relax after an attack and would begin planning another one” (because of supposed inaction by previous governments). He conveniently failed to mention that after IC-814 was hijacked, the then-BJP government released Masood Azhar, who later founded Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).JeM went on to orchestrate the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2019 Pulwama bombing. The Prime Minister also claimed that “for the first time, we attacked terrorists on their own ground”. Not only did the Prime Minister forget his own government’s surgical strikes in response to the 2016 Uri attack, but also the six surgical strikes conducted during the UPA government’s tenure (conducted in June 2008, September 2011, January 2013, July 2013, August 2013, and January 2014).Prime Minister Modi also claimed that “the Congress displays negativity towards the armed forces”. Yet he forgot that when he was Chief Minister, he himself said at a gathering of the Confederation of All India Traders in February 2014 that “more than our soldiers, it is our traders who are known for their risk-taking capacity”.Similarly, he overlooked BJP Minister Kunwar Vijay Shah’s communal remark on Colonel Sofiya Qureshi (he called her “sister of terrorists”) or BJP parliamentarian Tejasvi Surya’s assertion that India’s military only saw real victories under the Modi government (which was factually debunked by Nationalist Congress Party (SP) Member of Parliament Supriya Sule who rightly highlighted Operation Polo in 1948, Operation Vijay in 1961, the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965, the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War etc. as examples of military successes before 2014).Fifthly, while some of BJP’s attacks could be dismissed as efforts to whip up the sentiments of BJP’s core base, two particular assertions that the BJP government repeatedly made need to be dissected separately because they will have profound geopolitical consequences. On one hand, PM Modi’s declaration that “water and blood cannot flow together” has been a recurring BJP motif, both inside and outside Parliament. He went on to suggest (something multiple BJP ministers also mirrored) that the Indus Waters Treaty would be put in “abeyance”.This is being proselytised as a major diplomatic coup. In reality, the government has taken no actual steps to prevent the flow of water to Pakistan, rendering the threat purely symbolic. However, this rhetoric may have a real cost, given China (Pakistan’s iron-clad ally), appears to be retaliating by building a dam on the Brahmaputra, gravely endangering India’s water security. Yet, the BJP government has offered no mitigation plan to counter this alarming development.On the other hand, the BJP government also seemed to denigrate all peace initiatives as Pakistan-appeasement. Without being pacifist (for national interest must be vigorously and militarily pursued if diplomacy fails), the BJP government fails to understand that peace in South Asia is critical to India. India must foster peace in order to maintain its economic and global trajectory (something hardliners in Pakistan desperately want to sabotage).By adopting a policy of permanent civilisational conflict, the BJP is unwittingly playing into the hands of Pakistani hawks (while endorsing the Two-Nation Theory, which India vehemently rejected in 1947). However, careful observers also know that Prime Minister Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore just days before the 2016 Pathankot attack, the BJP government’s deal with the Pakistani government to open the Kartarpur Corridor despite cross-border infiltration and the 2021 ceasefire reaffirmed through backchannel talks (reportedly facilitated by the United Arab Emirates) are evidence of the BJP government’s willingness to pursue peace.The BJP government is destroying the bipartisan foreign policy consensusBut in hawkishly sabre-rattling to caricature the opposition (whilst pandering to its core base), the BJP government is destroying the bipartisan foreign policy consensus painstakingly forged over the past 75 years.Lastly, if the BJP government genuinely believes in sabka saath, and sabka vishwas, over three months after Pahlagam, there is no evidence of the union government giving any compensation to the aggrieved families of the 26 murdered or the 17 injured through the two schemes related to such matters – the Central Scheme for Civilian Victims of Terrorism or the PM’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF).After the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the UPA government had disbursed Rs. 10 lakh per victim from the PMNRF, covered long-term medical costs, and ensured rehabilitation support through coordination between the Home Ministry and state governments. Additionally, state governments complemented compensatory efforts as well (for example, Maharashtra gave Rs. 1 lakh to victims, Andhra Pradesh gave Rs. 3 lakh etc.).Today only state governments have given compensation to victims from their respective states (with only Jammu & Kashmir announcing Rs. 10 lakhs to victims, irrespective of the states they came from). It is shocking if the union government abdicates its moral and financial responsibility towards victims of the Pahalgam terrorist attack, and outsources it to states. This raises troubling questions about a governance model that privileges optics over outcomes, and narrative control over solace to our fellow citizens.Finally, today we stand amidst unprecedented global turmoil. India is surrounded by conflict in West Asia, in Thailand-Cambodia, and in Myanmar. We have strained ties with our neighbours, whether it is Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka or China (not to mention Pakistan). The international world order is also being disrupted by economic imperialism (characterised by sanctions, tariffs, and cloud capitalism). India needs to be stable, secure and united to tackle this chakravyuh.This necessitates the resolution of both internal and external problems, without which global disruptions could overwhelm us. The onus therefore lies on the BJP government to overcome its partisan blinkers and unite the nation in these extraordinary times. It needs to understand that the Opposition (as also all progressives who its ecosystem vilifies as anti-national) are genuinely partners in national development. Unless it conjoins every Indian in a national enterprise to further strengthen the noble mansion of India, India cannot realise her manifest destiny in the fellowship of nations.Pushparaj Deshpande is the director of Samrudh Bharat Foundation and the author of “Bharat Jodo Yatra: Reclaiming India’s Soul” (HarperCollins).