NEW DELHI: Diplomacy cannot be reduced to appeasement, nor can it be conducted through public posturing designed for domestic political consumption, BJP sources appeared to deliver a lesson in diplomacy as they criticised Sonia Gandhi’s article which questioned the government’s “silence” on the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on Saturday morning.
“Sonia Gandhi’s recent article attempts to portray India’s calibrated response to the ongoing West Asian crisis as silence. That characterisation is not only misleading, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how responsible diplomacy works,” BJP sources said.
The sources pointed out that India has called for restraint and need for de-escalation, adding that that Sonia Gandhi’s criticism amounts to “reckless commentary”.
“India has not been silent. India has consistently called for restraint, respect for sovereignty and de-escalation. A country with millions of its citizens living and working across the Gulf region, with critical energy dependencies and deep economic linkages, cannot afford reckless commentary,” the sources said.
The number of Indians who live in the Gulf and West Asia is about 9 million. There are around 10,000 Indian citizens who live, study and work in Iran, while over 40,000 live in Israel.
“Sonia Gandhi remains selectively outraged. There is little acknowledgment of the anxiety of Indian workers, students, and families caught in the crossfire. Her commentary appears driven less by concern for Indian lives and more by an instinct to frame foreign policy through the prism of appeasement,” the sources said.
Currently, the airspace of West Asia is almost closed. With flight services disrupted due to the military escalation in the Middle East, hundreds of Indians are stranded in Dubai, Doha and other key hub airports, with many of them taking to social media to appeal to the Indian government for assistance.
