Why is it that to this minute there is no statement from the Indian prime minister contradicting the litany of perverse Trump talk on Kashmir?

There is that old saying: “fools in high places are dangerous”.

Might we add, a ravenously narcissistic one in the highest place in the world even more so.

Is Modi ji’s bearhug pal Trump, for whom he once famously canvassed in a public address in America, being helpful, or is he up to canny tricks? The nation must know.

First, as to his knowledge of world history, dear Donald recently told us that the “Kashmir dispute” between India and Pakistan is a “thousand years old.”

Next, he has claimed that it was his mediation that yielded the truce between India and Pakistan – a truce that Trump and Pakistan call a “ceasefire” and that India dubs a mere interregnum to its ongoing ‘Operation Sindoor.’

Corollary to that claim: Trump has decreed that he will now also ensure that the “Kashmir dispute” is settled. Even if it takes a thousand years.

Anticipating that Modi would say something contrary in his address to the nation (delivered at 8 pm on May 12), Trump dashed in some 15 minutes prior to say that the two warring nations came to the good and proper after he had threatened them with abeyance of all trade with the US.

Despite all these claims, Modi has made not a single allusion to any of Trump’s talking points. Instead, Trump has been allowed to once again hyphenate India and Pakistan, and not to comment on Pakistan’s role in harbouring terror.

The nation may not be faulted for wanting to know why the silence.

Is this because Modi wishes not to offend the all-powerful American leader, or, perish the thought, is it because he knows Trump has spoken the truth?

If it be the first, Modi’s silence hardly does credit to his mighty profile embedded in a nationalism no less exclusive than Trump’s own.

And, if it be the second, questions must abound, whether the current jingoistic warriors like it or not.

For example, it is India’s stated and un-amended policy that matters between India and Pakistan will be addressed only bilaterally. Has that policy been amended without knowledge of or reference to parliament?

Two, are we to understand that Modi has silently acknowledged that there is a “Kashmir dispute”?

Modi avers that this is not the case, saying that only the question of quashing terrorism for ever and reincorporating Pakistan Occupied Kashmir back into the Indian fold remain to be addressed as issues. How then can Trump-speak on the subject be allowed to go uncontested by India?

Why is it that to this minute there is no statement from the Indian prime minister contradicting the litany of perverse Trump talk on Kashmir?

That being so, can the political opposition and the sensible citizen be faulted for requiring that the all-powerful Indian prime minister take the nation and its parliament into confidence on these potentially fraught deviations?

Just to gently remind ourselves: the combined political opposition in parliament represents some 60% of the popular franchise, so that we do not conflate only the ruling BJP with the republic of India.

Tailpiece

Pope Leo XIV in a mass interaction with the world’s media representatives, has underlined the point that without “free speech” there can be no freedom, and that citizens who are kept from the right to information with unmitigated truth, wherever the truth leads, cannot become the guarantors of democracy and truth.

If those be the sentiments of the head of what is considered a closed religious archive, how much more must the world’s political heads endorse that universe of thought?

The pope has gone on to demand the freeing of all journalists held in jails for speaking truth to power.

We say hallelujah and amen.

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