Democracy’s Red Line: Keep the Army Above Politics

The Congress party and the INDIA bloc’s steady decline since 2014 has been marked by many errors, but few as damaging as turning national security into a stage for partisan provocation. Recent remarks by senior leaders, including former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, cross a dangerous line—shifting from legitimate scrutiny of the government to reckless commentary on military operations and force structure.

Such statements, made without authority or expertise, risk undermining the apolitical sanctity of India’s armed forces. The silence of the Congress high command only deepens the concern. Democracies thrive on accountability, but they weaken when political ambition erodes institutional respect.

Criticising policy is a right; casting doubt on the Army’s necessity or credibility is not. India’s armed forces are not political props—they belong to the Republic

The Congress party’s and bloc INDIAs long political decline since 2014 has been marked by many misjudgements, but few as self-destructive as its persistent habit of turning national security into a theatre for partisan provocation.

With recent statements by senior leaders—including a former Maharashtra chief minister, former union minister and trusted confidant of Rahul Gandhi—Prithvi Raj Chouhan, the party appears to have crossed from clumsy dissent into something far more troubling: a casual disregard for the sanctity of India’s armed forces.

He said India was defeated on day one of operation Sindoor and all its air force flights were completely grounded. He also batted for dilution, redeployment, or delegitimisation of military capacity.

It is a matter of shame that he continues to be defiant and says he will not apologise as it is the right of the opposition to question the government. Such comments are not expected from a person who was the former CM and an important union minister in PMO under prime minister Manmohan Singh.

The politicians have no right to pronounce, from public platforms, on military strength, force structure, or operational outcomes.It is worth stating clearly what should not need reiteration: questioning government policy is legitimate; questioning the integrity, intent, or necessity of the armed forces is not.

Democracies thrive on accountability, but they weaken when political actors forget the distinction between civilian oversight and institutional erosion. That distinction, once central to India’s political culture, now seems inconvenient to a Congress leadership struggling for relevance.

The most shocking part of this ridiculous statement is that the Congress high command led by Sonia, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge are maintaining stoic silence over the issue. This gives an impression if the Congress and INDIA bloc supporting Pakistani ideology.

This is no longer a question of slip-of-the-tongue remarks or isolated misstatements. A pattern has emerged. At moments of national remembrance like ‘Vijay Diwas’, during sensitive military debates, or in the aftermath of operational decisions, opposition leaders repeatedly choose insinuation over information and rhetoric over responsibility.

The result is predictable—and damaging. Public trust in politics sinks further, while the armed forces are dragged into controversies, they neither seek nor deserve.

Hatred for a leader cannot become indifference to national interest. Anger at an electoral opponent cannot justify carelessness with national security narratives.

When that threshold is crossed, the cost is borne not by politicians, but by soldiers who serve in silence while debates rage without consequence.Its time even hardcore Congress sympathisers should condemn the statement and teach them a lesson by not voting for them at all hustings that would now follow.

India maintains a standing force of over 12 lakh personnel not by ideological preference but by strategic compulsion. Surrounded by hostile borders, an assertive China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, persistent proxy threats, and internal security challenges leave little room for amateur theorising. To suggest otherwise is not strategic insight; it is strategic illiteracy.

The argument advanced by sections of the Left ecosystem—that they want peace not war is no less weird.How can there be peace unless a country has a strong army. Their ideologies have been tried, tested, and rejected by history.

It finds no takers even in Beijing, which continues to expand and modernise its military while speaking the language of stability. It finds no validation in Pakistan, where hostility is masked as diplomacy. To imagine that India can secure peace by appearing militarily tentative is not moral courage; it is strategic fantasy.

On days meant to commemorate the sacrifice of our brave soldiers from the highest rank to that of a sepoy with customary military solemnity and dignity to mark mark India’s decisive victory in the 1971 Indo–Pakistan War and when India is erasing the colonial legacy by replacing the photos of colonial army with brave Indian warriorswho are winners of Param Vir Chakra in Rashtrapati Bhavan, political leaders choose to question military decisions or outcomes, the message that travels far beyond India’s borders is one of institutional fragility.

Congress’s defenders insist the party respects the armed forces. Respect, however, is not asserted; it is demonstrated. It is demonstrated by restraint, by precision of language, and by the humility to accept institutional limits. It is demonstrated by using Parliament, committees, and briefings—not television studios and sound bites—as arenas for scrutiny. By those standards, recent conduct falls conspicuously short.

There is also an irony the Congress cannot escape. For decades, it championed the idea of institutional primacy. It warned against politicising the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the military.

It relied heavily on the armed forces during moments of national stress and praised their professionalism when unity was at stake. To now treat the same institution as a rhetorical instrument marks not ideological evolution but abandonment of its own legacy.

This shift appears driven less by conviction than by compulsion. An opposition struggling to articulate a coherent alternative often defaults to negation. When opposition to a government becomes an end in itself, institutions inevitably become collateral.

The danger is that hostility towards an elected leadership gradually mutates into cynicism about the state itself. History shows that democracies falter not when governments are criticised, but when institutions are casually delegitimised.

It bears emphasis: no political party owns the armed forces. They are not extensions of executive power, nor props for opposition rhetoric. They belong to the Republic of Bharat. Any party that forgets this erodes not the government of the day, but the fragile consensus that keeps civil–military relations healthy.

This is why the issue demands more than partisan rebuttal. It calls for introspection—within the Congress, and across the political spectrum. A line must be reaffirmed: policies may be contested, decisions debated, outcomes scrutinised—but the armed forces must remain above suspicion and beyond political theatre.

If the Congress still has a choice. It can rediscover the restraint that once defined responsible opposition, or it can continue down a path where every provocation narrows its credibility further. History will record which course it chose. The nation, meanwhile, must insist on one non-negotiable principle: India’s armed forces are not fair game. They never were. They never should be.

(The author is a former Chief Editor at The Hans India)