‘Call Trump A Liar': Why PM Modi Has Done Well By Ignoring Rahul's Dare

News18

4 days ago

Last Updated:
To call upon Prime Minister Modi to publicly label the head of a partner nation—a key strategic ally—as a liar is shallow, inflammatory, and counterproductive
Rahul Gandhi has set the Prime Minister a test. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the Congress scion taunted the Prime Minister thus: 'If Modiji has even 50% of the courage that Indira Gandhi had, then clearly he must say in Parliament – Donald Trump (U.S. President) is lying…Trump you're a liar you did not make a ceasefire…"
The taunt caparisons a shrill campaign launched by the Congress aimed at providing Modi some sort of gateway to redemption in the public sphere as if he needed one.
For the past few weeks, the principal opposition party has sought to establish that Modi 'surrendered" India's strategic autonomy—that he did so by agreeing to a Donald Trump-dictated ceasefire just as India's armed forces had gained the upper hand over Pakistan's military during Op Sindoor. Trump has inadvertently helped the Congress party's cause by repeatedly crediting himself for 'brokering a truce" between his 'two great friends"— Modi and General Asim Munir.
Nevertheless, to call upon Prime Minister Modi to publicly label the head of a partner nation—a key strategic ally—as a liar is shallow, inflammatory, and counterproductive.
If not Rahul Gandhi himself, then surely his so-called seasoned advisors in the Congress party should recognise that performative diplomacy is, at best, a tone-deaf spectacle—and at worst, a ham-fisted ploy deployed by image-obsessed egomaniacs. History offers no shortage of such self-defeating pageants of brinkmanship. While a leader may gain short-term traction on the domestic front, such gambits almost always squander strategic capital abroad.
Consider the example of Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu. For a while, he sought to consolidate his domestic base by donning T-shirts emblazoned with the highly charged 'India Out' slogan. Encouraged by the domestic reception to this symbolic provocation, Muizzu escalated by pointedly declining an invitation to attend Modi's swearing-in ceremony after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections—a clear and highly personalised diplomatic snub. But the decision to trade goodwill with a reliable regional ally for applause at home came at a steep cost. India reviewed its aid and financial cooperation, and tourist inflow from India plummeted—crippling the economy of the heavily tourism-dependent island nation. With livelihoods at stake, the public mood shifted. Muizzu was soon accused by his own base of jeopardizing the country's economic prospects. Chastened, the once-combative President reversed course. Just two years after his ill-judged flex, Muizzu rolled out the red carpet for Modi.
An even earlier generation of Indians will remember a similar episode of needless performative antipathy – this time from Washington. A taped conversation from June 1971 reveals that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon referred to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as 'that old witch" and a 'cold-blooded b*tch." These remarks, shared privately with aides like Henry Kissinger, were more than casual misogyny; they seeped into U.S. foreign policy posture. India, already wary of American double standards, was alienated further. The resulting diplomatic chill pushed New Delhi into closer alignment with Moscow, altering the regional balance of power for decades.
Today, India is at the high table of global diplomacy. The positions it adopts, the relationships it nurtures, and the battles it chooses to fight carry consequences not only for Indian citizens, but for the wider world. As CEO of the world's largest democracy, Prime Minister Modi cannot afford to lose sight of India's unique place in the global order—or the responsibility that comes with leading it. He has far more to gain, and much less to lose, by rejecting Rahul Gandhi's petulant test of performance politics.
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