Special session pitch unites INDIA bloc
This week, the Modi government announced the monsoon session of Parliament, scheduled from July 21 to August 12, rejecting the demand by more than 17 Opposition parties for a special Parliament session to discuss the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. The INDIA bloc parties had written to the Prime Minister for the special session. Initially, the perception was only Congress MPs had sent the letter.
However, the party decided to rope in INDIA bloc partners at the insistence of the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi. The TMC, which always toes a different line from that of its constituents in the INDIA bloc, came on board after Gandhi personally reached out to TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee. Gandhi also made an extra effort to reach out to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, DMK's TR Balu, and Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Aditya Thackeray.
Sources said the party went into overdrive, with general secretary KC Venugopal and deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi following up with the main opposition parties. Tamil Nadu MP Manickam Tagore coordinated with the DMK and others in the state, Kerala MP Suresh Kodikunnil contacted the Left and other parties.
Bihar MP Mohammad Jawed held talks with the AAP, but to no effect. NCP(SP) leader Supriya Sule maintains she could not sign the letter as she was on the multi-party delegation outreach; sources in the Congress debunk her claims. "Sharad Pawar could have signed it," says a leader who was part of the talks.
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India and Pakistan, by contrast, are both fully sovereign states that emerged from a negotiated partition of British India in 1947, each with their own internationally recognised borders and UN memberships. The bilateral conflict, especially over Kashmir, stems not from a denial of statehood but from unresolved territorial claims. Pakistan's continued insistence on linking Kashmir to Palestine flattens these distinctions and obfuscates the history of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism across Indian territory - from Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir to episodic destabilisation in India's Northeast. Equating Pakistani actions with Palestinian resistance also undermines the moral and strategic integrity of the Palestinian cause. It erases the fact that, unlike Palestinians under occupation, Pakistan has used its sovereign apparatus to sponsor and shelter groups involved in acts of terror. This deliberate state complicity - acknowledged even by global institutions - makes Pakistan an aggressor, not an aggrieved actor. Minorities, Democracy, and Statehood One of the more dangerous simplifications of the analogy lies in the misrepresentation of internal minority politics in both regions. It is true that India is facing criticism over recent communal tensions, polarised discourse, and policies perceived as marginalising Muslims. However, equating that with the condition of Palestinians under occupation ignores the difference between a flawed democracy and an apartheid state structure. In India, Muslims remain an electorally significant, constitutionally recognised group whose cultural, linguistic, and religious institutions are protected under law. Their political presence - though under strain - remains visible. From Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the country's first Education Minister, to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, one of India's most beloved Presidents, the leadership and legacy of Indian Muslims is historically well-anchored. In contemporary times, figures like Asaduddin Owaisi, a staunch government critic, and Salman Khurshid, a senior Congress leader with no constitutional post, were both part of an all-party delegation sent abroad to brief international counterparts in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor. Their inclusion, despite being politically oppositional, signals a rare bipartisan consensus on matters of national security. Contrast this with Pakistan, where Ahmadiyyas are constitutionally barred from calling themselves Muslims, and Shias are frequently targeted in sectarian violence. The state's own structures are often complicit in marginalising non-Sunni groups, with blasphemy laws regularly weaponised against minorities. 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Far from mimicking Israeli policy, India has walked a diplomatic tightrope - deepening bilateral defence relations with Israel while maintaining principled solidarity with Palestine. Conflating these divergent positions is not only analytically lazy but diplomatically counterproductive. It risks damaging India's credibility in the Global South, especially at a time when New Delhi seeks to position itself as a mediator and developmental partner in multilateral spaces. More importantly, it insults the Palestinian struggle by associating it with Pakistan's agenda of using terrorism and religious nationalism as tools of foreign policy. Reject Lazy Analogies Both the Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan conflicts demand global attention. But attention should not mean abstraction. The occupation of Palestine is a human rights crisis rooted in land, displacement, and statelessness. The India-Pakistan dynamic, while also involving land and identity, is situated in a very different matrix: of two sovereign nations, one of which has routinely used terrorism to internationalise what is essentially a bilateral issue. Sympathy for the Palestinian cause should not be hijacked to justify flawed analogies that exonerate state complicity in South Asia. Nor should India's legitimate counterterrorism operations be lumped with settler-colonial violence. Doing so only weakens both struggles - reducing history, diplomacy, and suffering to hashtags. In times of polarisation, strategic clarity is not just a virtue, it is a necessity. India is not Israel. Pakistan is not Palestine. And equating them does justice to neither the complexity of history nor the urgency of peace. (Ashraf Nehal is an author, analyst and columnist, who writes on South Asian geopolitics, climate action and world affairs. He was a former PM Young Writing Fellow)
