Analysis | How long can Tharoor defy Congress and hold ceasefire with Modi?

Congress Working Committee member and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said on Thursday that his party had not communicated any disapproval of his remarks on Operation Sindoor that were widely perceived to have saved Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the political embarrassment caused by American President Donald Trump's patronising move to claim credit for the Indo-Pak ceasefire.

"I was at the meeting of Congress leaders for two hours and 15 minutes and during that period neither was there a mention of my remarks nor was I talked to directly," Tharoor told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, referring to the strategic session chaired by Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi in the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on May 14. "I saw certain reports in the media but I don't know from where it originated," Tharoor said.

The Congress displeasure was indeed made public during a press conference held before the strategic session on May 14 by Jairam Ramesh, the party's general secretary in-charge of communications. Ramesh had angrily dismissed a question about Tharoor's views. "What Tharoor saab speaks is not the party's stand. It is his personal opinion," he said.

Tharoor rebuffed the charge that he was deviating from his party's line. "During this war period, I know of just one party line and this was to stand united with the government and the Indian Armed Forces. On the basis of this, I give my personal opinion based on my knowledge and understanding of the issues involved," the MP said.

Moreover, he said that he was not the spokesperson of the Congress party. "So let there be no misconception. When I talk, I talk as an individual citizen, as an Indian. And I am asked these questions because I have a fairly good understanding of external affairs. So I was not speaking for my party or the government. I was just giving my personal opinion," Tharoor said, and stuck to his stand.

"I am of the opinion that India would not do certain things," he said. By this he meant that India would not have sought third-party mediation on the Indo-Pak conflict and would not have agreed to hold talks with Pakistan in a neutral location or a third country.

American secretary of state Marco Rubio, in his X post on May 10, said: "Over the past 48 hours, @VP Vance and I have engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, and National Security Advisors Ajit Doval and Asim Malik."

The sentence that came next in the Rubio tweet was politically devastating for Modi, the Prime Minister of a country that had all along resisted with vigorous diplomatic force any attempt to internationalise the Kashmir issue. "I am pleased to announce the Governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site," Rubio wrote.

The very next day, Trump re-hyphenated India and Pakistan, a habit India forced the world to renounce during Atal Bihari Vajpayee tenure. "While not even discussed, I am going to increase trade, substantially, with both of these great Nations. Additionally, I will work with you both to see if, after a “thousand years,” a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir," Trump said in his Truth Social post on May 11.

These American claims prompted the Congress, which till then had kept in check its combat mode, to resume questioning the Centre. It called for an all-party meeting and a special session of the Parliament, and taunted the PM and his external affairs minister for remaining silent on America's role. "For the last few days, the Congress party is asking why US President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. This is happening for the first time. PM Modi does not say anything on this. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that America's role was so important that it was because of them that this war stopped. EAM (external affairs minister) Dr Jaishankar does not even answer this. We are continuously asking why PM Modi and EAM are not answering what the role of America is?...", Jairam Ramesh said.

As the Congress turned on the heat and alleged that India was coerced into a ceasefire, Tharoor went on domestic and international platforms and gave what has widely been accepted as a compelling defence of the Prime Minister and his government.

"Trump announcing the ceasefire was a terrible idea but if you are implying that we could have controlled it or perhaps a Prime Minister from another party could have controlled Trump better well I am happy to wish you good luck in doing that. This is a gentleman who escapes such easy control. So I don't know whether it is entirely appropriate to score political points off Mr Trump's shoulders because Mr Trump is Mr Trump and I don't know if anybody in any foreign country is able to control what he does and how he does it," Tharoor said in one of his interviews.

Tharoor seemed to unquestioningly accept the Centre's narrative and sounded considerably more articulate than the best BJP spokesperson. "All I can say is India has to make it very clear to the world, to Mr Trump, to the Pakistanis and to the Indian public whether we are going to do what Mr Trump implies we are going to do, and it has already become very clear that we are not. We are not going to give the Pakistanis the benefit of a negotiation that they have done nothing to earn, we are not going to give them the privilege of sitting across the table as a reward for having killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam. Their behaviour has been egregious and we are not going to talk lovey-dovey with Pakistan for a long time to come. As far as the question of re-hyphenation and internationalisation and so on, let someone try and get us to talk to Pakistan and we will tell them exactly why we won't," Tharoor said in his interviews.

But all this while the Congress was attempting to ask tough questions. It wanted the government to set up a Pahalgam review committee on the lines of the Kargil review committee in 1999; the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had set up the committee three days after the war ended. It was asking why the PM was not sacking Madhya Pradesh's BJP minister Vijay Shah for calling Colonel Sophia Qureshi the "sister of terrorists". It was also questioning why the Centre had called a meeting of only NDA chief ministers on May 25.

It is not clear for how long Tharoor could come to Modi's defence as Trump has gleefully grabbed his chance to improve his swagger on the world stage at India's expense.

On May 14, the day when the Congress held its strategic session with Tharoor in attendance, Trump was in Saudi Arabia for the Saudi-US Investment Forum. There, he continued to patronise India and Pakistan.

"Just days ago my administration successfully brokered a historic ceasefire to stop the escalating violence between India and Pakistan. And I used trade, and I said fellows, come let's make a deal. Let's do some trading. Let's not trade nuclear missiles, let's trade the things that you make so beautifully and they both have very powerful leaders, strong leaders, smart leaders and it all stopped, and I am proud of Marco Rubio and all of the people who worked for it," the US President said.

He also congratulated Marco and Vice President J D Vance for a "great job done".

He even seemed to imply that, thanks to America, India and Pakistan were getting to be civilised. "Actually they are getting along, we can even get them together Marco where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn't that be nice? Millions of people could have died from that conflict that started off small and was getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the day," he said.

The Congress pounced on this. "A few days ago we learnt of the ceasefire with Pakistan from the President of the United States. Now, at a public event in Saudi Arabia yesterday, the President reveals that he may have coerced and blackmailed India into this ceasefire using the carrot-and-stick of sanctions and trade deals. What do the typically loquacious PM and EAM (external affairs minister Jaishankar) have to say about this revelation? Did they mortgage India’s security interests in the face of US pressure?," Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday.
It did not seem like Tharoor was sufficiently provoked by Trump's condescension.