How 'The Guardian' Article Bolsters BJP's 2024 Campaign, PM Modi’s Call of 'Ghar Mein Ghus Ke Maara'

‘Ghar Mein Ghus Ke Maara’ — this call from the Narendra Modi-led BJP worked wonders for the party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, after people gave a resounding thumbs-up to India’s twin surgical strikes in Pakistan in 2016 and 2019.

The latest ‘The Guardian’ article, on how the Indian government ordered assassinations in Pakistan as part of a wider strategy to eliminate terrorists on foreign soil, will only buttress and bolster that image of the BJP’s ‘no-nonsense’ approach against terror emanating from Pakistan soil.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a rally in Bihar on Thursday, said “Aaj Ka Bharat Ghar Mein Ghus Ke Marta Hai” and lamented that India under the Congress rule was seen as a weak government. “Those small nations who are begging for wheat, their terrorists used to attack us and go away and Congress government used to go to other countries with a complaint,” PM Modi said in an apparent reference to Pakistan. This came a few hours before ‘The Guardian’ article appeared.

The foreign ministry, in its response to ‘The Guardian’, has denied the claims made by the UK newspaper reiterating an earlier statement that they were “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”.

The ministry emphasised a previous denial made by India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar that targeted killings in other countries were “not the government of India’s policy”. The BJP, however, will have little reason to complain as the targeting of terrorists in Pakistan by the Indian intelligence agencies “only adds to the clamour amongst the general public to teach Pakistan a lesson when it comes to harbouring terrorism”, a senior BJP leader told News18. “One can see the response of people on social media to ‘The Guardian’ article and judge for themselves,” the leader said.

An earlier statement of the prime minister, when he said that “Pakistan should be spoken to in a language that Pakistan understands” when it comes to terrorist strikes on Indian soil from across the border, is also being cited by the right-wing ecosystem to back the government’s approach.

‘The Guardian’ article has cited allegations of up to 20 assassinations since 2020 following Canada’s accusation of Delhi’s role in murders of dissidents. It says India’s foreign intelligence agency allegedly began to carry out assassinations abroad as part of an emboldened approach to national security after 2019. The fresh claims by ‘The Guardian’ relate to almost 20 killings since 2020, carried out by unknown gunmen in Pakistan.

A second BJP leader said the Opposition would also not be able to take on the government on this issue as it knows that such claims only help the ‘strong image’ of the Modi government.

“If foreign intelligence agencies can carry out such strikes in other countries, why not India? It is a fact that there has been no major terror strike in India in the last 10 years due to a strong approach of the Modi government. When two big strikes happened in Jammu & Kashmir in 2016 and 2019, India responded by surgical strikes which have set the benchmark. Pakistan is silent as it always claims it does not harbour terrorists,” the second BJP leader said. However, officially the Indian government will deny any involvement as claimed by ‘The Guardian’ article, as there is no evidence.