Sonia Gandhi Takes on Modi Over Israel, Iran, Gaza; Amit Shah’s Attack on English Betrays India’s Pluralist Foundations
Can his silver-spoon children match up to Mukesh Ambani's zeal?
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
June 20, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
‘This is not an era of war’ is a nostrum Narendra Modi is fond of offering up even as the wars raging all around Eurasia directly disprove his assertion, and his unwillingness to criticise those responsible for the violence has cost India its moral claim to leadership of the Global South. Today, it fell upon senior Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi to speak up. In an op-ed for The Hindu, she wrote that the government’s “silence on the devastation in Gaza and the hostilities against Iran is a disturbing departure” from India’s moral and diplomatic traditions and “represents not just a loss of voice but also a surrender of values.”
Condemning Israel for its “deeply troubling and unlawful strike against Iran and its sovereignty,” she said,
“As with so many of Israel’s recent actions, including its brutal and disproportionate campaign in Gaza, this operation was executed with utter disregard for civilian lives and regional stability. These actions will only deepen instability and sow the seeds of further conflict.”Modi, of course, finds it hard to focus on anything other than pushing the political cause of his Bharatiya Janata Party at home. In a statement that is bound to offend the government of Croatia, which just hosted his visit – the first ever by an Indian PM – Modi told a party rally in Bhubaneswar that the reason he turned down US President Donald Trump’s invitation to visit Washington after the G7 summit in Canada was because of his desire to visit Odisha. The poor Croats, in other words, didn’t count at all:
“Just two days ago, I was in Canada for the G7 summit and the US President Trump called me. He said, since you have come to Canada, go via Washington, we will have dinner together and talk. He extended the invitation with great insistence. I told the US President, thank you for the invitation. It is very important for me to go to the land of Mahaprabhu (Odisha) and hence I politely declined his invitation and your love and devotion to Mahaprabhu brought me to this land,".”Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Gary Anandasangaree, has said his government has had “difficult conversations” with India about the 2023 murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar “and that will continue”. However, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his office have “ducked” pointed questions about whether the issue was directly raised with Modi during his recent visit for the G7 summit, reports Robert Fife.
Nearly 300 Indian students landed in Delhi Friday night on special flights run by Iran’s Mahan Air from Mashad on the government of India’s behalf.
In Manipur, on Modi’s (distant) watch, the era of war continues to make its presence felt. A Meitei farmer in Manipur's Bishnupur district was shot in the arm yesterday afternoon while he was working on his field. Security forces launched a search operation nearby when, per the Manipur police, they “came under fire from unknown armed miscreants and … retaliated accordingly”. A Kuki woman was killed in the crossfire that ensued, the police said. The farmer's shooting and the woman's death have drawn condemnation from organisations representing their respective ethnic groups.
Yesterday also happened to be the day that the family of Lamnunthem Singson, the Kuki flight attendant who died in the crash of Air India flight 171 in Ahmedabad last week, was supposed to arrive in the predominantly Meitei Imphal valley with her mortal remains from Gujarat. They had received assurances of cooperation from the state government through the army as well as the influential Meitei civil society group COCOMI; but they ultimately decided to travel to their home district of Kangpokpi from Dimapur, Nagaland. “… The family declined, not out of fear, but out of wisdom [to go to Imphal]. We know how volatile the valley is. One wrong move could put lives at risk and derail our larger struggle,” Singson's cousin David said speaking to Yaqut Ali.
Singson and a Meitei member of the cabin crew, Nganthoi Sharma Kongbrailatpam are among the scores of people who died in the crash eight days ago, for which we still don't have an official death toll. Today the Gujarat government announced it had identified 220 victims through DNA testing and returned the remains of 202 people to their families, reports Abhinay Lakshman. The state government had earlier said it collected samples from 250 victims.
The cause of the crash remains unknown as well. An analysis of the aircraft's black box could be key to knowing what happened and how, and the civil aviation ministry has said that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau will decide where this analysis will happen following “due assessment of technical, safety and security factors”. Some had reported on Wednesday that the black box would be sent to the US in lieu of facilities in India that would be able to extract information from the device in question, which suffered heavy damage during the crash.
Meanwhile, it has come to light that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation regulator pulled Air India up after it found during a spot check last month that the airline flew three Airbus aircraft despite safety checks on their escape slides being overdue. Aditya Kalra reports that on one aircraft, checks were overdue by more than three months; on another by over a month; and on the third by two days. Air India's failure to “submit timely compliance responses … further [evidenced] weak procedural control and oversight,” said a report by the DGCA. The Tata-owned airline has said it will ‘accelerate’ the verification of maintenance records, including those on the slides, and finish the process in the coming days.
Karishma Mehrotra and Supriya Kumar widen the arc of concern by noting the risks of India’s infrastructure boom: “For more than a decade, pilots and judges have warned that India’s breakneck urban development was pushing population centers closer to the nation’s runways…. In many cities, buildings, warehouses, electricity poles and even towering billboards crowd flight paths.”
Destroy CCTV, webcasting and photo media pertaining to the poll process 45 days after voting if a verdict isn't legally challenged during this time, the Election Commission has directed state election commissioners on the grounds that there has been “misuse of this content by non-contestants for spreading misinformation and malicious narratives on social media by selective and out-of-context use”, PTI reports.
The Karnataka government has prepared a draft ‘anti-fake news’ law under which “social media users found guilty of posting fake news will face up to seven years imprisonment and a maximum fine of Rs 10 lakh,” reports Bharath Joshi:
Fake news is defined as “misquotation or the false and/or inaccurate report of one’s statement; editing audio or video which results in the distortion of facts and/or the context; or purely fabricated content.”
The draft law defines misinformation as “knowingly or recklessly making a false or inaccurate statement of fact, whether wholly or in part, in the context in which it appears excluding opinions, religious or philosophical sermons, satire, comedy or parody or any other form of artistic expression if a reasonable man of ordinary prudence does not pursue such communications as statements of fact”.
The Supreme Court put a stop to the 'bulldozer justice' being pushed by governments in different parts of the country because the executive can't be judge, jury and executioner, Chief Justice of India BR Gavai told a gathering of Italian judges in Milan yesterday.
India and China recently agreed to restart the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage that involves travel to Tibet, and this pilgrimage has historically “played a positive role in restoring stability in China-India relations during times of crisis”, the South China Morning Post quotes scholar Yang Yabo as noting in a recent article. Even so, the Hong Kong-based newspaper writes, the pilgrimage will take place against the backdrop of the two countries' border dispute as well as the “rise of nationalist sentiment in both countries”.
Speaking of Sino-Indian relations, yesterday marked five years since Prime Minister Modi said in a televised – and later redacted and ‘clarified’ – address that “neither has anyone intruded into our border, nor is anyone intruding”, contradicting his own government's earlier remarks saying that Chinese troops “sought to erect a structure in the Galwan valley on our side of the LAC”. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh took stock of issues in the relationship on this ‘fifth anniversary’, including the continuing existence of buffer zones in eastern Ladakh, our widening trade deficit with Beijing as well as the threat of deepening collusion between China and Pakistan.
After first targeting senior advocate Arvind Datar, the Enforcement Directorate has issued summons to another senior lawyer asking him to turn over documents related to the legal advice he had provided a client facing investigation. There is now reason to believe there is a pattern to this process, presumably with the aim of deterring lawyers from accepting certain briefs.
Five assembly seats across the country saw by-polls yesterday: Nilambur in Kerala, Kaliganj in West Bengal, Ludhiana West in Punjab, and Kadi and Visavadar in Gujarat. Ajoy Ashirwad has compiled a who's who of these seats and which way the political winds tend to blow there.
This is perhaps a first in Indian politics. The Congress party held a job fair at an indoor stadium in Delhi on Rahul Gandhi's 55th birthday. Thousands of job-seekers turned up, as did dozens of companies, reports Zenaira Bakhsh.
The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh's governments are bickering over the latter's proposed Godavari-Banakacherla project that aims to link the waters of the Godavari river with those of the Penna in southern Andhra in order to mitigate drought in that region. Politicians in Telangana have accused the N Chandrababu Naidu-led Andhra government of not seeking approval from a set of regulatory bodies and tribunals. The episode has also seen Telangana's Congress and Bharat Rashtra Samithi butt heads.
Can his silver-spoon children match up to Mukesh Ambani's zeal?
Reliance's efforts to diversify its business, double in size by the end of this decade and expand its reach abroad has generated keen interest in the next generation of Ambanis whose leadership skills are likely to be tested by these plans. Multiple people the Financial Times spoke to said they wondered if the triad of Akash, Isha and Anant Ambani have their father's business acumen and drive:
“I’m not sure what to make of the Ambani kids,” says one fund manager. “They appear in public but they don’t say enough for us to make an independent assessment of their capabilities,” he adds, describing the succession as one of corporate India’s most “vexed” issues.
Some contrasted the austerity that Mukesh and Dhirubai Ambani experienced early on with the wealth the trio grew up in. One person suggested they would remain the conglomerate's “face” while “operational responsibilities are pushed down to non-family professionals”.
Piyush Goyal, Anand Sharma spar over 2010 India-ASEAN free-trade deal
India's 2010 free trade agreement with the ASEAN bloc is a “silly” thing, said Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal, because it is ‘opening up [India's] market to its competitors’; moreover many countries in ASEAN have become Beijing's ‘B-team’ as they are a conduit through which Chinese goods reach India. Instead, he added, India is better off signing deals with economies that aren't India's competitors but which complement it. Congress leader and former commerce minister Anand Sharma has retorted that Goyal ought to be “prioritising strengthening trade relations with partner countries and not insulting them while bending backwards to negotiate a suboptimal trade agreement with the US on its terms”.
Christian schools in MP sense ‘something deeper’ is behind their hectoring
Prateek Goyal tracks four cases from the last two years where Christian schools in Madhya Pradesh were at the receiving end of hectoring by Hindutva groups or the authorities. In one instance, a school in Guna alleged that members of the ABVP browbeat its officials to install photos of Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Mohan Yadav; in Sehore, Goyal finds that ABVP members were present when a school had its computers confiscated in an illegal fee hike case and were throwing school equipment into garbage trucks; in a Jaora school the cops failed to dissuade ABVP members who replaced a photo of Mary with those of Bharat Mata and Saraswati; and in Jabalpur the authorities were criticised by the courts for their enforcement of school fee laws, which one missionary school leader alleged was a case of selective targeting.
A number of such schools allege that these incidents are “symptoms of something deeper”, reports Goyal.
The Long Cable
Amit Shah’s Attack on English Betrays India’s Pluralist Foundations
S N Sahu
Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s outrageous statement that “In our lifetime, we will see a society in which those speaking English will feel ashamed…” is not only an affront to the legacy of freedom struggle stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Maulana Azad, but also a blatant violation of the Constitution, which explicitly provides for the use of both Indian languages and English in several of its articles. That Shah made this remark on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution adds an element of contempt to the occasion.
By making such a remark, which borders on hate speech, Shah undermined the very idea of India, an idea rooted in linguistic diversity and cultural plurality. In his statement, he claimed that the languages of our country are ornaments of our culture, asserting that without them we could not call ourselves Bharatiya. “Our country, its history, its culture, our Dharma—if these have to be understood, it cannot be done in foreign languages,” he declared. This assertion disregards the historical reality that several foreign languages, including English, have helped transmit the treasures of Indian culture to the wider world.
Gandhi and the English Gita
Mahatma Gandhi never read the Bhagavad Gita in its original Sanskrit. His first encounter with it came in London, where he read The Song Celestial, the English translation by Edwin Arnold. So profound was its spiritual impact on him that it played a transformative role in shaping his life and thought – thoughts that later became central to the freedom movement. The Gita’s message was not devalued simply because it was rendered in English. Shah’s logic, which disparages English speakers, is thus an insult to Gandhi’s legacy. While Gandhi strongly championed Indian languages and expressed himself with excellence in his native Gujarati, he was also one of the most articulate Indian writers and speakers in English.
Writing in Young India on 26 January 1921, Gandhi stated: “I would have our young men and women with literary tastes to learn as much of English or other world languages as they like and then expect them to give the benefits of their learning to India and to the world, like a Bose, a Ray or a Tagore.” He added forcefully: “But I would not have a single Indian to forget, neglect or be ashamed of his mother tongue or to feel that he or she cannot think or express the best thoughts in his or her own vernacular.” Gandhi’s views were rooted not in narrow nationalism or linguistic chauvinism but in a universal, inclusive ethos that rejected hatred.
Tagore and English
Rabindranath Tagore never formally studied English, yet he wrote essays in the language with as much brilliance as he did poems, plays and other works in Bengali. The Sahitya Akademi’s publication English Writings of Tagore captures the richness and exuberance of his literary expression in English. Globally, Tagore is celebrated for his creative excellence in Bengali, and his compositions continue to be recited across linguistic and cultural platforms in India and abroad.
Maulana Azad and English
Maulana Azad too had no formal education in English, yet he fully grasped its significance in the modern world. He wrote: “Howsoever wrongly the English language made its way into our life, the fact remains that it has influenced our mental and educational outlook for the past one hundred and fifty years.” While he acknowledged the harm English had caused in some respects, he also highlighted its contributions: “The greatest advantage that we gained from the adoption of English was that many of the obstacles were automatically removed from our newly born national life. It has led to the unification of the whole of the country. All the different parts of the country were brought together in spite of distances and different languages. In this respect, it can be said that English has played the same part in cementing and uniting India as did Persian in Moghul times.”
At the same time, he warned that English could not remain dominant forever and that Indian languages must be given their rightful place. “We have to decide after mature deliberation how to bring about this change,” he said.
A Constitutional Violation
Amit Shah’s remarks lack such “mature deliberation” and directly contravene the Constitution. Article 120 allows Members of Parliament to speak in Hindi, English or their mother tongue. In state legislatures too, members are permitted to speak in English in addition to the language of the state.
Article 348 stipulates that English can be used in the Supreme Court and High Courts, and in the authoritative texts of laws, bills and acts. The Constitution also mandates the translation of every amendment, originally drafted in English, into Hindi.
During the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign, when the opposition raised concerns about saving the Constitution, Shah professed a newfound reverence for secularism and even declared that the word would not be removed from the Preamble. Now that he has poured scorn on English, will he have the courage to propose that all references to the English language be struck from the Constitution?
Shah must move beyond his party’s outdated and narrow ideology of “one nation, one culture.” He must embrace the pluralism that defines India, an essential part of which is linguistic diversity. That diversity includes Indian languages, English and other foreign tongues, all of which have contributed to the richness of our civilisational experience.
(S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.)
Reportedly
As a goodwill gesture, on March 12, both Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Mittal, who control India's telecom services market, signed separate MoUs with Elon Musk's Starlink to provide value-added satellite communication services in India. The move came after Trump and Modi agreed in principle to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement. The goodwill gesture by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surprised everyone because the MoUs were signed even before a comprehensive satellite spectrum allocation policy had been announced. It showed Musk's clout that the MoUs preceded a full policy framework.
But last week, both Airtel and Jio formally objected to the rather low spectrum licence fee announced by the Department of Telecommunications for Starlink's entry. This raised many eyebrows as both Jio and Airtel had seemed very favourably disposed to Starlink just over two months ago. So what changed now?
Some speculate that both the Indian companies are now seeing an opportunity in the falling out between Musk and Trump. How this plays out remains to be seen.
Pen vs sword
Deep dive
Ankit Panda looks at the first South Asian crisis of the third nuclear age.
Prime number: 1 in 4
Nearly one in four Indians say they consume entertainment and media content only on their mobile phones and not on television sets. Opeds you don’t want to miss
Pakistan’s respected daily, Dawn, editorialises on the ‘power lunch’ Field Marshal Asim Munir just had with Donald Trump.. “Pakistan must proceed carefully,” the newspaper says. “Improved ties with Washington should be pursued, especially in the economic and geopolitical spheres. But it should also be remembered that the US leader is known for making sharp U-turns, and what is considered American policy today may be disowned and discarded tomorrow.”
No one knows if the goat cheese gateau and burnt cipollini soubise the White House chef served at the famous Trump-Munir lunch were to the Pakistani field marshal’s liking, but it is more than evident that this breaking of bread in Washington has set the cat among some very nervous strategic pigeons in New Delhi. writes Harish Khare.
India has no reason to worry, writs Lt Gen (Retd) Ata Hasnain, batting for the optimists in Delhi. “Trump’s outreach to Pakistan should not be read as a betrayal or a shift away from India. It is better understood as tactical engagement.”
Farwa Sial looks at the consequences of the ongoing Israeli war against Iran, one the US may join, and whose goal is regime change and why the Global South needs to defend Iran from the impending catastrophe:
“Iran today functions as the last coherent pillar of autonomous strategic resistance in the Middle East. Its removal would leave not only a security vacuum but an ideological void. In its place could emerge a patchwork of client regimes, militant enclaves, and permanent Western bases; a geopolitical reordering reminiscent of the post-Ottoman partition, but magnified by nuclear and macroeconomic complexity. A stable Iran is not only in Tehran’s interest, but also in that of Pakistan, China, and the broader Global South.”
Suhasini Haidar looks at the mixed-to-indifferent reaction that India’s post-Sindoor diplomatic outreach generated and argues that “carrying a tough message on terror is easier for the diplomats tasked with the role, if in a strife-roiled world, the government plays to India’s advantages — as a secular, stable, pluralistic, rule-abiding democratic and economic power.” Something clearly the Modi government in recent years has not been doing.
The government’s announcement that it is looking at mandating 20 degrees celsius as the lowest temperature setting for air-conditioners is a ‘quick-fix’ that will do little to address problems of rising heat in Indian cities, writes Trishna Sarkar. Instead, it needs to plan cities in ways that obviate heat islands:
“Let’s talk about restoring green spaces, reimagining how we build our cities, choosing materials that breathe, creating open-ventilation corridors, and designing buildings that stay cool naturally. Let’s talk about increasing the efficacy of public transport systems so that people rely less on cars. Let’s plan office areas close to where people live.”
Aviation reporter Jagriti Chandra says the silver lining of her beat – dominated by people open to intimidating, buying out or boycotting journalists – are those sources who brave risks to their careers out of dedication to meaningful change. Indeed journalism and questioning are “not just important but essential”, as some people realise during events like last week's crash, she writes.
Listen up
Will delaying the census end up affecting its implementation? What concerns are there regarding the 2027 census being a ‘digital’ one? How should the government go about counting castes and should censuses take place more often? Lokniti's Sanjay Kumar and the Population Fund of India's Poonam Muttreja discuss with Vijaita Singh.
Watch out
Producer, director and cinema historian Nasreen Munni Kabir speaks to Varrun Sukhraj about Raj Kapoor's “artistic partnership with Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, his cinematic treatment of morality and class, and how his vision was shaped by political conviction, musical poetry, and emotionally complex characters”.
Over and out
Priya Ramani profiles literary agent Kanishka Gupta, one of the most sought after names for budding authors. So what makes him special?
“He may not yet have discovered an Arundhati Roy in his slush pile, like literary agent David Godwin once did, but Gupta now has an author roster that includes two International Booker winners in four years. He is the agent for Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp (translated by Deepa Bhasthi), which recently bested around 150 entries to win the prestigious prize. He was also translator Daisy Rockwell’s agent when she and author Geetanjali Shree won the 2022 International Booker for Tomb of Sand.”
Danny Boyle has a new film out, 28 Years Later, and Xan Brooks gets him talking about his work, including Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscar-winning 2008 film based on Vikas Swarup’s novel that he says “we wouldn’t be able to make … now”:
“Is he saying that the production itself amounted to a form of colonialism? “No, no,” he says. “Well, only in the sense that everything is. At the time it felt radical. We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We’d work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you’re still an outsider. It’s still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I’m proud of the film, but you wouldn’t even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn’t even get financed. Even if I was involved, I’d be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.”
Meryl Sebastian profiles Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, an independent-minded lawyer who served in the Viceroy's Council in British India. Among those he criticised were Reginald Dyer, whose massacre in Jallianwala Bagh Nair sought to publicise in Britain; Punjab lieutenant governor Michael O’Dwyer, to whom he refused to apologise for ‘libel’; as well as Mahatma Gandhi, whose civil disobedience movement he took issue with.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.
English cricket and the Mahabharata are possibly the three things that unite the entire country