Shashi Tharoor’s 4 objections as Trump claims credit for India-Pak truce

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday (May 12) strongly criticised US President Donald Trump’s claim of halting hostilities between India and Pakistan, saying it resembled “a politician wanting to take credit for something” and slammed the American leader for re-hyphenating the two South Asian countries.

Tharoor pointed out that the US president tried to make a "false equivalence" between India and Pakistan and said it was equating the victim with the perpetrator which was "shocking".

Tharoor told PTI that while the Government of India may have probably let Trump take credit for the de-escalation, the government has made it clear that the ceasefire followed a request from the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) of Pakistan to his Indian counterpart.

“We never wanted a long war,” said Tharoor, recalling that India had retaliated against terrorist targets in reprisal for the Pahalgam attack, and had no interest in prolonged conflict.

Also Read: Tharoor slams trolls abusing foreign secretary Vikram Misri over Op Sindoor

Four key objections

In a strongly-worded post on X, Tharoor laid out four principal objections to Trump’s statement:

False equivalence: Tharoor said Trump’s message implied a false equivalence between the victim and the perpetrator, and seemingly overlooks the US’ own past unwavering stance against Pakistan’s well-documented links to cross-border terrorism.

Undeserved negotiations: He argued that Trump's statement granted Pakistan a negotiating platform which it certainly has not earned. “India will never negotiate with a terrorist gun pointed at its head,” Tharoor declared.

Internationalising Kashmir: Trump's tweet, Tharoor said, “internationalises” the Kashmir dispute, an obvious objective of the terrorists. India rejects the idea of a dispute and sees the problem as an internal affair of the nation. India has never requested, nor is likely to seek, any foreign country’s mediation over its problems with Pakistan, he added.

Re-hyphenating India and Pakistan: Tharoor lamented that Trump’s framing might influence the global community to return to the outdated practice of clubbing India and Pakistan together — something India has worked for decades to change.

“Since President Clinton in 2000, no US President has visited India and Pakistan in the same trip. This is a major backward step,” he said.

Also Read: Trade not discussed between India, US during Indo-Pak conflict as claimed by Trump: Reports

Pakistan's betrayal

Tharoor clarified that he was speaking in his capacity as a Member of Parliament and said that he did not like Trump's social media posts on the issue.

He asserted that the tension between India and Pakistan is not new. He said that even if open hostilities have paused, the bilateral relationship remains tense.

“Peace in this case is just the absence of war,” he cautioned.

The MP pointed to long-standing mistrust between India and Pakistan and stated that after the 2016 Pathankot attack, India "graciously" invited Pakistani officials to participate in the investigation into the attack.

Pakistan's intelligence officials visited the Indian airbase, went back and later claimed that India had staged the attack. That incident, Tharoor argued, marked the last straw in India's trust towards Pakistan's military establishment.

"That’s when the Government of India concluded, that you could never really trust the Pakistani military establishment and the entire apparatus there," he said.

"So if you look back at where things stood even before Pahalgam, it was not a very warm relationship," he said.

Also Read: Op Sindoor: PM Modi's address spells out 3 key points on Pak and terrorism

'Situation still fragile'

After the Pahalgam attack, things have worsened between the two countries, Tharoor added.

“We’ve suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, reduced personnel at the Pakistan High Commission, and removed defence attaches.”

He stressed that even without a shooting war, the relationship remains “very tense".

"For three-four days, we were shooting at each other which was a very serious matter which seems to have been brought to a halt right now. I hope it stays that way, but the situation is still fragile," Tharoor said.

Also Read: Targeting of civilians marks alarming shift in terror tactics: DGMO

Misri confirmed ceasefire

India and Pakistan have reached an understanding to stop all firing and military actions on land, air, and sea with immediate effect after four days of cross-border strikes that triggered fears of a wider conflict.

In a short announcement, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the directors general of military operations of the two countries agreed on the understanding during a call on Saturday (May 10) afternoon.

However, Trump was the first to publicise the development — via social media — claiming that the US had mediated the truce.