THERE is something appallingly unprincipled about the manner in which Sonia Gandhi and her colleagues in the Congress rant and rave each time the BJP-led coalition headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a conciliatory gesture to Pakistan.

This is the very policy which the Congress-led coalition, headed by Dr Manmohan Singh, followed for a whole decade from 2004 to 2014. People were disgusted at the charges by the BJP then. It was none other than Atal Behari Vajpayee, who wrote a long letter in 2005 to the prime minister on “the disturbing turn that the peace process with Pakistan has taken”. It has now “become Kashmir-centric”.

Manmohan Singh replied, reiterating his stand on Kashmir. But he made a telling point which has acquired greater relevance now in view of New Delhi’s objection to the Hurriyat leaders meeting Pakistan’s leaders in New Delhi. “You are aware of the fact that in the last four or five years these leaders have regularly met Pakistani dignitaries visiting India as well as Pakistani diplomats.”

L.K. Advani took up the cudgels in a letter of March 2007 with greater gusto: “May I urge you to categorically state that J&K will neither be demilitarised nor our deployment of troops in aid of civil power made part of any bilateral negotiations”. What they implied, of course, was that there was no room for any compromise on Kashmir. It is perfectly legitimate for an opposition in a democracy to voice its dissent on foreign policy. What is not permissible is hypocrisy; adopting one position when in power and another when in opposition. In this, Sonia Gandhi has simply emulated Vajpayee and Advani.