Congress’s “Pakistan Syndrome” goes far beyond sympathy for Pakistan. It is a deliberate imitation of Pakistan’s formula for self-destruction. Terrified of losing its Muslim vote-base, Congress avoids any decisive action against Pakistan and instead prioritises appeasement over India’s security and national interests.
This fear has hardened into a political culture identical to Pakistan’s–constant blame-shifting, denial of failures, manufactured lies, baseless accusations, and deception as a survival strategy.
The outcome is dangerous — Congress weakens India’s unity, democratic integrity, and national will, while marching down the same path of decay that has ruined Pakistan.
In the tumultuous history of South Asia, Pakistan has often been criticised by its own citizens, by external observers, by dissidents for a certain signature of institutional decay, which is a mix of external blame, internal denial, dependency, moral-posturing and soft diplomacy that substitutes for real reform.
Over decades, that political culture weakened civilian institutions, eroded public trust, and left governance fragile. It is a matter of growing concern that parts of that same culture, once alien to Indian democratic politics now appear to be creeping into the political behavior of Congress.
This is not to equate the two at state-level or suggest identity equivalence but to warn that the strategic mindset and institutional failures in both cases show disturbing structural similarities.
That parallelism helps explain why many perceive Congress today as having adopted a “Pakistan-friendly rhetoric” as part of its survival strategy.
Blame, Denial and Dependency: The Default Reaction to Failure
For decades, Pakistan’s political-military establishment responded to crises economic downturns, governance failures, terrorism allegations with a familiar playbook to externalise blame, claim victimhood, cry conspiracy, deny internal faults, and depend on foreign aid or borrowed legitimacy rather than internal reform.
Critics say Congress now mirrors these tactics–after electoral drubbings, governance lapses, or public discontent, the chosen response often is to blame others, the media, institutions, ruling party conspiracies, “polarisation,” or external interference .
Instead of introspecting over internal flaws like weak leadership, organisational collapse, or ideological drift, what follows is not reform or recalibration, but coalition-building, absorbing defectors, and riding the old brand legacy.
When a political force relies more on “borrowed” legitimacy than earned public trust, it loses the capacity for genuine self-correction. That, more than simple incompetence, is what transforms decline into disintegration.
Soft Diplomacy and “Appeasement”: Treaties, Water, and Strategic Naiveté
Between India and Pakistan, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) — signed in 1960 — long symbolised a hope for peaceful coexistence and cooperation. Under it, India agreed to give Pakistan control over the western rivers (Indus, Chenab, Jhelum) while retaining unrestricted use of the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej).
But that treaty, critics argue, was less an equitable water-sharing agreement than a strategic concession–giving Pakistan access to water vital for 80% of its agriculture. Over decades, even as Pakistan repeatedly indulged in cross-border terror and aggression, the water flows continued — as a gesture of goodwill, idealism and “peace-first” diplomacy.
This legacy of soft diplomacy and strategic generosity is often cited as the hallmark of “appeasement politics” — where national interest is compromised for moral diplomacy, even in the face of repeated provocations.
When confronted with hostile acts, Pakistan’s establishment routinely used denial, moral-posturing, victim-narrative and soft rhetoric instead of robust accountability. That steady denialism masked systemic failures, while external borrowing (economic aid or alliances) kept the regime afloat.
Some critics now argue that Congress, with its past endorsements of IWT and its continuance under times of hostility reflects a version of the same “strategic naiveté.”
More troublingly, where national outrage demanded unambiguous condemnation of terror or aggressive diplomatic isolation, Congress often adopted a cautious, sometimes apologetic, posture and questioned responses rather than unequivocally denouncing terror; and defended soft-spoken statements as “personal opinions” or cultural empathy.
In doing so, it inadvertently echoes the same strategic complacency and moral high-ground diplomacy that has kept Pakistan’s establishment afloat — even as it undermined its own moral and strategic standing.
Institutional Erosion: From Organisational Strength to Alliance-Driven Survival
Pakistan’s political parties, once robust and grassroots-rooted, over decades degenerated into fragmented entities — dependent on the military, foreign support, unstable coalitions, or external loans. Political legitimacy shifted from public mandate to strategic survival. The result: unrepresentative governance, weak institutions, repeated crises.
Congress too — once a mass-based party with credible leadership and ideological coherence — appears to have lost those strengths. Its organisational base has weakened; its cadre-level presence in many states is dwindling.
Electoral successes (when they come) increasingly depend on alliances with regional parties, defectors from other parties, and legacy identification (the “brand” of Congress or its past glories), rather than fresh mass mobilisation or ideological clarity.
Internal dissent finds little space; leadership remains centralised; ideological compass appears fuzzy. When a party’s survival depends more on outside alliances than on internal strength, it bears a suspicious resemblance to decayed political structures — not of robust democratic opposition, but of unstable, alliance-based, survival-oriented coalitions.
Moral Posturing, Victimhood Narratives, and Political Opportunism
Perhaps the most dangerous resemblance lies in the shift from accountability to moral posturing, from governance to rhetoric; from action to victimhood; from defence of national interest to identity-based politics.
Pakistan’s decades-old pattern, whenever internal failures accumulated — corruption, economic collapse, human rights abuses — the response was not reform but louder nationalism, victim-narratives (“we are persecuted by the world”), and blind denial.
Domestic dissent was branded with labels — traitor, foreign agent, extremist — and the state consolidated power under the guise of protecting nationalism.
In the case of Congress today, critics allege a comparable shift: when electoral defeats come, or when public outrage rises over policy failures, the reaction often is not introspection but moralistic posturing — “democracy under threat,” “secularism under siege,” “attack on minorities,” “polarisation,” rather than presenting coherent reforms or alternative governance agenda. Allegations are raised broadly, often without transparent evidence, and retreat is swift when counter-evidence is demanded.
Such tactics — emotional mobilisation over rational debate sustain short-term political survival, but hollow out democratic accountability. The party may survive electorally, but its moral authority and capacity to act as a responsible opposition evaporate.
Consequences for India — Why This Parallel Should Worry Us
What happened to Pakistan, institutional decay, erosion of democratic culture, repeated governance crises, economic collapse, radicalization, strategic vulnerability did not happen overnight. It was the result of decades of structural neglect, denial, and a culture that rewarded rhetoric over responsibility.
If Congress continues on a similar path, alliance-dependency, blame-shifting, soft diplomacy, rhetorical victimhood. India risks seeing parts of that decline mirrored here: weakened political alternatives, eroded public trust, polarised identity-based politics, fragile democratic institutions, and strategic naivety in foreign policy.
At a time when India faces serious threats — cross-border terrorism, water security concerns, strategic competition, regional instability — what the nation needs is not empty rhetorical posturing, but clarity, resolve, internal strength, consistent national interest.
A political party that is unwilling to reform itself, that treats public mandate as a borrowed asset, that prefers alliances and sympathy over accountability and structure, becomes a liability — not an alternative.
A Mirror, Not a Copy — But a Warning
It is simplistic — and historically naive — to equate Congress with Pakistan’s establishment. The scale, context, and stakes differ vastly. Yet structural parallels in political culture, strategic complacency, alliance-driven survival, and rhetoric over substance should set alarm bells ringing.
Congress’s collapse will hardly matter to India. Born under British guidance to neutralize India’s armed revolutionary movements, the party convinced Indians to beg for freedom while the real force behind 1947 was the naval, military and air-force revolt — a reality Congress hijacked to claim credit and seize power.
That power soon degenerated into dynastic entitlement, institutional decay, and a political culture now indistinguishable from Pakistan’s strategy of manipulation, blame-shifting, lies and propaganda-driven survival.
India’s rise does not depend on Congress — and never did. India will continue to grow in strength, prosperity and global stature long after Congress fades away. History will also remember its Emergency excesses, misuse of state power, constitutional distortions, and divisive politics — especially its vote-bank appeasement that repeatedly undermined national cohesion.
For India to achieve its full civilizational resurgence, Congress must accept irrelevance — and pass into political oblivion.