The party also says the report’s description of Pahalgam incident as an insurgent attack is ‘simply beyond understanding’
NEW DELHI — Congress has sharply criticised the Narendra Modi government for its “stunning silence” after an independent US Congressional commission released a report that controversially described Pakistan as having achieved “military success over India” during the May 2025 Operation Sindoor standoff.
In a series of posts on X on Thursday, Congress general secretary and head of Media and Communication department Jairam Ramesh, said the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCCESRC)—a 12-member body appointed by the US Senate and House of Representatives—had made “astonishing and unacceptable” claims in its nearly 800-page annual report. He pointed specifically to sections on pages 108–109, where the commission referred to the Pahalgam terror attack as an “insurgent attack” and suggested that Pakistan gained an upper hand in the four-day confrontation with Indian forces.
“These descriptions are simply beyond understanding,” he wrote, demanding to know whether the Prime Minister and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had lodged any protest. “Our diplomacy has suffered yet another severe setback,” Ramesh said.
The Congress leader also linked the report to US President Donald Trump’s persistent assertions about intervening in the India-Pakistan clash. “President Trump has claimed 60 times (so far) that he halted Operation Sindoor,” Ramesh said, noting that the prime minister “has kept completely quiet” in the face of such statements.
In a follow-up post, Ramesh pointed out that Trump repeated the same claim for the 61st time at a US-Saudi Arabia conclave attended by the Saudi Crown Prince. According to Ramesh, the US President again boasted that he ended Operation Sindoor by threatening to impose tariffs of 350 per cent on India.
“Within hours of the release of an independent US Commission’s report claiming Pakistan’s ‘military success,’ the US President has once again trumpeted his claim,” Ramesh said, questioning why the Modi government has failed to respond either to Trump or to the Congressional report.
The Commission’s report asserts that “Pakistan’s military success over India in its four-day clash showcased Chinese weaponry,” adding that while Beijing may not have initiated the conflict, it “opportunistically leveraged the situation to test and advertise the sophistication of its weapons—particularly relevant given its ongoing border tensions with India.”
According to the panel, “Pakistan’s use of Chinese weapons to down French Rafale fighter jets used by India became a particular selling point for Chinese embassy defence sales efforts.” The report notes that “in the weeks following the conflict, Chinese embassies hailed the performance of their systems in the India–Pakistan clash, using the moment to bolster weapons sales worldwide.
The Ministry of External Affairs has so far made no public comment on the matter.
India has repeatedly dismissed Pakistan’s claim of “downing six Indian jets”, while acknowledging that there were some “losses” during the successful Operation Sindoor.
