Friends and detractors of Prime Minister Narendra Modi know that there is nothing casual about the man from Gujarat. Practice your speeches, measure your words, and then articulate your message for maximum impact. Over the weekend, addressing the tri-services in historic Longewala, where a company from the Punjab regiment and Air Force Hunters destroyed 40 Pakistani tanks in the 1971 conflict, Modi explained the Indian war strategy and certainly not he was a pacifist. He said that India is ready to understand or make the adversary understand, but that there will be fierce retaliation if the enemy tries to test its military might. Simply put, India does not seek confrontation, but will stand firm should it be confronted. In Modi’s speech there was a message for the national and international audience. He skipped the East Asia Summit to be with Indian troops on Diwali day and asked Foreign Minister S Jaishankar to speak in his place.
Modi’s position has been consistent. For example, during the Balakot attack on February 26, 2019, after the Pakistani propaganda machine began publishing photos of a captured and bleeding Abhinandan wing commander, Modi let Islamabad know that India would launch a missile attack. if it suffers any damage. Indian Air Force pilot. He called for Indian Prithvi missiles to be deployed in the Rajasthan sector. Such was the impact of the message that the Indian MiG 21 pilot was released by the Pakistani government the next day.
In Longewal, as he has done before, Prime Minister Modi criticized the expansionist policies of the current Chinese regime (although he did not name the country) saying that it was the product of a twisted 18th century mentality and that India would firmly oppose it. This went against the Chinese description of the rapidly emerging QUAD grouping of India, the United States, Japan and Australia as a product of the Cold War mentality.
At Longewala, Modi again reiterated the Indian determination to take the battle to the enemy or extinguish the threat to India at its source. This new offensive-defensive doctrine of India has been accompanied by the construction of projection capacity of airborne and expeditionary forces, something that will guarantee that future battles are not fought on Indian soil.
Prime Minister Modi’s statement should not be seen in isolation, but in the context of what his national security adviser Ajit Doval said on the banks of the Ganges River in Rishikesh on October 22 and what Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, at the East Asia Summit on Diwali. Their message was not covered in sugar; it was an expression of what India expects from its neighbors in terms of (crushing) cross-border terrorism and (enhancing) the freedom to navigate the South China Sea and resist any attempt to reach the Chinese pond. Without seeking any acrimony or confrontation with Beijing, what Jaishankar broadcast on Saturday was a reiteration of Japanese Prime Minister Modi’s conversation with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the first summit in 2014. At the time, Modi’s strong position It alarmed some Indian mandarins, but the PM has stayed true to that. Another issue is that Jaishankar was among the most moderate voices in the South China Sea at the East Asia Summit.
While India and China are on track to disengage and scale back East Ladakh to mutual satisfaction, New Delhi is not negotiating too much with the PLA to bring the Depsang surge issue to current resolution nor is it willing to give up an inch of territory the friction points at Galwan, Gogra-Hot Springs and Finger Spur 4 on the northern banks of the Pangong Tso.
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