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. 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 India’s war strategy and was certainly not 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 the Indian troops on Diwali Day and delegated on his behalf to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, S Jaishankar. US President Donald Trump did not attend the summit even the last time and the Cambodian leader was in quarantine.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels in an army tank at Longewala in Jaisalmer on Saturday. ( Screenshot )
That Modi was not promoting the war and that he intended to do business is known in Pakistan during the Balakot strike on February 26, 2019. After Pakistani propaganda began publishing images of a captured and bloodied Abhinandan wing commander, Modi let Islamabad know through the then ISI chief that India will launch a missile attack if the Indian Air Force pilots suffer any damage. He relayed through interlocutors that “hamne Diwali ke patake nahin rakh rake (we have not kept Diwali crackers in our arsenal”) and requested that the Indian Prithvi missiles be deployed in the same sector of Rajasthan. Such was the impact of the message that the MiG 21 Indian pilot was released by the Pakistani government the next day.
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Without naming China, Prime Minister Modi took on the expansionist policies of the current Chinese regime saying that it was a product of the twisted mentality of the 18th century and that India would firmly oppose it. In saying this, the prime minister countered the Chinese description of the emerging QUAD quickly, with the United States, Japan and Australia as other members, as a product of the Cold War mentality.
At Longewala, he reiterated again the Indian determination to take the battle to the enemy or extinguish the threat to India at the source. Clearly, this is India’s new offensive-defensive doctrine, along with building expeditionary and airborne force projection capabilities and to ensure 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 cabinet minister called national security adviser Ajit Doval said on the banks of the Ganges River in Rishikesh on October 22 and what the minister said. Minister of Foreign Affairs, S. Jaishankar, at the East Asia Summit on October 22. Diwali Their message was not sugarcoated, but rather an expression of what India expects from its neighbors in terms of cross-border terrorism and 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 Prime Minister Modi’s conversation with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the first summit meeting in 2014. At the time, it alarmed Indian mandarins. but Modi did not. shudder at what he had to convey. Another thing 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 their way to disconnect and downsize from East Ladakh to mutual satisfaction, India is not negotiating too much with the PLA to bring the Depsang rise issue to current resolution nor is it willing to cede an inch of territory from friction points. in Galwan, Gogra-Hot Springs and finger 4 on the north banks of the Pangong Tso. Under Modi, India has decided to draw attention on the basis of building a pro-India lobby in the world and is prepared to defend its own interests by choosing its friends and degrading its enemies.
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