India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on April 5, 2024 said India will give befitting reply to those who try to disturb peace in India. He went on to say that cross border terrorism from Pakistan will be met with asymmetric border retaliations.
Singh’s statements echoed PM Narendra Modi ‘s sentiments from a rally held recently where he asserted that India’s stance on terrorism has changed under his reign and the enemy knows that this is a new India which enters into enemy territory to give them a befitting reply (Yeh Naya Bharat Hai Jo Ghar Mein Ghuskar Marta Hai).
Both statements reflect how, over the past ten years, India’s policies on terrorism, miscreants and neighbours especially China and Pakistan under the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) have shifted from slow to anger diplomacy to a harder outspoken diplomacy. The Modi government has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism and is conveying to the international community India’s determination in its fight against the menace.
Addressing a public rally in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, PM Modi said “the stones thrown by stone pelters in Kashmir, Modi took that stone and started building Viksit Jammu and Kashmir, Today, every Indian says (Niyat Sahi to Nateeje Sahi).
BJP government works without any discrimination and we want our policies to reach everyone and for this we have worked for ten years. Our Mantra is Saturation, which means people should benefit hundred percent, that is the real secularism and real social justice. I gave you a guarantee that Desh Jhukne Nahi Doonga.
On April 5, 2024, the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in conversation with an Indian media agency’s Editor in Chief about a report in the Guardian newspaper claimed that Indian agencies had a hand in assassination of twenty terrorists in Pakistan, said, Whichever terrorist tries to disturb India from our neighbouring country or carries out terrorist attacks here, we will retaliate against them harshly. If he flees to Pakistan, we will enter Pakistan and kill him,” Singh said.
A day before i.e. April 4, 2024, the External Affairs Minister Subramaniam Jaishankar also affirmed India’s Stance on Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) and that we will never accept that POJK is not an integral part of India.
“On the issue of POJK, there is a national position and not the party’s position. The Parliament of India has taken a united stand supported by every political party. We will never accept that POJK is not an integral part of India.
The central issue when Pakistan is considered is terrorism and on the terrorism issue, we as a party and the government is clear that we will not ignore terrorism and won’t look away when terrorism happens, we will deal with it, will reply and that has been our record, he said.
In March 2024, Rajanth Singh, while speaking at an Indian media agency programme, said that the People of POJK are themselves raising demands for a merger with India and expressed confidence that they (POJK citizens) will join India. POJK was ours, is ours and I am confident that it will merge with India.
During the winter session of the parliament in December 2023, the Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, while speaking in the Rajya Sabha attacked India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru over the Jammu and Kashmir issue. Shah reiterated his accusations that it was because of Nehruvian blunders that Pakistan could occupy a portion of Kashmir, which is called POJK or Azad Kashmir.
“Jahan Tak Nazariye Ka Sawaal Hai, desh ki ek bhi inch zameen ka sawaal hai humara nazariya tung rahega, hum dil bada nahi kar sakte. No one has the right to give away a section of our land to show off their big heart,” Shah had said.
In a warning to people posing threat to the law-and-order situation in Uttar Pradesh, CM Yogi Adityanath said that the BJP has not only brought Bhagwan Ram to the state, but will also ensure Ram Naam Satya Hai for those who threaten the society and warned that their life criminals miserable.”
“Earlier, no one ever thought that daughters and traders could venture out at night without worry. We ensure ‘Ram Naam Satya ‘(last rites done) for the danger posed to the safety of daughters and businessmen. We live our lives chanting Bhagwan Ram’s name. Without Bhagwan Ram, nothing is possible. But when someone poses a threat to the security of society, ‘Ram Naam Satya ‘is also certain,” Adityanath said on April 5, 2024.
In 2022, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, during a New York visit, took a veiled dig at China and its ally Pakistan and said, “On the challenge of terrorism, even as the world is coming together with a more collective response, multilateral platforms are being misused to justify and protect perpetrators.”
He seems to be referring to the repeated holds and blocks on proposals to blacklist terrorists, specifically those based in Pakistan such as Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar. He also called Pakistan the epicentre of terrorism and said, “The world today sees them (Pakistan) as the epicentre of terrorism.
Now I know we have been through two-and-a-half years of Covid and a lot of us have brain fog as a result. But I assure you the world has not forgotten where does terrorism (emanate), who has their fingerprints over a lot of activities in the region and beyond the region.”
