On June 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will cross a milestone that no democratically elected Prime Minister in India’s history has crossed before — 4,399 days of continuous service, surpassing the record of 4,398 days set by Jawaharlal Nehru. When his years as Chief Minister of Gujarat are added, the total reaches 9,007 uninterrupted days — twenty-five years — of public life devoted to this nation. It is the journey of a Karmayogi who has neither rested nor relented.
These twelve years in office will be remembered for decisions that were difficult to take and impossible to ignore. Economic milestones, infrastructure transformation, welfare delivery at scale — all of these constitute a record that speaks for itself. But it is in the domain of national security that the Modi era has perhaps been most consequential, and most underacknowledged. From the first weeks of his government to Operation Sindoor earlier this year, the Prime Minister has pursued a single, unwavering principle: Nation First, always.
The signal came early. On June 13, 2014 — barely three weeks after assuming office — Modi sat with the country’s senior military commanders in the Defence War Room at South Block to review India’s security preparedness. It was not a ceremonial visit. It was a statement of priority. Every year since, while families across the country have celebrated Diwali with lights and laughter, the Prime Minister has spent the festival at the border — standing with the soldiers who guard India in the cold and the dark. From Siachen onwards, he has visited twelve border locations in twelve years. Those who wear the uniform understand what that means.
Acharya Chanakya had warned centuries ago that a nation without a strong army cannot remain secure. The Jana Sangh – the forerunner of the BJP – understood this with painful clarity after India’s humiliation in the 1962 war with China and China’s nuclear test in 1964. At its Patna Session on December 4, 1964, the Jana Sangh demanded that India develop nuclear capability. Every other party, Congress included, dismissed the demand with ridicule. The answer came on May 11, 1998, when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee conducted the Pokhran tests, making India a declared nuclear power. Modi has carried that strategic legacy forward with purpose and consistency.
The numbers tell their own story. India’s defence budget was Rs 2.27 lakh crore in 2014. Today it stands at Rs 7.85 lakh crore – a three-fold increase in a single decade. Defence exports have gone from Rs 686 crore to Rs 38,424 crore in 2025-26, a 56-fold rise. India now sells its defence products to over 100 countries. The country manufactures hypersonic missiles, the BrahMos, ballistic missiles, the Rudram-2, the Pralay surface-to-surface missile, and the Akash air defence system. INS Vikrant — India’s first domestically built aircraft carrier — sails under the national flag. India has the Rafale and the S-400. When Armenia displayed India-made Akash missiles and Pinaka rocket launchers in Yerevan’s Republic Square, it was a moment of quiet but genuine national pride.
On Independence Day 2025, Prime Minister Modi said from the Red Fort: “Indigenous capabilities and Made in India weapons have proved that national security cannot rest on foreign dependency.” Operation Sindoor was the living proof — all designated targets were achieved in 22 minutes. The Rs 72,000 crore Great Nicobar Project, when complete, will serve as the foundation of India’s maritime strategy and economic security in the Indo-Pacific.
Before 2014, Pakistan-inspired terrorism was not confined to Kashmir — no city in India was truly safe. Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi, Kashi – the memories of those attacks still disturb us. The government’s response has been categorically different. Security forces received modern arms and bulletproof jackets. The “No Money for Terror” framework and sustained FATF pressure cut off the financial oxygen of terror networks. The 2016 Surgical Strike and the 2019 Balakot Air Strike — the first Indian air strikes inside Pakistan since 1971 — established a new doctrine. Operation Sindoor completed it, eliminating terror infrastructure on Pakistani soil and degrading Pakistan’s own security apparatus. The abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 removed the constitutional basis for separatism and consolidated the nation’s unity as an irreversible fact.
On March 31, 2026, India declared itself free from left-wing extremism-inspired Naxalism — a declaration the world took note of. As recently as 2024, 126 districts lived under Naxal terror. In that year alone, 290 Naxalites were neutralised in operations, 1,090 were arrested, and 881 chose to surrender and rejoin the national mainstream. Bastar and every affected region are now witnessing development: roads, schools, and connectivity. The transformation is not cosmetic — it is structural.
Illegal infiltration poses a direct threat to India’s democratic order, internal security, and demographic balance. The government has acted firmly under its “Detect, Delete, Deport” policy. Border surveillance has been significantly tightened. After the BJP’s victory in Bengal, the movement of Bangladeshi infiltrators back towards Bangladesh has become visible. India’s 15,106-kilometre border is being transformed — from a sleeping line to a waking wall — through laser surveillance systems, vibration sensors, and night-vision cameras. The border security budget has been raised by 49 per cent to Rs 5,597 crore.
The invisible battlefield is no less real. Anti-India forces are waging sustained cyber warfare against the country’s digital infrastructure. According to the report placed before the Rajya Sabha Standing Committee on Home Affairs, India faced approximately 54 lakh cyber complaints and fraud attempts worth Rs 31,594 crore and successfully defended against them. In 2024, the government established a dedicated Cyber Commando force. The Defence Cyber Agency (DCYA) and I4C now coordinate India’s digital defence in a structured, institutional manner. On the narcotics front — where drug trafficking funds both terrorism and organised crime — seizures worth Rs 25,330 crore were made in 2024 alone.
The people of India’s border villages have always been the country’s first line of human defence. For too long, they were treated as its last priority. Prime Minister Modi corrected this on Independence Day 2023, when he said from the Red Fort: “These are not the last villages of India — they are the first villages of Bharat Mata.” Under the Vibrant Villages Programme, Phases 1 and 2, Rs 11,639 crore has been committed to developing 4,121 border villages — all-weather roads, solar energy, mobile connectivity, schools, clinics, and tourism infrastructure. In 2023, 600 sarpanches from border villages gathered at the Red Fort grounds. The frontier had come to the capital, and the capital acknowledged it.
Security, in the Modi vision, does not end at the border — it begins in the national mind. In his Panch Pran pledge, the Prime Minister called upon India to free itself from the mentality of colonial servitude. The response has been systematic. The IPC and the CrPC have now been replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Rajpath is Kartavya Path. The Navy’s emblem carries Chhatrapati Shivaji’s royal seal, the Vedic mantra ‘Sham no Varunah’, and the Ashoka Pillar – in place of British imperial symbols. The Beating Retreat now plays Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Ae Mere Watan Ke Logo’ instead of a colonial military march. The appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff has, for the first time, brought genuine coordination among the three armed services. The expansion of Sainik Schools, the increased participation of women in the military, and the Agniveer scheme are widening the base of society’s stake in national security.
The security decisions of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will be written into history — not as partisan achievements, but as national ones. Security is the precondition for everything else: sovereignty, economic growth, social peace, and cultural continuity. It is because the foundations of security have been strengthened that India today stands on the world stage with confidence, delivering welfare, building infrastructure, and safeguarding its civilisational values. As India moves towards Viksit Bharat 2047, let every citizen’s resolve be this: a secure India is the only India that can be a great India.
