Will respond with force, if provoked: Rajnath Singh

Tribune News Service

Ajay Banerjee
New Delhi, April 7

Referring to the ongoing India-China border stand-off, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said it was made clear that “we have never troubled anyone, but if someone troubles us, we will not take it lying down and respond with full force”.

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He said, “An expansionist agenda is against our thinking, culture and thought process. We will not think of pros and cons during war.”

Rajnath Singh was speaking at the release of the book Heroes of 1971, edited by The Tribune Editor-in-Chief Rajesh Ramachandran.

The Tribune Trust President NN Vohra and trustees Lt Gen SS Mehta (retd) and Gurbachan Jagat graced the occasion. Speaking about the book, Rajnath Singh said the articles published by The Tribune were memorable. “The book will refresh memories. We all know that the 1971 war was the most decisive among all India-Pakistan wars. The armed forces showed immense courage, valour and bravery,” he said.

Whatever was happening in East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) was seen by the world. Human rights were being violated. “India decided that it should intervene and it achieved victory. The war was for human assistance. We had no intention of capturing even an inch of Pakistan territory,” he said, adding the nation was indebted to all those who took part in the war.

He noted how the Indian Army treated Pakistani prisoners of war with compassion. He referred to athlete Abdul Khaliq, who was a PoW, saying he was treated with utmost respect.

He said, “Everybody should read the book.” He congratulated The Tribune group and said the book should be translated in Hindi and other languages. He said he read The Tribune daily as it covered defence matters in depth and published some very good articles.

Referring to the jointness of the forces displayed during the 1971 war, the Defence Minister said, “It was a shining example in itself. We are now again discussing jointness and working on it. I cannot say how long it will take. But we are hopeful that a decision is taken soon with the consensus of the three services.”

On self-reliance in defence manufacturing, he said, “We are trying to do many things and have decided that after a certain period, we will not import several items.”

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