Global order shift |
THE occasion was a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — a meeting which took place in the Kyrghyz capital Bishkek. Defence ministers from China and India were in attendance along with others from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and many Central Asian republics who are also members of the SCO. It was here that the Indian defence minister made a statement that was, coming from him, quite surprising. “Terrorism,” Rajnath Singh told everyone, “has no nationality, no theology”.
It is a statement that should have been lauded by all but back home in India it proved unpalatable. No sooner had Singh made these remarks than the Congress-led opposition kicked into high gear. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to X to state: “Yesterday, the defence minister, obviously with the approval of and at the instance of the prime minister, gave a shameful clean chit to Pakistan while speaking in Bishkek. … Clearly this new stance in relation to Pakistan is all part of the PM’s policy of appeasement of the US and calibrated capitulation to China. The defence minister’s shocking statements are as anti-national as the PM’s bizarre clean chit to China on June 19, 2020.”
All this is noteworthy as it reflects both the conundrums India faces........