Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s various belligerent statements to invade Pakistan are totally in line with India’s hegemonistic designs against the neighbours. In the latest statement on 25 July 2023 Rajnath Singh said that India is ready to cross the Line of Control (LoC) to maintain its honour and dignity. “We can go to any extreme to maintain the honour and dignity of the country…if that includes crossing the LoC, we are ready to do that…if we are provoked and if the need arises, we will cross the LoC,” Singh said.

Pakistan Foreign Office reacted to this bellicosity, “We counsel India to exercise utmost caution as its belligerent rhetoric is a threat to the regional peace and stability and contributes to destabilising the strategic environment in South Asia,”.

In Nov 2021 Rajnath Singh had threatened to carry out military action on Pakistani soil if provoked. He pledged that his country would carry out operations across the international border into Pakistani territory if India’s western neighbour “creates a lot of trouble”. “Now we have given them the message that if you … create a lot of trouble, then not just at the border, we can cross the border and carry out a surgical strike as well, and if needed carry out air strikes as well,” Singh said, addressing a ceremony in the northern Indian town of Pithoragarh. Pakistan Foreign Office termed it as “highly irresponsible, provocative and gratuitous”.

Later, in a statement MoFA rejected Singh’s statements and accused the Indian government of “engaging in falsehoods and fantasies while pointing fingers at neighbours”. “His unfounded remarks are delusional on the one hand, and reflective of India’s characteristic hostility towards its neighbours on the other,” said the Pakistani statement.

Earlier in  August 2019, amid mounting pressure on India over its illegal move in Occupied Kashmir, Rajnath Singh made a cloaked threat of a nuclear war in the region. Albeit Rajnath Singh didn’t name any country, it is understood the threat was directed at Pakistan.
“Pokhran is the area which witnessed Atal Ji’s firm resolve to make India a nuclear power and yet remain firmly committed to the doctrine of ‘No First Use’. India has strictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in future depends on the circumstances,” Singh wrote on his verified Twitter handle.

The threat of the Defence Minister of a nuclear state to the neighbouring nuclear power with whom it has fought three wars is fraught with dangers. Pakistan has never believed in the Indian doctrine of ‘No First Use’ which it thinks is a deception. Rajnath Singh’s threat confirms this apprehension without a grain of doubt.

In Dec 2016, when Rajnath Singh was Home minister of India, while speaking to a gathering in Indian Occupied Kashmir’s Kathua district, he said, “A neighbouring country of ours again and again encourages terrorism and terrorist activities to harm India,” The Times of India quoted Rajnath Singh as telling the gathering. “Pakistan has been divided into two countries. If it does not stop cross-border terrorism, it will soon be in 10 pieces,”.

The Foreign Office condemned his statement, saying it vindicated its stance that India was involved in subversive activities to destabilise Pakistan.

 Indian PM Modi and his hawkish team comprising Ajit Doval and Rajnath Singh play good cop- bad cop  in a clumsy manner. While Modi tells his voters to forget about Pakistan as it is in doldrums, his team leaves no stone unturned to harm or hit at Pakistan. His military commanders are in cahoots with the political masters to gang up in their rhetoric against Pakistan. The threats to invade Pakistan are of course not without approval of PM Modi. It has developed its military muscles and entered a strategic partnership with the US which has emboldened it.  

On regional level India is trying to run with the  hare and hunt with the hounds. It wants to flirt with the US but date with  Russia to establish its hegemony in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. It has strengthened its position through QUAD and I2U2, primarily to counter China, but poses threat to Pakistan in very clear terms. Pakistan must keep its house in order and be ready to pick up the gauntlet to face the challenges created by India at all levels; diplomatic, military, and economic.

Author: Dr. Naveed Elahi, Editor ‘The Strategic Brief’