Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

Richer Nations Do Not Have Right To Dictate Their Solutions To Nations In Need Of Support: Defence Minister

February 14, 2023
rajnath singh

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that richer nations do not have the right to dictate their solutions to the nations in need of support.

In his inaugural address at the Defence Ministers’ Conclave held on the sidelines of Aero India 2023 in Bengaluru, Singh said, “there are nations which are richer, militarily or technologically more advanced than others, but it does not give them the right to dictate their solutions to the nations in need of support”.

“This top-down approach towards solving problems has never been sustainable in the long run and it often leads to debt trap, reaction from the local population, conflict and so on”.

He emphasised that the focus should be on providing assistance, in terms of building of institutions and capacities, so that bottom-up solutions can come up organically, in consonance with the ethos of the nations’ being assisted.

Over 160 delegates from several countries, including Defence & Deputy Defence Ministers from 27 countries, 15 Defence and Service Chiefs and 12 Permanent Secretaries from 80 countries participated in the conclave attesting to India’s tremendous growth and engagement in the defence and security sectors.

The broad theme of the conclave was ‘Shared Prosperity through Enhanced Engagements in Defence’ (SPEED).

Defence Minister described collective security as sine qua non (essential condition) for development and prosperity and emphasised that terrorism, illegal arms trade, drugs smuggling, human trafficking, etc. pose significant security threats to the world. He stressed on the need to devise new strategies to counter these threats.

“India does not believe in dealing with such security issues in the old paternalistic or the neo-colonial paradigms. We consider all nations as equal partners. That is why, we do not believe in imposing external or supra national solutions to a country’s internal problems. We do not believe in giving sermons or cut-and-dried solutions, which do not respect the national values and constraints of the countries in need of assistance. Rather, we support the capacity building of our partner countries, so that they may chart out their own destiny, in accordance with their own genius,” he said.

He informed the Defence Ministers that India is moving ahead working with this principle by offering enhanced defence partnership to its friendly countries. “We offer a partnership that is accommodative of the national priorities and capacities. We want to build with you, we want to launch with you, we want to create with you and we want to develop with you. We wish to create symbiotic relationships, where we can learn from each other, grow together and create a win-win situation for all,” he said, reiterating the Government’s endeavour to transcend hierarchical relationship of buyer and seller to a co-­development and co-production model.

He stated that the theme of the event ‘SPEED’ characterises the present era wherein geopolitical and security realities are shifting at hitherto unwitnessed speed. He called for real-time collaboration to respond to such fast-paced changes.

Defence Minister also CEOs of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) on the sidelines of Aero India. During the interaction, he highlighted that India offers significant advantages of competitive land costs, skilled human capital, a vibrant start-up ecosystem and a huge domestic defence market to the Global Defence industry. He described this as a win-win situation where defence manufacturing companies from across the world can become a part of the Indian growth story.

“There are opportunities to co-develop, co-produce, integrate and strengthen supply chains, from Joint Ventures, set up manufacturing in India and make for the world,” he said. The CEOs gave their suggestions to facilitate Global investment in Indian Defence Manufacturing and Raksha Mantri assured them of government efforts to remove regulatory hurdles for private industry.

CEOs and senior management of General Atomics, Safran, Boeing, Embraer and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems attended the interaction. Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane, DG (Acquisition) Pankaj Agrawal, Additional Secretary, Defence Production T. Natarajan and other senior officials of the Ministry of Defence were also present.

ENDS

Girja Shankar Kaura

The writer is a Delhi-based freelance journalist, who has reported and written on a wide range of subjects in an extensive career.