Militarily rich or advanced nations do not have right to dictate solutions to those in need of support: Rajnath Singh

Over 160 delegates from several countries, including Defence and 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.

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.

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

It sought to address aspects related to deepening cooperation for capacity building (through investments, R&D, joint ventures, co-development, co-production and provisioning of defence equipment), training, space, AI and maritime security to grow together, the defence ministry said in a statement.

In his inaugural address, the defence minister highlighted the need for greater cooperation in an increasingly-complex global security scenario.

He said current geopolitical and security realities are shifting at hitherto unwitnessed speed and called for real-time collaboration to respond to such fast-paced changes.

He also spoke about India’s stand for a rules-based international order, in which “the primordial instinct of the might being right is replaced by the civilisational concept of fairness, cooperation, respect and equality amongst all sovereign nations”.

He added that India has not been tied to any faction or alliance of one group of nations against another but has worked ceaselessly for the upliftment of all nations, especially developing ones.

“India has always been open to new ideas from across the world, Commingling and contesting various thoughts has made us a global ideation centre. Our ancient ethos guides us to work not only towards cooperation for mutual benefit, but goes a welcome step further from a mere transactional approach to an edifying recognition of all humanity as one family,” he said.

He spoke about the global efforts to deal with Covid-19 and said the pandemic emphasised that shared global prosperity requires greater coordination among all nations in diverse areas, of which defence and security is one of the most important.

He emphasised that terrorism, illegal arms trade, drugs smuggling, human trafficking, etc. pose significant security threats to the world and sought 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,” he said.

“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 said 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.

He reiterated that the government’s endeavour is to transcend hierarchical relationship of buyer and seller to a co­development and co-production model.

He said that through Aero India, the Defence Ministers would have gained knowledge about the robust defence manufacturing ecosystem being created in India and urged them to share their requirements and expectations through enquiries, comments and feedback.