Home Minister L K Advani today told jawans of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police that contrary to what Nobel laureate Amartya Sen believes, India’s path to development lay in defence and not education or health.‘‘Amartya Sen may think that health and education are the reasons why India has lagged behind in development in the past 50 years, but I think it is because of defence,’’ said Advani, addressing a sainik sammelan after inaugurating an exhibition on sustainable development.Most of the rhetoric aimed at Pakistan was just a repeat of what he had said at the inauguration of the All India Radio Studio at Leh earlier during the day.‘‘Our status is such that our neighbours have not yet reconciled to the partition of 1947,’’ he said. ‘‘Chaube gaye the chabbe hone, dubey hoke laute,’’ he said referring to Pakistan having aspirations for Jammu and Kashmir but losing Bangladesh.Advani is in Leh for the sixth Sindhu festival which kicks off tomorrow. He is accompanied by his daughter, Pratibha, and Culture Minister Ananth Kumar. Sports and Cultural Affairs Minister Uma Bharti was also here to play a game of badminton at the newly-inaugurated indoor stadium.Advani said he started the Sindhu festival after his visit to Leh in 1996 when he realised that Sindhu river passed through these parts, going on to Pakistan.‘‘A problem can come in any form,’’ he said, ‘‘we should be prepared for it.’’ While India did not want war, he said, he couldn’t rule it out either. ‘‘No country wants war, especially developing countries — I hate that term. We have so many resources and we do not want them to be used for war,’’ he said. However, he said, it was unfair of the US to put pressure on India when they called September 11 ‘‘a war on the US’’.‘‘As an Indian, we have faced this for 15 years, so how can we not call it a war?’’ he asked. He scoffed at a Pakistani statement yesterday which said they would not be initiating war. ‘‘It is ridiculous as they have already been waging an undeclared war against us with infiltration,’’ he said, adding that their modus operandi was insurgency and spreading terror by attacking innocents.
