0:00 First of all, thank you all for being
0:02 here. It's amazing on a Saturday night
0:04 of the Memorial Day weekend that we were
0:06 able to get such a star turnout and
0:08 thank you all for coming. I had a chance
0:10 to say hello to many of you during the
0:12 reception, but some of you I haven't and
0:14 I do want to say hello and acknowledge
0:17 with gratitude your presence here this
0:18 evening. My colleagues and I uh
0:21 literally arrived this afternoon and our
0:23 first stop was the September 11
0:26 memorial. Uh it was obviously a very
0:29 moving moment for us, but it was also
0:31 meant to send a very strong message that
0:34 we are here uh in a city which is
0:37 bearing still the scars of that savage
0:40 terrorist attack in the wake of yet
0:43 another terrorist attack in our own
0:44 country. Uh unlike the US, I'm afraid
0:47 we've had to endure very a very much
0:49 larger number of terrorist attacks in
0:52 India. But uh we came both as a reminder
0:57 that this is a shared problem but also
1:00 out of a s out of a a spirit of
1:03 solidarity with the victims who included
1:07 Indians as Indra was reminding me
1:09 someone young Indian working in her own
1:11 company was one of the victims of 911 uh
1:15 Indians Americans and very many other
1:17 nationalities who were affected. It's a
1:19 global problem. It's a scourge and we
1:21 must all fight it unitedly. So that was
1:25 that was a very important message to
1:27 convey and my colleagues and I uh did
1:30 that by by going to the memorial and and
1:33 and leaving roses on the some of the
1:37 names uh around the memorial pool. And
1:41 having done that, we are now proceeding
1:43 as has been mentioned already to four
1:45 other countries before returning to the
1:47 US, not to New York, but to Washington
1:50 DC on the 3rd of June when Congress will
1:53 come back from its recess as well. So,
1:56 um, our idea is very much to speak to a
2:00 cross-section of public and political
2:02 opinion in each of the countries we're
2:05 going to about recent events um,
2:09 which obviously troubled a number of
2:13 people around the world um, and which
2:15 now have subsided. There is a reasonable
2:19 amount of calm that's reigning on the
2:21 border between India and Pakistan today.
2:24 But the fundamental underlying problem
2:27 remains and it's important that we try
2:30 and enlarge your understanding of our
2:34 thinking and our concerns about what's
2:36 going on. So it's it's for us an
2:39 opportunity. We will be in every country
2:41 meeting members of the executive,
2:43 meeting members of the legislature, uh
2:45 meeting uh think tankers and influential
2:48 foreign policy experts and at the same
2:50 time uh uh interacting with the media
2:54 and public opinion in every one of these
2:56 places. Um, we're on our way to Guyana
2:59 tonight where Independence Day
3:01 celebrations are about to take place and
3:03 we'll be seeing the president and and
3:05 the foreign minister and and members of
3:08 of parliament there and we carry on on
3:10 similar programs uh in these other
3:12 countries. Uh, Vine had asked me to say
3:15 a few words about what happened.
3:18 Um by way of context I mean I think
3:21 you're all aware that India has uh tried
3:24 to be focused on a very different
3:26 narrative uh from some of our neighbors.
3:29 Our focus for some years now has been on
3:32 being the world's fastest growing free
3:35 market democracy. uh attempting to focus
3:38 on the development of our economy, our
3:42 high emphasis on on technology and
3:45 technological growth and pulling large
3:47 numbers of people uh from below the
3:50 poverty line not just into the 21st
3:52 century but into uh the world and the
3:55 opportunities that the 21st century
3:57 offers. And perhaps in that process we
4:00 had allowed ourselves in some ways um to
4:03 to be complacent. Complacent may be too
4:06 unkind a word but we we had not perhaps
4:09 um braced ourselves sufficiently for the
4:12 malign influences in our neighborhood uh
4:14 that did not want that story uh to to
4:18 that narrative to be told in a in a in
4:22 an uninterrupted manner. uh we had been
4:25 seeing in uh Jammu and Kashmir which as
4:29 you know has for the long long time been
4:32 um coveted by our neighbors on the other
4:34 side Pakistan. We had been seeing not
4:37 just uh peace but increasing
4:40 prosperity. Um in fact uh Vine gave me
4:44 this wonderful nugget that the number of
4:46 tourists in Kashmir last year was double
4:49 uh the number of tourists in Aspen
4:51 Colorado last year. So that was the kind
4:53 of the kind of um of of not just normaly
4:58 but but growth prosperity that the
5:00 people of Kashmir were enjoying uh as
5:03 Indians and foreigners were flocking to
5:05 Kashmir for tourism. So some people
5:08 decided that they would want first of
5:10 all to attack that process of
5:14 normalization. Second to undermine the
5:19 overall Indian narrative as well as the
5:21 prosperity of the people of
5:23 Kashmir.
5:25 Third by doing so in an atrocious manner
5:29 that is it was not just a terrorist
5:32 attack of somebody indiscriminately
5:33 blowing up people with a bomb. It was a
5:36 bunch of people going around identifying
5:38 the religion of the people before them
5:41 and killing them on that basis which was
5:43 clearly intended to provoke a backlash
5:48 uh in the rest of India um on since the
5:52 victims were overwhelmingly Hindu. In
5:54 fact, u 26 people died. 25 Indians and
5:58 one Nepalese. And the Nepoese uh
6:00 happened, of course, uh didn't get a
6:03 chance to say he was Nepoese, but he was
6:05 a Hindu, so he would have probably been
6:07 killed anyway. And quite astonishingly
6:09 one person who wasn't killed was a Hindu
6:12 professor who happened to be able to
6:15 recite the calima the first verse of the
6:18 Quran and therefore was was not shot
6:22 which is a very interesting message and
6:24 it was very very clearly I mean for us
6:26 it was not that um not that there was
6:29 any doubt about the motives of these
6:31 people but it was particularly driven
6:33 home in many cases uh the husband was
6:36 shot and the wife was told to convey the
6:38 message back that he was shot for his
6:40 faith. And I'm very proud as an Indian
6:43 to say that uh that did not happen that
6:46 there was no backlash that Indians held
6:48 together uh uh unitedly uh in the face
6:52 of this atrocity. The Kashmiris um who
6:56 are overwhelmingly Muslim as you know uh
6:59 were not just completely uh distraught
7:03 by what happened but they were there was
7:05 public uh rejection of this. The next
7:08 day the entire uh states downed its
7:11 shutters. Um there was there was a
7:14 public observance of support and
7:16 solidarity for the victims. Um the state
7:19 assembly as well all all shades of
7:21 political opinion. Uh, one of the
7:24 victims, I should have added, was a
7:26 Kashmiri Muslim pony operator who
7:29 attempted not just to save the lives of
7:32 his of his of his of his customers, but
7:34 to snatch the Kalashnikov for one of the
7:36 killers and it was turned against him.
7:39 uh but others I mean I I had a victim
7:41 from my state of Kerala um who was a
7:45 61-year-old man uh who was walking in
7:49 the meadow with his youngish daughter
7:51 and her twin sons age six when they shot
7:55 him and uh I I went to his home and
7:59 called on his widow and and his daughter
8:01 and and grandchildren and it was it was
8:04 very very moving when this girl said
8:07 that Um though she lost her father that
8:10 day, she found two brothers and the two
8:13 brothers were two Kashmiri Muslim men
8:16 who took her to safety uh protected her
8:20 sons and eventually then accompanied her
8:22 to the morttery to identify her father's
8:24 body brought and bring it back. I I I
8:26 give these examples just to say there
8:28 was an extraordinary amount of
8:30 togetherness cutting across religious
8:33 and other uh other divides that people
8:36 had tried to provoke. But the message
8:39 was very clear that there was a malign
8:42 intent uh that I've just spelled out for
8:45 you. And
8:48 India sadly had no reason to doubt where
8:51 it came from because within one hour of
8:53 the atrocity a group called the
8:55 resistance front had claimed credit. The
8:58 resistance front was known for some
9:00 years to be a frontal organization of
9:03 the banned prescribed
9:05 uh lashkariba which is on the US uh
9:09 designated terror list as well um as
9:12 well as the UN sanctions committees and
9:15 India had gone to the UN sanctions
9:17 committee with information about the
9:18 resistance front in
9:21 2023 and in 24 and now sadly it had
9:25 acted in 25. They repeated their claim
9:28 the next day until of course global
9:31 condemnation I think woke their handlers
9:34 up to the dangers as represented and
9:37 then they deleted their claim on the
9:39 third day but by then the claim had been
9:42 made recorded registered and
9:45 reported and for us therefore um the
9:49 culpability
9:51 lay not just with the five four five
9:55 we're not 100%
9:56 uh evil killers who came to Pahelgam and
10:00 did this did this uh uh atrocity but
10:03 also with those who had sent them
10:06 financed them equipped them trained them
10:09 guided them uh into doing this and since
10:12 we knew where Lashkar is headquartered
10:15 it has it's not just a safe haven but a
10:18 rather generous 200 acre campus uh in a
10:21 city in the heartland of Pakistani
10:23 Punjab uh we also knew where the
10:26 responsibility lay. Sadly, Pakistan
10:30 chose to follow its usual path of
10:33 denial. In fact, Pakistan uh with the
10:36 help of China succeeded in removing a
10:38 reference to the resistance front from
10:41 the resolution of condemnation that was
10:43 drafted in the security council, the
10:45 press statement actually not resolution
10:48 uh in the security council of the UN uh
10:50 two days later. But uh though the name
10:53 was not mentioned, it was as I said a
10:55 matter of public record and and we knew
10:58 what was happening. Uh India replied
11:01 immediately that we would not let this
11:03 go unanswered. Um I don't work for the
11:07 government as you know I work for an
11:08 opposition party but I myself authored
11:11 an op-ed in one of India's leading
11:12 papers the Indian Express within a
11:14 couple of days saying the time had come
11:16 to hit hard but hit smart. And I'm
11:19 pleased to say that's exactly what India
11:21 did uh on the night of the 6th 7th of
11:24 May. It was sixth here. It was seventh
11:26 for us. Um at 10:05 in the morning, a
11:30 time chosen deliberately to avoid any
11:33 risk of too many civilians wandering
11:35 about or any collateral damage.
11:38 very precise and calibrated strikes took
11:40 place on nine specific known terrorist
11:46 bases, headquarters and launchpads.
11:48 Those included those of the Lachkar Toba
11:51 in a place called Muritk, those of the
11:53 Jash Muhammad, the organization that is
11:56 responsible amongst other things for the
11:57 murder of Daniel Pearl and some of you
11:59 knew in New York um and others uh Jashi
12:03 Muhammad and Bahavalur and um in
12:06 Muzafarabad which is in Pakistan, the
12:08 Pakistani occupied part of Kashmir,
12:10 there were no less than three different
12:12 terror organizations which had their
12:14 bases there. Harat Ansar, Harat Mujahim
12:17 and others and and and so
12:21 India sent a clear message number one
12:24 that it was not going to take terror
12:27 lying down. it would answer. But equally
12:30 that by delivering very precisely
12:34 calculated calibrated strikes on very
12:38 specific
12:39 targets, it was also sending a message
12:42 that this was not meant to be the
12:44 opening salvo in a protracted war but
12:47 just an act of retribution that we were
12:49 prepared to stop with that act. In other
12:51 words, uh I mean not just in other
12:54 words, it was officially conveyed uh
12:57 there is a a regular hotline between the
12:59 two directors general of military
13:01 operations. The message was conveyed um
13:04 that this was the intent that it was
13:06 pointed out that no military targets, no
13:09 civilian targets and no governmental
13:11 targets had been hit, not even by
13:14 accident and that the message therefore
13:17 had been delivered exactly and precisely
13:20 uh to the terrorists and their handlers.
13:23 Nonetheless, Pakistan chose to respond
13:25 and respond, I'm sorry to say, uh with
13:28 indiscriminate shelling uh uh across the
13:32 border the very first day and night,
13:34 which sadly uh killed 19
13:38 civilians and injured grievously 59
13:42 others, including Carmelite nuns in a
13:46 convent, uh seeks worshiping in a
13:50 gurudara and uh others who happened to
13:54 simply be in the line of fire because
13:56 they lived in districts adjoining the
13:59 Pakistani
14:00 border. When this happened, India had no
14:04 choice but to retaliate in
14:06 kind. The matters got worse the next day
14:09 as the
14:10 Pakistanis followed up artillery
14:12 shelling with uh a serious u invasion of
14:16 drones and and missiles. um India's air
14:20 defenses were able to hold them off but
14:24 in turn India returned the the
14:26 compliment and on the night of 9th 10th
14:29 May India hit 11 Pakistani military
14:33 targets um
14:36 including a rather well-known air base
14:40 that's just one and a half kilometers
14:41 away from military headquarters of
14:44 Pakistan and Robert
14:45 Pindi the following morning we got a
14:48 call rather our director general
14:50 military operations got a call from the
14:52 Pakistani director general military
14:53 operations saying they'd like to stop
14:55 this and we said we've been saying all
14:58 along we didn't want to start anything
15:01 we were just sending a message of
15:03 terrorists you started we reply if you
15:05 stop we'll stop and they stopped uh
15:10 there was an 88 hour war
15:13 um we look back on that with with a
15:15 great deal of um of of of of frustration
15:19 because um it needn't have happened at
15:22 all. Lives have been lost. But at the
15:25 same time, we look back on this
15:27 experience with a steely and renewed
15:30 sense of
15:32 determination. There is now got to be a
15:34 new
15:36 normal. No one sitting in Pakistan is
15:40 going to be allowed to believe that they
15:42 can just walk across the do the border
15:44 and kill our citizens with impunity.
15:47 there will be a price to pay and that
15:50 price has been going up systematically.
15:52 I'll just take you briefly through what
15:55 happened. You may remember in 2015, well
15:57 you may not remember because this is our
15:59 problem not yours but in 2015 in January
16:01 there was an attack on Indian air base a
16:04 place called Patanot and our prime
16:06 minister had just made a goodwill visit
16:08 to Pakistan the previous month on the
16:10 25th of December he'd attended the
16:12 birthday celebrations of then Pakistan
16:14 prime minister Nawas Sharif uh whose
16:16 granddaughter's wedding was on the same
16:17 day he had given gifts so when this
16:20 happened he was so astonished that he
16:22 actually called the Pakistani prime
16:24 minister and said Why don't you join the
16:26 investigation? Let's let's solve who is
16:28 doing this. And the Pakistani you can
16:31 imagine the horror of the Indian
16:32 military establishment at this idea that
16:34 Pakistani investigators are going to
16:36 come to an Indian air base. But um but
16:39 they came and uh they went back to
16:42 Pakistan and said, "Oh, the Indians did
16:43 it to themselves." That was the last
16:46 straw. I mean it was just the we we'd
16:49 already gone through the horrors of 2008
16:51 in Mumbai when 170 people had been
16:53 killed and the Pakistani denials at that
16:56 time were laid bare not just by the fact
16:59 that we caught one of the terrorists
17:00 alive and his identity his address his
17:04 his family etc identified in Pakistan
17:06 but equally because that drama took
17:09 place over three days during which
17:11 western intelligence agencies trained
17:12 their recording devices amongst other
17:15 things uh on Pakistani uh the the
17:18 chilling voice of the Pakistani handler
17:21 giving minute-by-minute instructions to
17:23 the killers in Mumbai. So the evidence
17:26 was there. There had been denial and
17:28 that denial was proven to be completely
17:31 uh false. And as you know thereafter uh
17:34 the Pakistanis claimed not to know where
17:36 Osama bin Laden was until he was found
17:39 in a safe house right next to an army
17:42 cantonment uh in a in a in a in a city
17:44 dominated by the army. This is Pakistan
17:48 and I'm afraid for us 2015 was the last
17:51 opportunity for them to behave, to
17:54 cooperate, to really show they were
17:55 serious about ending terror as they
17:58 claimed every time that they were. And
18:01 since they did not do it in January, in
18:03 September 2015, there was another attack
18:07 uh in a place called Uri, also not far
18:09 from the border. And this time India
18:11 breached the line of control which we
18:14 had rigorously observed throughout in
18:16 every previous skirmish. We had never
18:19 crossed the line of control. We crossed
18:21 it with a surgical strike in September
18:23 of 2015. Uh that seemed to calm things
18:26 down a bit but unfortunately in January
18:28 of 2019 there was another terror attack
18:31 in a place called Pulwama killing 40
18:33 Indians at that point. And then India
18:36 responded not just by breaching the line
18:38 of control but also breaching the
18:40 international border and striking uh uh
18:44 with with with uh our air force a known
18:48 terror training camp in a place called
18:50 Balakot. Now we have not just crossed
18:53 the LOC, we have also crossed the
18:55 international border. We have hit
18:58 Pakistan in their heartland. And we have
19:01 done so as I say only to send a message
19:05 about terror. We are not interested and
19:08 we still remain absolutely clear that we
19:11 are not interested in warfare with
19:13 Pakistan. We would much rather be left
19:16 alone to grow our economy and pull our
19:19 people into the world that they're ready
19:22 getting ready for in the 21st century.
19:24 We have no desire to have anything that
19:27 the Pakistanis have. Sadly, we may be a
19:30 status quo power. They are not. They are
19:33 a revisionist power. They covered
19:34 territory that India controls and they
19:37 want to have it at any price. And if
19:39 they can't get it through conventional
19:41 means, they're willing to get it through
19:43 terrorism. That is not acceptable to us.
19:46 And that's really the message that we
19:48 are here to give all of us, all of you
19:50 in this country and and elsewhere.
19:54 Uh we are determined now that there's
19:59 got to be a new bottom line to this. We
20:02 have tried everything international
20:04 dossas, complaints to sanctions
20:06 committee, diplomacy,
20:09 um even this joint investigation
20:11 attempt, everything has been tried. Uh
20:14 Pakistan has remained in denial. There
20:16 has been absolutely no conviction, no
20:18 serious criminal prosecution, no attempt
20:21 to dismantle the terror infrastructure
20:23 in that country and the persistence of
20:26 safe havens. So from our point of view,
20:29 this is it. You do this, you're going to
20:32 get this back. And we have demonstrated
20:34 with this operation that we can do it
20:37 with a degree of precision and with a
20:39 degree of restraint that the world, we
20:42 hope, will understand. We have a right
20:43 to self-defense. We've exercised that
20:46 right. We have not done so irresponsibly
20:49 and we have not done so in a way that
20:51 would have warranted a wider
20:53 conflration. That's really the message I
20:55 wanted to give you all today. I'm sure
20:57 you have questions and comments and my
20:59 colleagues uh represent as I say four
21:02 parties amongst the five of us and
21:03 there's a wide span of views. We're all
21:06 happy to join in conversation with you.
21:08 Thank you all very much once again for
21:09 coming and being with us today.
21:12 J Heat.
21:34 [Music]
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