Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi on Tuesday addressed key security challenges, including the situation with China, the tensions in Manipur and Myanmar, and India's approach to countering emerging threats. Discussing China at the Chanakya Defence Dialogue 2024, General Dwivedi stressed that India seeks to return to the pre-April 2020 situation regarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The Army chief remarked, "As far as China is concerned, it has been intriguing our minds for quite some time. With China, you have to compete, cooperate, coexist, confront, and contest. So what's the situation today? It's stable, but it's not normal and it's sensitive. We want the situation to be restored back to what it was before April 2020, whether in terms of the ground occupation situation or the buffer zones which have been created or patrolling which have been kind of planned as of now."
"So until that situation is restored, as far as we are concerned, the situation will remain sensitive, and we are fully operationally prepared to face any kind of contingency," he added. He also highlighted that trust had become the "biggest casualty" in the current scenario.
On the topic of China building villages along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), General Dwivedi commented, "They are carrying out this artificial immigration, settlement. No problem, it's their country, they can do whatever they want. But what we see in the South China Sea – when we talk about the grey zone, initially we find fishermen and those kinds of people at the forefront. And in order to save them, then you find the military moving in."
He highlighted that the Indian Army has been setting up model villages, with more resources now being deployed through state and central government cooperation, "As far as the Indian Army is concerned, we have already been having this kind of model villages. But more importantly, now the state governments have been empowered to put in those resources, and this is the time when the army, state governments, and supervision by the central government are all coming together. So the model villages that are being built now will be even better."
ALSO READ | Head Of Iranian Spy Unit To Counter Mossad Was Israeli Agent: Former Iran President Ahmedinejad
'No Bomb Drones' In Manipur: Army Chief Gen Dwivedi Dismisses False Narratives Including Claims Of Infiltration
Shifting the focus to the crisis in Manipur and the situation in Myanmar, Gen Dwivedi candidly remarked, "In a lighter vein, 'Ek ke saath ek free' because Manipur was a problem and now you have the Myanmar problem also coming in... Today the situation may be stable, but it is tense." He pointed out the recovery of a significant number of weapons, adding that "about 25% of the weapons have already been recovered, and twice as many weapons of local variety have also been recovered."
Addressing the infiltration narrative as false, he said, "We should not allow false narratives. For example, there was the narrative of bomb drones. We went on the ground and checked, and there were no bomb drones. Another false narrative was that 900 anti-national elements had infiltrated. We checked, and there is nothing like that."
Regarding displaced people from Myanmar seeking refuge in India, especially in Mizoram and Manipur, he added, "As far as the external support is concerned, Myanmar is having its own problem. They also have some people who are getting displaced. When they are getting displaced, where will they go? They will only go to those places which are peaceful and ready to accept them. And that is what is happening in Mizoram and Manipur. The people who are coming are coming unarmed and they are coming in search of some kind of shelter."
'War Does Not Start The Day You Start Fighting': Army Chief On Hezbollah Pager Blasts And What India Can Learn
On the topic of Israel’s use of technology to turn pagers into bombs, General Dwivedi emphasised the need for vigilance and robust inspection mechanisms in India to avoid similar supply chain manipulations. Israel recently targeted Hezbollah with a series of pager blasts in Lebanon in an escalation of the targeted strikes in the Middle East.
He explained, "The pager that you're talking about, it's a Taiwan company being supplied to a Hungarian company. Hungarian company thereafter giving it to them. The shell company which had been created is something which is a masterstroke by the Israelis. And for that, it requires years and years of preparation. So it means they were prepared for it. The war does not start the day you start fighting. It starts the day you start planning. And this is what is most important."
He also stressed the need for India to tackle such issues, saying, "Coming on to our side, supply chain interruption, interception is something we have to be very watchful of. We have to have various levels of inspection, whether it is at the technological level as well as the manual level, to make sure such things do not get repeated in our case."