“Modi Government Is More Pro-Active And More Decisive”

“If you get fixated with one kind of policy, the other group tries to take the advantage. What is the Pakistani view? They have got such a huge amount of ambiguity about the use of nuclear weapons. When their Prime Minister Imran Khan said that we would not use nuclear weapons first, straightaway the Pakistani army said that this was not their policy. Therefore, while we have a declared NFU policy, we should bring in a degree of flexibility to suit the circumstances, if so required,” says General Deepak Kapoor, Former Chief of Army Staff, in an exclusive interview with Ravi Mishra. Excerpts:

- Ravi Mishra

China and Pakistan have been creating problems for India. Do you think we are ready to deal with both the countries?

If both were to simultaneously join hands against us, it would be a big challenge. And we have to put our best foot forward to meet such an eventuality. While we can tackle one at a time, to tackle both of them requires a lot of efforts.

Indian para-military forces like BSF and ITBP don’t come under the purview of Indian Army, but of Home Ministry, whereas these forces directly deal with Pakistani and Chinese borders. Do you think some changes should be brought about in this regard?

It is very important that whenever a situation of disputed borders arises and the army is required to come in, then they should have command and control. You cannot have both the Home Ministry and Defence Ministry exercising jurisdiction on the same area. And even as Army Chief, I had raised this point, and, subsequent to me, other Chiefs also raised this point. If ITBP is deployed in certain areas, which are disputed like in Leh, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, they must come under the control of the Army. Because the Army is the one that is to conduct the operation to prevent any attempt of infiltration. So, this is the dichotomy, which needs to be resolved.

In recent times, our armed forces did surgical and airstrikes deep inside Pakistan, whereas such strikes could not be carried out in past regimes. Were we not capable of doing this?

It would be wrong to say that we were not capable of carrying out such strikes. In fact, it was the previous governments, who were not prepared to undertake such an operation. And it is to the credit to the present government that it has undertaken such operations. Capabilities have always been there to launch surgical strikes. But you have to take a political decision, which was not forthcoming in earlier dispensations.