Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday reaffirmed 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 asserted that untethered to any faction or alliance of one group of nations against another, India has worked ceaselessly for the uplift of all nations, especially developing ones.

Rajnath today hosted the defence and deputy defence ministers of 27 countries at the Defence Ministers’ Conclave held on the sidelines of Aero India 2023 in Bengaluru. The broad theme of the conclave was ‘Shared Prosperity through Enhanced Engagements in Defence’ (SPEED).

Rajnath highlighted the need for greater cooperation in an increasingly complex global security scenario. He was of the view that any major change in the domain of economy, security, health or climate has global reverberations and when peace and security of any region is threatened, the entire world feels its impact in multiple ways.

He pointed out that in an interconnected and networked world, the rapid transmission of shocks and disturbances makes it impossible to insulate one’s own country from the issues of other countries. He emphasised regular interactions during summits, conferences and conclaves to ensure that the concerns of all are suitably addressed for a common, secure and prosperous future.

“India has always been open to new ideas from across the world, Commingling and contest of 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 merely transactional approach to an edifying recognition of all humanity as one family,” he said.

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

The Raksha Mantri described collective security as the sine qua non (essential condition) for development and prosperity. He emphasised that terrorism, illegal arms trade, drug smuggling, human trafficking, etc. pose significant security threats to the world and stressed the need to devise 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. 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.

Earlier, during an interaction with CEOs of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Rajnath invited global defence manufacturers to set up manufacturing bases in India and make defence equipment for India and the world.

During the interaction, he highlighted that India offers significant advantages of competitive land costs, skilled human capital, a vibrant start-up ecosystem and a huge domestic defence market to the global defence industry. This, he said, was a win-win situation where defence manufacturing companies from across the world can become a part of the Indian growth story.