New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has hit out at China for announcing new names for places in Arunachal Pradesh, declaring that such moves do not change facts on the ground and that the northeastern state would always remain an integral part of India.
Beijing has changed the names of places in Arunachal Pradesh on a website but “nothing changes by renaming”, the defence minister told an election rally in the state Tuesday.
“If India renames some territories of China tomorrow, will they become ours? Therefore, China should not have this misconception,” he said. The defence minister said that such moves by China spoil relations between the two countries.
Last month, China announced Chinese names for 30 more places in Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as the southern part of Tibet. India’s external affairs ministry has already trashed the Chinese move as “senseless”.
Beijing’s first batch of standardised names for six places in Arunachal Pradesh was released in 2017, while a second batch of 15 places was issued in 2021 and the third last year.
India and China are locked in a nearly four-year standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which has seen the biggest ever military mobilisation between the two countries since the 1962 war.
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Rajnath credits Modi for Qatar and Ukraine rescue
Singh also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to get eight Navy veterans released from death row in Qatar and told his audience that the prime minister had stopped the Russia-Ukraine war for “four and a half hours” so that Indian students could evacuate.
“Unka bahut bada dosh nahi tha (It was not a big fault) but Qatar gave them a death sentence. Modi picked up the phone, spoke to Qatar’s Emir, and he revoked the sentence. This is India,” Singh said of the country’s increasing global influence.
Talking about the rescue of Indian students from Ukraine, Singh said Modi made it even happen though many in the government said it would be impossible since two different nations were at war.
Modi called up Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and American President Joe Biden, Singh said. “The war stopped for four-and-a-half hours and we got our students back. This is the new India,” he added.
The Ministry of External Affairs has in the past officially rejected reports that the war stopped for a while because of India’s request.
Government sources had in background briefings said that while all countries coordinated to ensure there was no fighting in areas through which Indian students were being rescued, officially claiming this would tantamount to India agreeing to restart a war that has claimed many lives and continues to do so.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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