India does not believe in countering security challenges in neo-colonial paradigms: Rajnath Singh

TIL Desk/National/Bengaluru/ India does not believe in giving “sermons or cut-and-dried” solutions to countries in need of assistance, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday. In an address to his counterparts from various countries at Aero India here, Singh also called for united efforts to counter-pressing security challenges, including the threat of terrorism.

The defence minister said India does not believe in dealing with such security issues in the “old paternalistic or the neo-colonial paradigms” and that it always preferred a collective approach to counter them. “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,” he said.

“We do not believe in giving sermons or cut-and-dried solutions, which do not respect national values and constraints of the countries in need of assistance,” he said. Singh noted that India supports the capacity building of its partner countries so that they may chart their own destiny. “There are nations which are richer, militarily or technologically more advanced than others, but it does not give them the right to dictate their solutions to the nations in need of support,” he said, in comments which are seen as an apparent reference to China.