NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday called out the previous Congress-led UPA government over its “justification” that “it would cost more to attack Pakistan than not attacking it” post the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, in which as many as 166 were killed.
Jaishankar said the UPA government decided “not to do anything” after one of the deadliest attacks against civilians on Indian soil.
“After Mumbai (attacks), the national security advisor of the previous UPA government wrote (that) ‘we sat, we debated. We considered all the options. Then we decided to do nothing. We decided to do nothing and the justification was we felt the cost of attacking Pakistan was more than the cost of not attacking Pakistan’, ” he claimed, adding, “I leave you to judge.”
In the “defensive era”, terrorism was accepted, he said, referring to the previous UPA tenure.
Jaishankar said India has some challenges at the borders and the key to defend them is not to just posture in public but to build infrastructure, support the military and create a system that will respond whenever the border is under threat.
Describing India as a voice of the ‘Global South’ (comprising about 125 countries), he said the countries of the Global South trust India to take up their cause and positions in the world.
Addressing a gathering at a talk on ‘Foreign Policy the India Way: From Diffidence to Confidence’, the minister said that the country has a moral obligation towards some of the countries, which were under colonial rule and could not recover, rebuild as quickly as India did.
“We are a voice of the Global South, which is about a 125 countries in the world. These countries trust India to take up their cause, their positions in the world,” he said.
(With PTI inputs)