- The Russian invasion of Ukraine is well and truly stretching beyond what the former anticipated with no signs of the latter meekly surrendering even as the fighting between the two forces intensifies. The Indian government did face a lot of flak from the opposition for not ensuring the safe passage of the struck students in the initial days of the invasion. However, due credit should be accorded to the Union government for initiating several measures subsequently to help fly out more than 20,000 students and others. As you recollect, four senior union ministers were positioned in the region to coordinate the safe evacuation of the Indian students and citizens.
PC: PTI
- Codenamed Operation Ganga, the evacuation efforts have been a great success story indeed. In an extremely delicate operation, the last big group of about 700 Indian students was finally evacuated from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy where they were waiting for the last few days. As you are aware, establishing a humanitarian corridor for the extraction had proved to be quite challenging. We know how earlier attempts to evacuate failed due to relentless Russian shelling. Again, to its credit, the Indian establishment did undertake hectic diplomatic efforts led by the Prime Minister himself finally resulting in a breakthrough with the Ukrainians and Russians agreeing to provide safe passage to the Sumy students.
- They are now expected to cross over to Poland from where they will board Operation Ganga flights back to India. Mind you, the successful Ukraine evacuation adds to India’s long list of such rescue missions from war-torn countries. The most notable ones include the 1990 Kuwait airlift, a Hindi movie that was produced on the same, where around 1,70,000 Indians were brought back home after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait kicking off the first Gulf War. Similarly, when a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2006, India launched Operation Sukoon to evacuate not just Indians but also nationals of neighboring countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal with the help of the Indian navy.
PC: Mridula Chari
- Then during Operation Rahat in 2015, India evacuated nearly 4,000 citizens along with foreign nationals of 26 countries from war-torn Yemen. Coming back to present reality, now that the Ukraine rescue operation is winding down, the focus will shift back to India’s position on the war. We know that the need to evacuate around 20,000 Indian citizens in Ukraine was seen as one of the factors influencing New Delhi’s neutral position in the war. With most Indians out, pressure will grow now on New Delhi to take a clear stand. France has stated the desire to see India play a more forceful role in the next phase of UNSC meetings, while the US has long made clear that India can’t have different standards for the Indo-Pacific and what’s happening in Ukraine.
- Mind you, the Russian aggression was militarily unprovoked violating the sovereignty of an independent state. With China too violating India’s territorial sovereignty, the only way New Delhi can counter Beijing is through the support of the US and its allies. Remember, Moscow is now primed to be in the Beijing camp. As such, India cannot afford to abstain from critiquing Russia any longer. A shift in the stand can be expected anytime now.
