Minister Jaishankar, heard of Vietnam or the Vietnam war, asks retired Brigadier

In a stinging rejoinder to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who in a recent interview claimed that India was economically far too weak to take on China, Brigadier Pradeep Yadav (Rtd) on Thursday posted an open letter to the minister, which was tweeted by a retired IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre (See link at the bottom). The questions he posed to the minister are:

1.    Why is India economically weaker than China? Who is responsible? (particularly because till the 1990s India and China were at par economically)

2.    Are you aware, minister, of a small country called Vietnam and the valiant fight they put up against the mighty military of the United States of America? Are you aware why Vietnam succeeded? They succeeded because the Vietnamese were united but your government has divided Indians on caste, religion and community; because the Vietnamese were true patriots and not pseudo patriots. Wouldn’t you agree?

3.   Minister, you were India’s Ambassador to China for long. Surely you would have assessed their strengths, weaknesses and designs? Did you alert the Indian Government of what might happen so that India would not be caught napping when China took over 1,800 square kilometres of Indian territory?

4.    Hasn’t your government changed one defence minister after another, signalling that the nation’s security, defence and territorial integrity are low on its priorities?

5.    Didn’t the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence under the chairmanship of BJP MP B.C. Khanduri inform the Parliament in 2018 that 68 per cent of defence equipment were outdated? What did the government do barring unceremoniously dropping Major General Khanduri (Rtd)?

6.    Why did your government deny the 126 Rafale jets that the Indian Air Force had sought? Why did the government scale down the number to 36?

7.    Why did your government write off corporate loans worth Rupees Nine lakh Crore? Couldn’t the amount been used to upgrade defence equipment?

8.    What explains the failure of your government and the Prime Minister to utter even a whimper against China?

9.    Why has your government allowed the trade deficit with China to grow and allow imports from China? Why did the government seek the help of a Chinese company to build the statue of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel?

10. Why has your government weakened the armed forces, introduce the ‘Agniveer’ scheme to reduce the armed forces to ‘home guards’ while all your effort is concentrated on saving the Adani Group?