Rajnath Singh says India is ready for every kind of strike against terrorism if a neighbour continues what he called a state policy

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday that India is completely ready for every kind of strike against terrorism if a neighbour continues what he called a state policy of terrorism. He was speaking at the NDTV Defence Conclave. Hindustan Times and Republic World carried matching accounts. Hindustan Times described the speech as a message to Pakistan. In the sentence itself he said "our neighbour." What follows is his wording, as those reports quoted it. This article does not add a threat, and it does not report a new military order.

Hindustan Times quoted him: "India believes in peace. India never wants war. India never wants to capture the land of any foreign country in the world. India doesn't even want to threaten anyone. But there is a difference between peace and cowardice, and the whole world should understand this." He added: "India wants peace, but India will not compromise on its security under any circumstances."

On talks, the paper quoted him: "India believes in dialogue, but if any country gives shelter to terrorism against India, then the scope of dialogue ends right there." He pointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks at the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek. As Singh put it in the report, countries that make terrorism their policy and give terrorists shelter and support have to be told that terrorism cannot be a strategic asset for anyone.

The line both papers led with was: "As long as our neighbor continues the state policy of terrorism, India is completely ready for every kind of strike against terrorism. We want to tell our neighbor as well as the world."

On working with other countries, he said India wants operations, cooperation and global stability, but not at the cost of national interests or strategic autonomy, and that India will not compromise on security. He is quoted as calling India "a proponent of peace."

He also used the phrase "Thucydides Trap": when a country rises, he said, conflict with already powerful countries often follows, a revisionist power against a status-quo power. He called that a "narrow mindset" and said India should not be placed in that binary. "India is neither a status-quoist power nor a revisionist power. I believe we are a civilizational power," he said, according to Hindustan Times.

The paper set the speech among recent India-Pakistan exchanges. It said that at the Bishkek summit Modi had called for dismantling "the entire ecosystem of terrorism — its financing, recruitment, radicalization, and safe havens," and had said there was no place for double standards. It reported him saying that terrorism used as an instrument of policy cannot be a strategic asset.

It said External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, at the UN General Assembly on Saturday local time, accused a "serial practitioner of terrorism" of misrepresenting facts and of trying to normalise terrorism. Jaishankar's quoted lines were: "That will not stand. Our right to defend ourselves against terrorism will be exercised." He also said friendship and goodwill cannot coexist with terrorism.

Hindustan Times said Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif raised Kashmir at that session, claimed credit for the May 2025 conflict, and credited Donald Trump with halting it. The paper said India has rejected that mediation claim and has said the ceasefire followed military-to-military contact after Operation Sindoor, when India struck terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on 7 May last year, after the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians. Sharif, it said, called the Indus Waters Treaty being kept in abeyance without legal basis, and said stopping or diverting Pakistan's share of the waters would be an "act of war." The paper said India maintains that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of the country.

Neither outlet reported an operation announced at the conclave. They reported Sunday's remarks and the forum exchanges around them.