THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The entire discourse on Operation Sindoor in the country, including the media, missed out on its key concept of non-contact warfare, said S Gurumurthy, chairman of Vivekananda International Foundation, a strategic think-tank.
The transformation of the defence infrastructure to the non-contact war model under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to be credited for the success of Operation Sindoor, he said, while delivering a talk on “Operation Sindoor: Paradigm shift from candle light to BrahMos” at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday.
The non-contact warfare turned out to be advantageous for India as it did not require ground forces, he said, adding that the Pakistan Defence website in 2020 had described this warfare.
“It described the induction of long range missiles, high precision smart weapons, unmanned systems, robots and satellites primarily driven by technology and aimed at achieving a quick, decisive victory by remote delivery of destructive kinetic energy as ‘non-contact warfare,” he said.
Gurumurthy also gave an insight into the historical, religious and military aspects behind Pakistan’s ‘hatred’ towards India.
He also said Pakistan’s army is not a professional army like those in civilised nations.
“The country was ruled by the army for 34 years and indirectly for the rest of the years. The Soldiers Foundation owned by the Pakistan army is a huge conglomerate with several commercial enterprises like factories and retail outlets. Pakistan’s economy, business and polity are intermingled with the army and politicians are merely prisoners,” he said.
Pahalgam stands out as the most barbaric assault in the history of Indo-Pak fights, Gurumurthy said. “The victims were asked their religion. Pakistan is arrested by history. And if you are arrested by history you don’t move into the future,” he said.
Governor Rajendra Arelkar said he invited Gurumurthy for the talk after reading his impressive columns on Operation Sindoor and the non-contact warfare that appeared in The New Indian Express recently.
At the function, Arlekar honoured the family members of N amachandran, the Kochi native who was killed in the Pahalgam terror attack.