As a professional military force, we don't get affected by setbacks and losses: CDS General Chauhan

India will not be blackmailed over nuclear threats and live under the constant shadow of terrorism, said Chief of Defence Staff of Indian Armed Forces, General Anil Chauhan. CDS Chauhan, speaking at an event in Pune University, said that professional military forces are not affected by setbacks and losses. 

CDS Chauhan said what the terrorists did in Pahalgam was profoundly cruel. He said that Operation Sindoor was initiated with the thinking that state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan has to stop. 

“Pakistan should not be able to hold India hostage to terrorist activities…India is not going to live under the shadow of terror and nuclear blackmail,” he said. 

Days after his earlier statement on losses suffered by the Indian side stirred a controversy, CDS Chauhan said, “In the context of Operation Sindoor, I tried to explain the nature of the war. We knew we had better counter drone systems and the second thing was to understand the risks. As a professional military force, we do not get affected by setbacks and losses. We should be able to understand and rectify our mistakes and we cannot sit back with setbacks. Losses are not important but outcome is important as I have said in my previous interviews.” 

His reference to the earlier interviews includes the one with Bloomberg, where it was admitted for the first time that India suffered the loss of an unspecified number of fighter jets. He said that the army quickly rectified their mistakes and struck Islamabad again. In the interview he said that claims of Pakistan downing six Indian jets, including four Rafales, was ‘absolutely incorrect’. 

He said that war and politics were happening simultaneously during Operation Sindoor. “State-sponsored terrorism is a reasoned policy of adversary. We know Zulfikar Bhutto had declared 1,000 years of war against India. General Asim Munir also made a venomous statement in the context of Kashmir just before the Pahalgam attack,” he said. 

“On May 10, at 1 am, their aim was to get India to its knees in 48 hours. Multiple attacks were launched…they escalated this conflict during which we had actually hit only terror targets. The operation which they thought would continue for 48 hours, folded up in about 8 hours and then they picked up the telephone and said they wanted to talk,” said CDS Chauhan. 

The CDS said that India has raised the bar, connected terror to water, and drawn a new line of military operation against terror.