Rajnath Singh Op Sindoor remarks at Dras on 26 July framed any future dialogue with Pakistan around Pakistan occupied Kashmir alone, as the Defence Minister addressed the 27th Kargil Vijay Diwas at the Kargil War Memorial. He called the success of Operation Sindoor proof that India can meet Pakistan's every misadventure with a severity far beyond its imagination.

There would be no talks otherwise. The only subject left, he said, is PoK, which he described as an integral part of India held illegally by Pakistan.

Rajnath Singh Op Sindoor message on Pakistan and PoK

In Pakistan the line between the military and militants has vanished, the Defence Minister said, and terrorism has become part of state policy. During Op Sindoor, he added, India stopped treating terrorists and the governments that nurture them as separate entities. Pakistan's army, in his telling, both shelters terrorist groups and works alongside them.

He drew a long contrast between the two countries in the 27 years since the Kargil War. India designs chips while Pakistan designs terror; India builds semiconductors and a start-up ecosystem while Pakistan builds suicide bombers and a terror ecosystem; India sends satellites into space while Pakistan sends terrorists across the border; India connects the world through UPI while Pakistan links terror finance to hawala networks. Should anyone try to obstruct that path to prosperity, he said, the armed forces stand ready with a fitting response.

The Central government has the political will to give the forces a free hand against threats, he added. No adversary would risk a hostile eye on India while its soldiers hold the borders.


Homage at the Kargil War Memorial

The Defence Minister laid a wreath at the Cenotaph and stood in silence for the soldiers who fell during Operation Vijay in 1999. He recalled Param Vir Chakra awardees Captain Vikram Batra and Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey, whose stories, he said, still pull the young toward national duty over personal ambition. The memorial stands for the recapture of the Dras and Kargil heights, a campaign IDW has followed through the artillery ground above the town.

The memorial holds all of India in one place, he said. The names on its wall come from every region, a wall of unity that stands against anyone who would harm the country.

A soldier's consciousness for every citizen

Security is not the forces' burden alone, the Defence Minister argued. Wars in West Asia and between Russia and Ukraine have tested not just militaries but the patience and resolve of whole nations. He asked every Indian to carry a soldier's discipline and sense of duty, ready to step forward, directly or indirectly, if the country ever calls for it. He was not asking every citizen to become a soldier, he said, only to keep a soldier's courage alive within.

Aatmanirbharta in defence

Drawing on Captain Vikram Batra's line "Yeh Dil Maange More", the Defence Minister said the push for Aatmanirbharta in defence production is moving fast. When his government took office India imported 65 to 70 percent of its defence equipment; today about 65 percent is made on Indian soil, he said.

He listed what that has produced: the Akashteer air defence control system, a next-generation Akash missile, the carrier INS Vikrant, the Tejas fighter, the Prachand light combat helicopter, the Dhruv advanced light helicopter, the Arjun tank, the Pinaka rocket system and the Astra air-to-air missile, alongside new drones and counter-drone systems. Even so, he said, "Yeh Dil Maange More", more modern weapons, next-generation fighters, submarines and missiles, all built in India. The Rajnath Singh Op Sindoor address closed on the theme it had opened on, self-reliance as the lesson the Kargil generation left behind.

Homage in Dras and at the National War Memorial

At the memorial, Chief of the Army Staff General Dhiraj Seth, Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh Vinai Kumar Saxena and GOC-in-C Northern Command Lieutenant General Pratik Sharma joined the Defence Minister for the Shradhanjali Samaroh, alongside veterans, gallantry awardees, Veer Naris and Next of Kin. It closed a run of ceremonies that had filled the days before the anniversary.

Rajnath Singh signed the visitors' book, watched a Gaurav Gatha recital by two non-commissioned officers, and opened a Virtual Walkthrough Portal meant to widen public access to the Kargil War's history. He visited the Hut of Remembrance and paid homage at Veer Bhoomi. Over tea he then flagged in the Shaurya Vijay Yatra, the motorcycle rally he had flagged off from the National War Memorial in New Delhi on 14 July.

In New Delhi, Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth laid a wreath at the National War Memorial. Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani, Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and Vice Chief of the Army Staff Lieutenant General Sandeep Jain paid homage there.