London: British leader and Padma Shri awardee, Bob Blackman, has reiterated his call for India’s inclusion in the Five Eyes (FVEY) intelligence alliance citing the growing threats from Pakistani terror networks and Khalistani extremism.
Speaking exclusively to IANS, the United Kingdom Conservative Party leader and Member of Parliament (MP) spoke about the current security challenges being faced by both India and UK.
India is threatened by Pakistan in particular, where the terrorism is almost promoted into India. So we must share intelligence. Obviously, we are part of the Five Eyes network, which shares intelligence across the world. We should include India in that process. I’ve always said that India becomes an important part of the free world, obviously it is the biggest democracy in the world, enabling us to share intelligence on potential terrorist attacks. We know that our intelligence services, thanks to our friends in Israel and the United States, thwart terrorist atrocities in this country. We’ve got to do more to help attacks that take place in India,” said Blackman.
The Five Eyes intelligence sharing grouping includes the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Calling for India’s inclusion, Blackman highlighted two elements to the entire security scenario.
“One is obviously the threat from Pakistan, their promotion of terrorist atrocities. I’m not saying every Pakistani is a terrorist, but what we are saying is that terrorism from Pakistan keeps happening. The military rule that takes place in Pakistan doesn’t seem to stop this, and that’s very important. Equally, we’ve got the Khalistani movement, which is a direct threat both to India and increasingly over here. So we’ve got to make sure that that intelligence is shared. That’s not going to be seen by the public. Anything we can do to prevent these sort of activities from going on has got to be positive,” he stated.
The UK MP also hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, crediting him for first transforming Gujarat and then India.
“Narendra Modi has obviously not only been Chief Minister of Gujarat and turned Gujarat from almost a desert into a powerhouse of the Indian economy. Since he’s been Prime Minister in India, he’s done the same thing for India. And most importantly, I think about his incredible enthusiasm and energy, and has brought the poor people, the poor sections of society, into economic capability in India. That’s remarkable… the electrification of villages, enabling industry to thrive and grow, promoting India.”
Calling PM Modi as a “symbol of modern India” who has enabled India to reach further on the world stage, Blackman stated that PM Modi has all the contacts and also the capability of the G20 and G7 to enable further growth of India-UK
friendship.
“There’s more to do. You know, India should have a permanent place on the Security Council of the United Nations, if we’re to continue with the United Nations. Equally, obviously, India needs to have more say what’s going on, in terms of capability across the world, and has, because of its geographical position, and its economic power, the opportunity, I think, to be a buttress to China and the growth of China, and the serious threat that China poses to the whole of Asia, and in particular, to the sea lanes of the world,” the British parliamentarian said.
“That’s part and parcel, I think, of what India needs to do now. I always worry about the security position of China, literally surrounding India, with its links in Sri Lanka and in East Africa, that potentially there’s a, with Pakistan, so that there’s literally a ring around India, that that needs to be broken,” he added.
Blackman also lauded the people-to-people contacts between India and the United Kingdom while praising the contribution of the Indian community in Britain’s growth.
“Indian diaspora in this country have made a huge impact in terms of the economy and our public services. Generally speaking, it’s fair to say they are the least likely to commit crime. They’re also the most important element of the foundation of our economy. But they’re often very quiet and one of the biggest problems is getting the community to come forward to participate in political discourse, standing for election so that we can actually get people from the community as representatives. We’ve done a lot of work in my constituency and in London Borough of Harrow to bring people forward and we have true representation in the Conservative Party across the various different communities now, which is very positive. But we need to do that countrywide.”
The British MP also batted strongly for Hindu temples to get funding from the government to manage their security.
“I think one of the key elements here is that the government gives funding, and bear in mind the government only has money that gets from the taxpayer, that gives funding for places of worship protection. There’s no funding for Hindu temples or Jain temples. Why? I mean, that question is constantly asked and they are at risk as well as any other religious place of worship. So we want to make sure that there’s a fair share for those temples to make sure that they are protected and people can go about their law-abiding business and worship as they wish, but also have the community functions.”
(IANS)
