Prime Minister Narendra Modi was right when he attributed the success of Operation Ganga—the mission to evacuate citizens stranded in war-torn Ukraine— to India’s growing influence in the global arena. With Operation Ganga now coming to a close after the successful evacuation of all the Indian nationals from the conflict-hit Ukraine, a review of the entire exercise does suggest that India’s rising global power, a well-thought-out plan, and diplomatic prowess of the current regime led by PM Modi paved the way for the whole mission being a great success. Undoubtedly, the Operation to take out the trapped students from embattled cities Kharkiv, Sumy, and Pisochyn in Ukraine was formidable and challenging. The evacuation of about 20,000 Indians from Ukraine was, undeniably, a gigantic effort of diplomacy and logistics. The extremely delicate evacuation operation needed a lot of dedication and professionalism. Weathering all the challenges, the teams involved in the mission could make the difficult evacuation possible, with the entire global community appreciating India for all the exemplary efforts. As a result, the headline about the successful evacuation of 700 Indian students who were trapped in war-hit Suny, Ukraine brought welcome relief to their parents and all the citizens of India as well.
However, the entire exercise that preceded their safe evacuation speaks volumes about India’s influence and its tremendous global power that PM Modi referred to. Establishing a humanitarian corridor for the extraction was quite challenging amid Russian shelling at that point of time. But a massive and powerful diplomatic mission on India’s part resulted in a breakthrough. A phone call from Prime Minister Modi to Russian and Ukrainian Presidents added to diplomatic pressure on Moscow and Kyiv, with both the leaders agreeing to provide safe passage to the students in risk zones. The result was seen when Russia announced a temporary halt to the fighting, allowing students to come out of the bunkers to catch whatever mode of transportation was arranged to take them to the bordering areas of neighbouring countries. That India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar continued to maintain communication with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba that shored up the ongoing efforts.
What was also laudable was India’s better and more intense coordination with Ukraine’s neighbouring countries such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova, where students and other citizens found safe and caring shelters before being evacuated to India. All these nations fully and overwhelmingly cooperated with India in its evacuation mission in what exactly is another testimony to the growing global clout and power of New Delhi.
In what was another pragmatic move highlighting the regime’s proper planning, the government sent four ministers to Ukraine’s neighbours to facilitate the evacuation process. India also set up a control room at a small hotel in Budapest, Hungary where young Indian Foreign Services (IFS) officers spearheaded the evacuation efforts.
What has drawn applause for India is the government has gone all-out in rescuing students of other countries as well. India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, TS Tirumurti had already said, “We stand ready to help those in our neighbours and developing countries who are also stranded in Ukraine and may seek assistance.” Indian diplomats worked accordingly and rescued nine Bangladeshi students, one Pakistani student, besides several Nepalese and Tunisian students. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina thanked PM Narendra Modi for this.
What was recently on record is that while comparing India’s response to help Indian citizens in war-affected Ukraine, the countries like the US, the UK and China could not work at such a scale to take out their citizens from the conflict zones. Some of the countries even expressed their inability to help their nationals trapped in Ukraine. This is also what makes India’s ‘Operation Ganga’ an outstanding and exceptionally good rescue and evacuation mission, the modalities and nitty-gritty of which will be there for other countries to follow in times of crisis anywhere in the world.
