George Fernandes’s Emotional Speech In Singapore

George Fernandes fought back tears while delivering this emotional speech about India’s commitment to peace at a meeting of defence ministers in Singapore in 2002. The former defence minister was speaking at the height of the 2001-02 standoff with Pakistan. It was sparked by a terror attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 by suspected Pakistan-backed operatives. As India and Pakistan went on to amass nearly a million troops on the border, terrorists assassinated Kashmiri separatist leader Abdul Ghani Lone in Srinagar in May. This flared tensions further and brought the two countries closer to war. In 1999, Fernandes had also overseen the Kargil War between the two nuclear powers. He died on Tuesday after a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s.