‘Operation Ganga’ is like the ‘Devi Shakti’ of ‘Vande Bharat’ acting as ‘Samudra Setu’ for ‘Raahat’ and ‘Maitri’.
About 16,000-strong Indian diaspora, mostly students, were left stranded in the war-torn Ukraine, when New Delhi launched yet another evacuation programme named ‘Operation Ganga’ to bring them home safely. As a result of the collective efforts, over 21,000 nationals have reportedly moved out of Ukraine and some sixteen and a half tons of material has been sent as relief. The Government also sent Union Ministers to the concerned countries as ‘India’s special envoys’ to assist the students with the evacuation process.
The extent to which India goes in order to evacuate people from foreign territories during deteriorating times and calamities is now being recognised globally too. Nepal Government reportedly reached out to the Government of India for the evacuation of its stranded nationals, to which the Indian government has responded positively. “We stand ready to help those from our neighbours and developing countries who are also stranded in Ukraine and may seek assistance. We also support all UN humanitarian efforts,” Indian envoy to UN TS Tirumurti had said earlier on February 28th at the UNSC meeting.
India had extended its help to the neighbouring state last year during the Afghanistan crisis, by facilitating the evacuation of Nepali nationals from the country. This promptness and sense of responsibility was reflected amid COVID crisis too, as India evacuated nationals of the Maldives, Nepal, and Bangladesh from China. All these instances are not accidental, but reflections of a country whose first instinct is based on its popular belief of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’.
India carried out the evacuations from Afghanistan in 2021 under its rescue mission programme operation ‘Devi Shakti’, which translates as ‘Power of the Goddess’. Reportedly, around 800 nationals belonging to both India and other countries were evacuated under the operation. Earlier, On 7th May 2020, Indian government had launched ‘Operation Vande Bharat’ to bring back Indians stranded in different countries in a Covid-19 pandemic-hit world. This operation saw over 2.17 lakh flights that brought back over 1.83 crore passengers to the country by October 2021. Government of India launched yet another operation i.e. Op. Samudra Setu, An extension of Vande Bharat mission, this was a naval operation that brought back over 3,000 stranded Indian citizen to their homeland during the pandemic. INS Jalashwa, Airavat, Shardul and Magar (Landing Ship Tanks) participated in this operation which lasted more than 55 days and involved traversing more than 23,000 km by sea. Back in 2015, India had also launched ‘Operation Raahat’, under which India had evacuated nearly 5,600 people from Yemen. Operation Maitri was launched in the same year as a joint relief and rescue operation by the Indian government and the Indian Armed Forces in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake. This joint Army-Air Force operation brought over 5,000 Indians back from Nepal by Air Force and civilian planes. The Indian army had also successfully evacuated 170 foreign nationals from the US, the UK, Russia and Germany.
As world order continues to get deeper into complex situations from pandemic to outright nuclear threats, India is ready to lead at world-stage with its ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam to take care of its own and humanity as whole.
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