Modi talks ‘rashtra rakshaa’ as 5 Rafale jets touch down in India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted a video of the first set of Rafale aircraft landing on Indian soil with a Sanskrit phrase where he welcomed their arrival and connected it to “rashtra rakshaa” or national defence.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also retweeted it. Interestingly, the BJP had used the same Sanskrit phrase with an additional statement in English that read, “A Terror Free Resurgent India”, in a tweet from its official handle last year in February when the Rafale purchase issue had created a massive political storm ahead of the 2019 general election. The party had also used the hashtag, ‘For the first time’, as a dig at previous governments, back then.
The Sanskrit phrase talks about “rashtra raksha” or national defence. If loosely translated, it means, “I don’t see any ‘punya’, ‘vrat’ or ‘yagya’ like that of a nation’s defence”.