Navy Day in India is celebrated on December 4 every year, with the aim to honour Indian Navy personnel who maintain high readiness to safeguard our peninsular country’s seaward frontiers and neutralise all maritime threats.
The observance also commemorates the attack on Pakistan’s port city of Karachi by Indian missile boats during Operation Trident in the 1971 Indo-Pak War. Navy personnel successfully fired their missiles onto Pakistani ships, oil installations and shore defence installations at Karachi harbour. The Indian Navy, during the 1971 war operations, sunk many Pakistani ships carrying war sustenance efforts and critical stores. Fighter aircraft from INS Vikrant’s deck struck at the enemy’s harbours and airfields at Khulna and Chittagong, damaging ships, defence facilities and installations. Both the missile strikes at Karachi and airstrikes from Vikrant led to the defeat of Pakistan forces in then East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh).
‘Keeping seas safer’
The Indian Navy’s personnel relentlessly patrol to keep the seas safer. At a time when the world’s people were siloed indoors due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the naval force operated and exercised with navies of friendly neighbouring nations, in order to build better understanding, synergy and cooperation in the region.
Command ships participated in ‘Samudra Setu’ and ‘Mission Sagar’, providing assistance and ferrying personnel from foreign soil and within the country for handling the unparalleled humanitarian crisis unleashed by the virus pandemic. INS Kesari transported more than 500 tons of emergency rations and medical aid along with specialist medical personnel to many island countries of the Indian Ocean region, as per government releases.
It may be noted that this was not the first time when Indian naval forces engaged in delivering humanitarian aid. Navy personnel had launched ‘Operation Vanilla’ to people in Madagascar following devastation by Cyclone Diane. In September last year, our Navy’s INS Nireekshak joined the Mauritian National Coast Guard in search and salvage of the Mauritius Port Authority (MPA) Tug Sir Gaetan.
