The violence that broke out between the Hizbollah and the Israeli Defence Forces last year, in which a battlion of Indian Army UN peacekeepers were caught in the middle, had threatened to endanger New Delhi’s reassessment of its position on force deployment in other people’s wars.

But that hasn’t stopped India from peaking its commitment to the United Nations with 9,000 Indian troops — 8,265 of those from the army alone—deployed in conflict zones in West Asia and Africa.

India is now the third largest contributor of troops for peacekeeping operations. And another contingent of 2,300 troops will be flagged off by President APJ Abdul Kalam on February 5 to the UN missions in Congo and Sudan.

India already has 885 peacekeeping troops in Lebanon, 971 in Ethiopia and Eritrea, 3,707 in Congo, 2,385 in Sudan and 170 on the disputed Golan Heights bordering Israel and Syria.

When asked if New Delhi was called upon to send more troops to Lebanon after the conflict, Maj Gen RPS Malhan, head of the Army’s Staff Duties Directorate that oversees UN deployments, said: “After the Lebanon conflict, we took a conscious decision and did not want to reinforce our position by sending more troops. But at the same time, we did not withdraw our unit from the country.”

In the presence of Col Subhash Panwar, the commanding officer of the 4 Sikh battalion that bore the brunt of the misdirected firing from both sides, but ultimately earned glowing praise from the United Nations and other international agencies, Maj Gen Malhan on Thursday presented photographs of the damage caused to the battalion’s campus.