World wants Country like India to balance out Established Powers: Jaishankar

By R. Anil Kumar

• Today, we are spreading our wings. The world actually needs a country like ours today to balance out the established powers
• On the difference between the pre and post-Modi era foreign policy, the EAM said the “answer is the new way of thinking.”
• ‘Will remind US ambassador to open consulate in Bengaluru soon’: EAM Jaishankar

Bangalore, January 6. External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar has said the world today needs a country like India to balance out the established powers.

“Today, we are spreading our wings. The world actually wants a country like ours today to balance out the established powers,” the External Affairs Minister, said.

Jaishankar was speaking on his book ‘Why Bharat Matters’ at the Golden Jubilee Celebration of PES University in Bengaluru.

On the difference between the pre- and post-Modi era foreign policy, the EAM said the “answer is the new way of thinking.”

“For example, to take our neighbourhood and make them partners, not competitors who envy you but neighbours who benefit from you… Our neighbours today associate India with education and health… They see the new power linkages… We are recapturing our history… If you go by archaeology, in the middle of Vietnam there are Shiv temples thousand years old… Look at the gulf, till the ’60s and 70s, the Indian rupee was a legal tender in some of these countries… We let go of these connections as we had a smaller view of ourselves,” he said

The EAM further said that India is today holding its ground, “whether it is a complicated issue like the conflict in Ukraine and the pressures that come with it, or whether what has been happening in the Indo-Pacific and how do we ensure that there is stability and there is order… There were pressures on us to not do the Quad. There were pressures on us to restrict our economic dealings with Russia. We stood firm against both…”

Meanwhile, EAM Jaishankar recently reflected on India’s relationship with China, and while shedding light on historical nuances, he provided a perspective on how a more Bharat-centric approach could have shaped the nation’s view of its ties with China differently.

“If we had been more Bharat, we would have had a less rosy view of our relationship with China,” said Jaishankar while delving into India’s historical perspectives on its relationships with China.

The minister referred to historical records, citing exchanges of notes and letters between the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on China. He emphasised the starkly differing views expressed by the two leaders, shedding light on the complexities of India’s early stance on its relationship with China.

“This is not something which is my fantasy. There is a kind of a record out there. There’s an exchange of notes, letters between Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru on China, and they have very starkly differing views about it,” said the EAM.

Pushing back against a section of the Western media, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said the battle of narratives is something one should expect while challenging the ‘entrenched narrative’.

The External Affairs Minister said, “In the press freedom, they gave us a lower ranking than Afghanistan. The battle of narratives is something we should expect because we are defying the entrenched narrative… It’s happening in different domains… It’s been steadily building up for the last 10 years. I expect it to reach a Crescendo in the first 6 months of this year… As the elections come closer…they will actually start to attack the process if it looks like it’s going a way in which the narrative drivers don’t like… They will attack the Supreme Court and Election Commission.”

“We’ve got to figure this out and we have to fight back… We need to call them out and that is part of this whole narrative contest… On the technology issue, it’s far more complex… You have big giants who have the clout and influence which are bigger than many countries… Would you trust your data with players who are back-ended out there?… Today there are serious debates about trust and transparency where would you like to see your data,” Jaishankar added.

He added that India is today holding its ground, “whether it is a complicated issue like the conflict in Ukraine and the pressures that come with it, or whether what has been happening in the Indo-Pacific and how do we ensure that there is stability and there is order… There were pressures on us to not do the Quad. There were pressures on us to restrict our economic dealings with Russia. We stood firm against both.”, Jaishankar said.