Foreign Minister Dr S Jaishankar Tuesday said that India is focusing on how to expand its relationships with nations across the world, and responded to the criticism over his recent Russian visit in Western media by asserting that every nation has its values and interests. He also weighed in on the difference between former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s and then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s policies with regard to neighbouring China, stating that India should deal with China on the basis of realism as Patel had advocated.
He was speaking to the ANI in connection with the launch of his new book ‘Why Bharat Matters’, which he presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 30, 2023. In a freewheeling interview, Jaishankar touched upon a series of topics, including India’s relationship with Pakistan, China, Canada and Russia, the country’s role in the global space, and the use of the term ‘Bharat’ instead of India.
India’s relationship with China
India should engage with China with mutual respect, sensitivity, and interest, and the approach should be grounded on realism and not on the romanticism of the Nehruvian era, said Jaishankar, touching upon the difference in opinion between India’s first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel and then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the issue.
“I argue for dealing with China from a basis of realism — that strain of realism, which I feel — strains all the way from Sardar Patel to Narendra Modi,” said Jaishankar. “I would say that the Modi Government has been very much more and in conformity with a strain of realism, which originated from Sardar Patel.”
“Even when it came, for example to the UN Security Council seat, it’s not my case that we should have necessarily taken the seat, it’s a different debate, but to say that we should first let China — China’s interest should come first, it’s a very peculiar statement to make,” he said.
“It takes two hands to clap. I pose the issue in this manner if you look at the last 75+ years of our foreign policy, they have a strain of realism about China and have a strain of idealism, romanticism, non-realism. It begins right from day one, there is a sharp difference of opinion — how to respond to China between Nehru and Sardar Patel,” said the foreign minister.
Criticising foreign media’s criticism of India’s stances on several issues, including the ongoing relationship with Russia, Jaishankar said that they are “trying to push a certain line because they have a certain interest.”
“I am not saying we are perfect. I am not saying we don’t have room for improvement… But look at their motive and agenda. They are not agenda-less, they are not motiveless,” he said, adding that their reporting should not be taken at face value. “If anything, I could be passing judgements on a whole lot of other democracies,” he said.
Jaishankar’s recent visit to Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been condemned by Western media which is critical of Putin’s policies, particularly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin’s meeting with a foreign minister instead of the head of state was termed “unusual” by policy experts and video clips of the two leaders’s camaraderie had gone viral on social media.
On being asked how he perceives receiving flak from Western media, the EAM told ANI, “If people can’t read me, that means my mind games are working.”
“I see no reason we should take anything other than at face value because we have always maintained that the Russia relationship is a very important one… I said in public even before my meeting with President Putin that we value this relationship. It is a relationship that served India well,” he said.
Jaishankar added that Indian interest comes first. “I am looking at it from an Indian perspective… A country which has maximum friends and minimum adversaries is obviously one with smart diplomacy. Why would a country restrict its friends?… Why would it choose to unless the interest compelled it to do that? I am focusing on how to expand my relationships… It is the mind games that others play that as a democracy you should do this and that. Please look in the mirror and tell me how you were behaving as a democracy… Every country has its values and interests and it finds its balance…” he added.
On Indo-Pak ties
Jaishankar said that India has stopped engaging with Pakistan’s “core policy” of using “cross-border terrorism to bring India to the table”.
“It’s not a case that we won’t deal with a neighbour. After all, at the end of the day, a neighbour is a neighbour, but it is that we will not deal on the basis of terms that they set where the practice of terrorism is deemed as legitimate and effective in order to bring you to the table,” he said. (IE)
