External affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Sunday said there must be a foreign policy for “Viksit Bharat'. adding that changes in foreign policy are needed amid a “changing landscape”. 

“When we speak about changing foreign policy, if there is talk of a post-Nehruvian construct, it should not be treated as a political attack”," the minister said in his address at the launch of 'India's World' magazine. Foreign policy expert C Raja Mohan chairs the editorial board of the magazine.

During his address, Jaishankar listed four big factors, which according to him, should cause people in India to actually ask themselves "What are the changes which are necessary in a foreign policy".

"One, and I happened, by coincidence, to speak about it yesterday, for many, many years, we had what someone else very pithily summed up as the 'Nehru development model'. That was book released yesterday by Dr Arvind Panagariya," PTI quoted the minister as saying.

"A 'Nehru development model', inevitably produced a 'Nehru foreign policy' and we seek to correct that abroad", just as efforts being made to reform the consequences of the model at home," Jaishankar had said on Saturday, in his virtual address at the launch of the book 'The Nehru Development Model'.

"Nehru development model produced a Nehru foreign policy': Jaishankar

In his address at Sunday's event, he reiterated that a 'Nehru development model' produced a 'Nehru foreign policy'.

"I mean, it was obvious. And, it wasn't just what was happening in our country, there was an international landscape in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and the 1970s which was bipolar. Then there was a unipolar landscape. And, both those landscapes have also changed," the external affairs minister added.

"On top of it, in the last two decades or so, there has been a very intense globalisation, a strong interdependence with countries. "In a way, the relationship, the behaviour of states towards each other have changed," he said.

"Finally, if one looks at technology, technology on foreign policy, technology on state capability, "technology on our daily existence, that too has changed", he added.

"So, if the domestic model has changed, if the landscape has changed, if the behavioural patterns of states have changed, and if the tools of foreign policies have changed, how can foreign policy remain the same," he argued.

"So, my point to you today is when we speak about changing foreign policy, if there is talk of a post-Nehruvian construct, it should not be treated as a political attack. I mean, it didn't require Narendra Modi to do it, Narasimha Rao started it," Jaishankar added.

‘We need to be grounded, realistic’: Jaishankar
"So, I think, we need to be grounded, we need to be realistic, we need to be practical in this country, and the foreign policy discourse within track 2, and between track 2 and track 1 will certainly improve, if we move in that direction," the EAM said.

In his address, Jaishankar also asserted that a vision for a developed India needs a foreign policy for 'Viksit Bharat'.

"If today our aspiration at home is to become a Viksit Bharat, surely there must be a foreign policy for Viksit Bharat. And, that foreign policy in a way, I would say, we had about a decade ago suggested the need for India to start thinking about moving towards a leading power. How to be more ambitious, how to plan ahead," the EAM said.

Source: Hindustan Times

BDST: 1754 HRS, DEC 16, 2024
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