‘Narasimha Rao started it’: EAM Jaishankar says changes in foreign policy should not be seen as political attack | India News – Times of India

Photo credit: X/@DrSJaishankar

NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said that changes in foreign policy should not be seen as a political attack.
“When we speak about changing foreign policy, if there is talk about post-Nehruvian construct, it should not be seen as a political attack. It (the change in foreign policy) didn’t require Narendra Modi to do it. Narsimha Rao started it,” Jaishankar said.
Speaking at an event in Delhi, the EAM said, “There are four big factors which should cause us to ask ourselves ‘what are the changes which are necessary in foreign policy?'”

Jaishankar listed the four factors as:
1: For many years we had the Nehru development model. The Nehru development model produced a Nehruvian foreign policy. It wasn’t just about what was happening in our country, there was an international landscape in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, which was bipolar.
2: Then there was a unipolar landscape.
3: On top of it we have seen, particularly in the last 25 years, a very intense globalization, a very strong interdependence between countries. So, in a way, the relationship and the behaviour of States towards each other has also changed.
4: Finally, if one looks at the impact of technology, technology on foreign policy, technology on State capability, and technology on our daily existence, that too has changed. 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 policy have changed, how can foreign policy remain the same, EAM Jaishankar remarked.

EAM Jaishankar also outlined India’s evolving global role, and said, “Today, India is a country of whom there are greater expectations, a country which has greater responsibilities. The idea of India as a first responder will get more frequent. In the expanded neighbourhood region would be an expectation that India be part of an international response whenever wanted. Because the world is changing, there will be new ideas and initiatives… The whole construct is going to be more open architecture and more multiple choices, but much deeper involvement and more complex decisions.”
Jaishankar also underscored the importance of deeper engagement with the world, saying, ” We have to do very much more with the world. It’s for the good of this country that our progress and development will accelerate with a deeper engagement with the world. So my sense for the foreign policy ahead would be to think big, to think long, but to think smart.”
Acknowledging both continuity and change in foreign policy, Jaishankar said, “In all frankness, (foreign policy ) is a mix of the old and new. The issues that we have historically confronted, many of them have not gone away. We have yet to secure our borders. We are still combating terrorism on a very serious scale. There are the hangovers of the past. There are the requirements of the present. We have already moved to a foreign policy which is much more directly tasked to advance national development.”
He noted a shift in focus within India’s foreign policy apparatus over the past decade. “If you look at all the joint communiques the foreign ministry policy apparatus puts out, you would see in the last 10 years much greater stress on economic diplomacy. When the prime minister or foreign minister goes out, there is much more about technology, capital, best practices, collaborations and investments. These occupy a much larger space… We have taken some valuable lessons from other countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia, who were doing it much longer than we were doing,” the external affairs minister said.