BENGALURU: Taking the Kashmir issue to the United Nations was a fundamental error on India’s part, Western countries had a bias towards Pakistan, and if the country had been hard-headed, we would not have taken that call, Minister for External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar said here on Friday.
“We had a misreading of the world and sanctity of the UN, its impartiality and the Council being neutral arbitrators. We were taken for a ride by countries that had their geopolitical agendas set. As an issue of vulnerability, it was used against us and they continued to use it for decades. Article 370 was not just a call we had to take within the country, but had profound policy implications,” he added.
Jaishankar emphasised the fact that today the country has closed “the window of vulnerability which we were foolish enough to open in 1948”.
The minister was speaking at the Speakers Conclave, organised by PES University in Bengaluru during its golden jubilee celebrations. Jaishankar was in conversation with MP Tejasvi Surya, and briefly discussed his recently launched book ‘Why Bharat Matters’.
Touching upon why he chose Bharat and not India, Jaishankar elaborated that in the past five years, the country has become much more confident and impactful in the world. He added that by 2047, India will be the shaper of what is happening in the world. On Indians being invested in foreign policy and his chapter on ‘foreign policy for you’, the minister said, “A blue-collar worker in the Gulf region has no idea where to go for help, and that is what we wanted to change and build a nation from their perspective.” At any given point, there are 34 million Indians and Indian-origin individuals all around the world; half of them are national and the other half are NRIs.
A large number is blue-collar workers. Around 1.2 million Indian students are around the globe, pursuing education. Today, we cannot prepare for the global world without taking this into account, he asserted.
During his conversation, Jaishankar also said the “Modi-era diplomacy” is different from what was practised earlier, and this is the “new way of thinking”. The policy is now to take our neighbours and make them our partners. India benefits from them and vice-versa, leaving no tensions.