Lord Krishna, Hanuman greatest diplomats of world: S Jaishankar

PUNE: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said Lord Krishna and Lord Hanuman were the greatest diplomats of the world.

He was speaking on Saturday while interacting with the audience in Maharashtra's Pune city in a question-answer session during the launch of 'Bharat Marg', the Marathi translation of his book 'The India Way'.

Jaishankar said, "Lord Shri Krishna and Lord Hanuman were the greatest diplomats of the world. I am saying this very seriously." If one looks at them in the perspective of diplomacy, what situation they were in, what mission was given to them, how they had handled the situation, he said.

"Hanumanji, he had gone ahead of the mission, he had contacted Goddess Sita, burnt Lanka. He was a multi-purpose diplomat," Jaishankar said.

The minister said for the world's 10 big strategic concepts pertaining to international relations in today's discourse, he could give an equivalent for every concept from the epic Mahabharat.

"If you say today it is a multi-polar world, at that time what was happening in Kurukshetra (the site of the battle of Mahabharat), that was multi-polar Bharat, where there were different rajya (kingdoms), they were told 'you are with them, you are with me'. A couple of them were non-aligned like Balram and Rukma."

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He said now people say it is a globalised world, there is interdependence, there is constraint.

"What was Arjuna's dilemma, it was constraint, that he was emotionally interdependent; that how do I fight against my relatives. That was not material interdependence, but it was emotional interdependence," he said.

"We sometimes say Pakistan did this or that, and we will show strategic patience. The best example of strategic patience is the way Lord Krishna handled Shishupal. He (Lord Krishna) forgave him 100 times," he said.