New Delhi, Mar 07: India’s rise is “unstoppable” and the trajectory of its growth will be determined by the country alone on the basis of its strengths and not by the “mistakes” of others, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.
Jaishankar’s comments at the Raisina Dialogue came two days after US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said that the US will not repeat the mistake of providing India the same type of economic advantages it gave China that helped Beijing become a key competitor of the US.
“When we speak today about the rise of countries… the rise of countries is determined by the countries. The rise of India will be determined by India,” Jaishankar said at the discussion on cooperation among countries of the Indian Ocean region.
“It will be determined by our strength, not by the mistakes of others,” he said without naming any country.
Amid some concerns over the US strike on an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka three days back, Jaishankar also highlighted India’s growing role in the Indian Ocean as a net security provider but at the same time noted that it doesn’t override the realities of the region.
In that context, he mentioned the military bases of Diego Garcia, Djibouti and Hambantota.
The external affairs minister also confirmed India’s approval of urgent docking for an Iranian naval vessel, IRIS Lavan, in Kochi this week.
“We got a message from the Iranian side that one of the ships, which presumably was closest to our borders at that point of time, wanted to come into our port. They were reporting that they were having problems. On March 1, we said — you can come in. It took them a few days to sail in and then they docked in Kochi,” he said.
The Indian Navy approved the request to dock the ship, days before the US torpedoed and sank Iranian frigate IRIS Dena.
IRIS Lavan docked at Kochi on March 4. The vessel remains in Kochi with its 183 crew members currently being accommodated at Indian naval facilities on humanitarian grounds.
Jaishankar also emphasised the need to follow the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
While analysing the situation in the Indian Ocean region as well as the India growth story, Jaishankar said, “Those who work with us obviously will get more benefits; I’m not saying there are no challenges to India’s rise, there are.”
“But the direction of India’s rise is very clear. In a way, it’s unstoppable,” he said.
In his comments at the Raisina Dialogue on Wednesday, Landau, talking about various facets of Washington’s foreign policy, said the US is not a charity organisation.
At the same time, he said the US is determined to expand ties with India and that the proposed trade deal between the two countries is “almost at the finish line now”.
“India should understand that we are not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago in terms of saying, we are going to let you develop all these markets, and then, the next thing we know, you are beating us in a lot of commercial things,” he had said.
“We are going to make sure that whatever we do is fair to our people. Because ultimately, we have to be accountable to our own people, just as the government of India has to be accountable to its people,” he said.
After the US announced a 30-day waiver to India from American sanctions to procure Russian crude oil, the opposition parties accused the government of allowing the US to dictate the country’s foreign policy.
India has been maintaining that it will continue to procure energy from multiple sources and diversify them to ensure stability in the supply chain, with national interests remaining the “guiding factor” for the procurement.
