India’s stature in the world has risen: Jaishankar

New Delhi: Most Indians recognise that India’s global stature has risen in the past five years and this played a role in the NDA government retaining power for a  second consecutive term, new external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said on Thursday. Speaking at a seminar here, he also said India would aim to enhance regional cooperation under the Bimstec grouping as there have been certain problems with Saarc. In his first public comments after taking charge of the external affairs ministry, which clearly indicate India’s preference for Bimstec now instead of Saarc, the new minister said that Bimstec is witnessing a great deal of positive energy and that it was decided to leverage that and invite the leaders of the Bimstec nations to the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Modi last month.

These comments came on a day the MEA announced that Mr Jaishankar would be making his first trip abroad as minister to Bhutan on Friday and Saturday, where he will meet both the King and the Prime Minister. The visit shows the importance New Delhi attaches to ties with Bhutan that comes at a time when China too has been extremely keen too to strengthen ties with Bhutan.

Bimstec refers to the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation — which includes India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Saarc has been virtually in cold storage due to India-Pakistan tensions since 2016 over Pakistan’s continued support to cross-border terrorism aimed at India. With the exception of Southeast Asian countries Myanmar and Thailand which are members of Asean, the remaining Bimstec countries are also Saarc members. The Saarc countries that are not members of Bimstec, apart from Pakistan, are Afghanistan and the Maldives.

“Saarc has certain problems and we all know what it is. Even if you were to put terrorism issue aside, there are connectivity issues, there are trade issues,” Mr Jaishankar said. Mr Jaishankar was foreign secretary for three years from January 2015 to January 2018, during the Modi government’s previous tenure.

“A large majority of people in India recognised that India’s stature in the world has risen in the last five years,” the new minister said, adding the government has kept alive and perhaps even strengthened expectations of change in India. A “global rebalancing” is taking place and its “sharpest manifestation” is the rise of China and, to an extent, the rise of India as well, Mr Jaishankar said during an interaction at the seminar on Thursday.

The government looks different from outside than from inside, Mr Jaishankar said without elaborating. He also said the elections were a vote of confidence in the management of national security and foreign policy was integrated with it. In addition, a large part of India’s economy has been externalised and there is need for India’s foreign policy to help Indian companies gain better access to overseas markets.

The external affairs minister also said he would continue with his predecessor Sushma Swaraj’s social media outreach to help Indians abroad. He said “enormous emphasis” will be given to Indians in distress and they now expect the government to reach out to them. This has changed the image of the foreign ministry, he added.