Why Bharat Matters Quotes

“India has today moved out of the defensive non-aligned posture, engaging multiple nations on a range of issues with equal confidence.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“return of holy relics from the UK”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“To begin with, this means a clear position on the unacceptability of cross-border terrorism. It is obviously not in our national interest that we normalize terrorism by carrying on with the rest of the relationship as usual.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“For decades, India and Pakistan were uttered in the same breath and their differences made to look like a natural agenda left over from Partition. There were even periods when a military regime in our neighbouring country was held out as an example of development!”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“When it came to displaying strategic clarity about Pakistan, there is no question that Patel and Mookerjee stand out.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“Today, we may be exporters of many products and, indeed, a key producer of vaccines. But none of this should obscure the danger of a large society like India depending on others for basic needs. The attitude of states at a time of extreme stress offers lessons that we ignore at our peril.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“The resistance to road-building in Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected areas is one obvious example. But if national prospects are undermined or border area infrastructure paralysed, then it is a worry of an even greater magnitude. As the record shows, this can come in many forms and appearances, some openly negative while others take the cover of public good.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“brand differentiation between two neighbours who each produce their own brand of IT graduates: one on information technology, and the other on international terrorism.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“Our own experience in recent years has revealed how good governance can be distorted as excessive state control or how anarchy and worse are justified as exercise of democratic rights.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“If sympathy, succour and support are given abroad to separatists in the name of democratic freedoms, should we display equanimity?”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“Political expressions of globalization have also created their own backlash. When self-appointed custodians of correctness sit in judgement over democratically elected representatives, they cannot expect to be unchallenged, especially when they have such visible stakes in the preferred outcomes.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“My own background as a diplomat well into a fifth decade biases me in favour of presenting a clinical picture of the global landscape, its challenges and complications as well as of the implications for India and a suggested course of action. This is what I have done for a living all these years. It is not that we avoid personalities and relationships or underplay their importance. On the contrary, so much of diplomacy is about chemistry and credibility that the human factor is always central to an accurate judgement. But what usually happens is that a vast number of objective and subjective elements are distilled into an integrated picture, which acquires a relatively dispassionate character.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“The analytical world appears to be tangled in its own pre-conceptions and struggling to grasp developments that do not fit its mould. The political arena has become exceptionally polemical, with some parties articulating positions that go against their own grain. The”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters

“Whether drawing strength from its heritage and culture or approaching challenges with the optimism of democracy and technology, this is certainly a New India, indeed an India that is able to define its own interests, articulate its own positions, find its own solutions and advance its own model. In short, this is an India that is more Bharat.”
― S. Jaishankar, Why Bharat Matters