New Delhi:

Stressing that the security of Indians based or settled overseas, especially in conflict zones, was paramount for the government, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said ‘Modi’s guarantee’ doesn’t stop at the country’s borders.

Addressing a forum for nationalist thinkers in Hyderabad on Tuesday, the External Affairs Minister said, “Modi’s guarantee doesn’t stop at the borders of India. Modi’s guarantee is global.”

Invoking the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing conflicts that necessitated diplomatic intervention in securing the lives of distressed natives, Mr Jaishankar said, “We have seen it in Covid. een it in conflicts in Ukraine. We saw it in Sudan. We saw it in Israel recently. So we have to prepare for those challenges as well.”

Addressing the session on ‘Foreign Policy The India Way: From Diffidence To Confidence’ in Hyderabad, the External Affairs Minister underscored the importance of a ‘good system’, highlighting that “just strong belief doesn’t matter, it must translate into reforms in the government”.

“We have to prepare for a world where things can go wrong. It will go wrong statistically. And we have to have a continuous ability to respond and react at very, very short notice. And you know, to create, to change government, some of us have worked in it. People work in their own departments, you know, Foreign Ministry does Foreign Ministry, Defense does defence, army does army, Home Ministry does Home.” Mr Jaishankar said.

“You know, that within a matter of hours, when Sudan fighting happened, within 24 hours, our Navy and Air Force with it,” he said.

“There are other examples I can give you of confidence. One is how to defend your borders more strongly because we have challenges on our borders. And the key to defending our borders is not to just posture in public. It requires a lot of homework. It requires building the infrastructure. It requires supporting the military. It requires creating systems that will respond whenever the border is under threat,” Mr Jaishankar said.

On India’s ties with sectors, transcending sectors and spheres, the EAM pointed out India didn’t have an embassy in Israel till 1992 and no Prime Minister visited the country before Narendra Modi.

Claiming that ‘vote bank’ influenced India’s foreign policy in the previous years, Mr Jaishankar said, “Just think of a country like Israel. People say everybody is the same, we should not bring faith in any discussion. Israel became independent in 1948. From 1948 to 1992, we chose not to have an ambassador and an embassy in Israel. Why? From 1992, we had an embassy. From 1992 till 2017, when Narendra Modi went to Israel, no prime minister of India ever visited Israel. Think about it and then tell me that faith has no influence on our policy. Is this not vote bank?”

Emphasising the importance of abrogation of Article 370 from the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, Mr Jaishankar said the leadership at the time created a “vote bank lobby” that kept the special provisions intact in the erstwhile state. He also emphasised that it was a ‘temporary’ provision and had to be ended.

“Please understand the importance of what we did with the abrogation of Article 370. We have corrected an enormous mistake, we made in 1947. We created a lobby, we created a vote bank lobby, we created a Kashmiri lobby, there were people who were arbitraging,” he said.

“I would show to everybody in the Western press one page of the Constitution called temporary provision. You know the meaning of the word temporary, it comes to an end. There is nobody as blind as someone who doesn’t want to see,” Mr Jaishankar added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)