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When External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar responded to a barb calling India a ‘bully’ in the sub-continent and the Indian Ocean region, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan on Monday went ‘Wah!!!’. Jaishankar, at a book launch event on Saturday, had said that “big bullies’ don’t provide $4.5 billion in aid when neighbours are in distress”.
Reacting to the external affairs minister’s reply, Big B, on the microblogging website X (formerly Twitter), shared a video of Jaishankar and wrote: “WAH .. !!! well said Sir ..”
The EAM was responding to a question at the event. The clipping of the response to the barb went viral pretty immediately, and the video was widely shared across social media platforms.
Jaishankar, in his reaction to India being called a big bully, said that ‘bullies’ do not help neighbours in time of need, be it financial or other.
“Big bullies do not provide $4.5 billion when their neighbours are in trouble. Bullies don’t supply vaccines to other countries when Covid is on. Bullies don’t make exceptions to their own rules to respond to food, fuel and fertilizer demands when war in some part of the world is complicating their lives,” he said.
The EAM also that the big change today in this part of the world is what has happened between India and its neighbours.
“You also have to look today at actually what is changed between India and its neighbours. Certainly, with Bangladesh and Nepal, I mean today you have a power grid, you have roads which didn’t exist a decade ago, you have railways which didn’t exist a decade ago, there’s usage of waterways. Indian businesses use ports of Bangladesh on a national treatment basis,” he added.
On Tuesday, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu said that no Indian military personnel will remain in the country after May 10, be it in uniform or civilian clothing, Maldives-based The Edition reported. Muizzu is considered close to China who even ran the electoral campaign on the line of ‘India Out’. Since coming to power, he has taken several steps that have been unconventional from the point of view of India-Maldives ties.
The removal of Indian troops from the Maldives was the main election campaign of Muizzu’s party and he put up a formal request with New Delhi regarding the same, on the very second day of assuming office.
On February 26, Jaishankar affirmed his belief that the row with the Maldives would be resolved through diplomacy. He also said that sometimes misunderstandings take place between two nations. “Humanity is humanity. Diplomacy is diplomacy, and politics is politics. The whole world doesn’t always run with obligation…so if we have encountered such a situation, the solution will come through diplomacy only.”
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Published: 05 Mar 2024, 03:45 PM IST
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