By Prashanth Parameswaran
Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar suggests India should raise the level of its ambitions.
India should seek to raise the level of its foreign policy ambitions, the country’s top diplomat suggested in an address Friday.
Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar told a forum in New Delhi that given India’s larger and intense footprint under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was time for the country to consider a more proactive foreign policy approach.
“It is therefore time to ask ourselves whether India should raise the level of our ambitions,” Jaishankar said at the launch of a new book on Modi’s foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank.
“Are we content to react to events, or should we be shaping them more, on occasion even driving them? Should we be aim to be a balancing power, or a leading one?” he added.
Jaishankar suggested that India should aim for a more proactive foreign policy based on a clear sense of its priorities, an integrated view of regions, and a more vigorous effort directed at confidently pursuing multiple relationships simultaneously and making a global impact. This was in contrast, to a more reactive approach which sought a lower profile and adopted a more siloed approach, often associated with the country’s tradition of non-alignment.
Read the full story at The Diplomat