Aiyar expresses concern over India’s ‘very hostile relationship’ with all its neighbours

Former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on Friday expressed concern over India’s “very hostile relationship” with all of its neighbours.

Speaking at a gathering in Chennai, where he introduced former RBI governor D. Subbarao to deliver a lecture, Mr. Aiyar, also a former civil service diplomat said, “We are, I think, endangering ourselves, by continuing to have a very hostile relationship with all our neighbours.”

While India put all its cards into now ousted politician Sheikh Haseena’s pack, Mr. Aiyar said, “And now, we are left with a regime, which wants to be friendly with us, with which we don’t want to be friendly.”

Referring to the atrocities against minorities in Bangladesh, Mr. Aiyar said, “As a country, which conducts daily atrocities against its own minorities, we are trying to pick up a big fuss about how they are treating the Hindus.”

He further said, “But, investigations by the Bangladesh media, including The Daily Star and the Prothom Alo, the biggest Bengali newspaper, have shown that most of the so-called atrocities against the Hindus are because the Hindus, on a large scale, were supporters of the Awami League..”

“Is it because they are Awami Leaguers that they face these troubles? Or because they are Hindus? They are not even asking that question,” Mr. Aiyar said.

Stating that Sri Lankan President Anura Dissanayake was a “former terrorist” and the JVP was a party of “Buddhist-Sinhala extremism,” Mr. Aiyar contended, “Now he [Mr. Dissanayake] has given it all up, but he is the same man and he is the president.” Pointing out that he has got several seats in Jaffna, he said, “So, this extremist has reconciled with the Tamils, whereas he was fighting them in the 1980s.”

In Maldives, the Prime Minister’s election slogan was ‘India Out’, who after coming to power, went to Turkey and China, to show that Maldives was “no longer a puppet of India’s,” Mr. Aiyar said. In Burma, India had a friend in politician Aung San Suu Kyi, “but now we have a regime there, a military one, with which we hardly have a relationship,” he said.

As for Bhutan, Mr. Aiyar said: “After Doklam, the Bhutanese are very keen on settling with China so that war does not break out on their borders. It is we who are holding them back. So, there is some unspoken tension.” In Bhutan, India has “an excellent relationship but just below the surface, there is tension”.

India has a “very bad relationship” with Nepal, he said. Though Kathmandu had initially accepted for a public rally by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Janakpur during his visit to Nepal for SAARC summit in 2014, it cancelled the event when India wanted Mr. Modi to distribute cycles to Nepalese girls because of Roti-Beti ka Rishta between Nepal and Bihar.

When there was a Constitutional agreement between all the political parties of Nepal, the then India’s Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar was sent as a special envoy, Mr. Aiyar recalled.

Mr. Jaishankar was sent as a special envoy to “tell the Nepalese that they are not allowed to proclaim their new Constitution because the new Constitution does not contain the provisions, which the Prime Minister of India felt the Nepalese should have in their Constitution,” Mr. Aiyar said.

Mr. Aiyar said, India shared a “very, very, very bad relationship with Pakistan.” Recalling several anecdotes during his official tenure in Pakistan and his interactions with people, Mr. Aiyar called for a better relationship with the Pakistanis.

“What is the problem in being with the people, who when we go to Birmingham or New York, we tend to make best friends with? Allies against the whites. The Indians and the Pakistanis are always together. And yet, when it comes to our own sub-continent, neither can they come here, nor can we go there. It is such a shame,” Mr. Aiyar said.

Published - December 14, 2024 12:14 am IST