NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said India's foreign policy has been strengthened by the fact that a government with full majority has come after a long time.
Talking about India's foreign policy in an interview to TimesNow news channel, Modi said that it was important to realise that it is no longer a bipolar world, and that India gives a lot of importance to small nations.
"The biggest factor that has empowered this foreign policy is that for 30 years we had unstable governments, there was no government with clear mandate. The world measures a government by the situation it is in in its own country," the Prime Minister said.
"I am thankful to the people of this country they elected this government with full majority and this has had an impact on world politics. The leaders and countries of the world have a different perspective of India," he said.
Modi said that when he took office, the world did not know him, and had they seen him from the media's perspective, they would have been confused.
"The world did not know me, and the world wanted to know who is the new Prime Minister. If someone tries to know Modi from the eyes of media, they will be confused. If that happened, it would be a loss," he said.
"So, as long as I had not met the world leaders and talked to them, they would not have known the Prime Minister of India. I was not a member of a political family. I was new, so being proactive was important for me," he said.
Modi also said that the fact that the Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of External Affairs, and other ministries are working together, unlike in the previous government where the government and party gave different statements, has given our foreign policy a cohesion.
"The third thing is we are a team, MEA, PMO, commerce, finance, defence... we are all a team. This interest (of the world in India) is not only because of Modi but because of the team. Earlier, they were scattered," he said.
Modi pointed out that the world is no more bipolar.
"Earlier, the world was bipolar. There were two big powers and foreign policy revolved around that. We were late in realising the bipolar system now is for namesake. The world has changed and world is more inter-dependent and inter-connected," he said.
The Prime Minister also said that earlier the foreign policy was about contact between leaders, but that has changed as well.
"I had a clean slate, so I could see this and that is beneficial. I talk with Saudi Arabia with the same respect as I talk with Iran, and I talk with U.S. with the same respect as I talk with Russia. Also, we must not consider small nations as small. This is my principle... Small countries are as important," he said.
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