India wants a new deal, strong UN: Sinha

Friday, 12 March 2004, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: India's pursuit of power is aimed at eliminating war, strengthening the UN and striving for a "new deal" for developing countries, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said here Friday. India, he said, approached the "notion of power with an alternate vision and a deep consciousness of its responsibilities". At the same time, it had distanced itself from the conventional notion of power, which was perceived as a nation's ability to bend other countries "through coercive use of force". Speaking on the theme "Geopolitics: what it takes to be a world power" at a conclave organised here by India Today magazine, Sinha said power was a tool for India to preserve the autonomy of its foreign and domestic policies. "What India seeks is to bind every country and region to itself with the golden chain of mutual interest and trust. What we want is to enhance our capacity to leverage reciprocal benefits for common good," he said. India derived its strength and status from hard power, which consisted of military strength, economic resources and technological capacity, and soft power, comprising culture, values and quality of governance. Though India had made tremendous strides in hard power, including the development of a nuclear deterrent and rapid economic growth and major advances in hi-tech, Sinha noted that power in the 21st century would flow "from the pores of a well-run economy". India enjoyed a critical advantage in this regard as 54 percent of its population was aged less than 25 years. "Our young are not only highly talented and ambitious but are also amongst those who save the highest, invest the largest and spend the most. "As this generation ages gradually over the next few decades, savings, investment and spending will undergo a quantum jump, providing tremendous impetus to economic growth." Sinha also dispelled the notion that India had developed nuclear weapons to break into "an exclusive nuclear club", saying the move was compelled by the "imposition of an imperfect non-proliferation order". "Cognisance must be taken of the fact that India is a mature nuclear power, which takes the responsibility of possessing this awesome capability very seriously," he noted. In the field of diplomacy, India had "good relations with virtually every country in the world", and its ties with the US had not been improved at the cost of the traditional friendship and strategic partnership with Russia. "Further, we are now even thinking the unthinkable. Differences with China and Pakistan, which have festered fro decades, are being addressed in a straightforward and pragmatic manner as never before," Sinha asserted. At the same time, unity and social harmony within India was essential for the country's progress in the international arena, he said. He noted that India's biggest strength was its secular and multi-cultural ethos. The country's Muslim population was the second largest in the world and its Christian minority outnumbered the population of many European nations. This "is a badge of honour" for India, he said. "To damage our heritage of tolerance and pluralism or to waver in upholding these principles is the biggest setback that can occur to our great power ambitions," Sinha said. "To sum up, India's search for great power status is not an end in itself. It is but a means to improve the quality of life of her over one billion people. "It is a pursuit anchored in the framework of India's commitment to core universal values," he said.
Source: IANS
siliconindia