Talking about India’s economic progression, he said the country is playing catch up in many ways as the era of reform was not necessarily the era of technology.
New Delhi:
India has a 60-year engagement with Russia and it is not correct to interpret as if there is some handicap that New Delhi has by having the relationship, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday.
His comments at a technology conclave came against the backdrop of increasing disquiet among the Western powers over the strong India-Russia ties notwithstanding the war in Ukraine.
“We have a relationship with Russia and it is not a relationship that happened in one instant, one day, one month or one year. It is an accumulated relationship of close to 60 years,” he said.
“Often I see a problem defined in a way as though somewhere there’s some handicap that India has by having this relationship,” he said, adding “this relationship has saved us many times.” “If we are over dependent or not, actually at the end of the day it depends on us,” he said.
S Jaishankar also referred to historical aspects of the engagement between the two sides.
“If you look at the Eurasian landmass, it makes sense that India and Russia would have strong relations because it is in accordance with the first principle of politics of your neighbour’s neighbour,” he said.
Talking about India’s economic progression, he said the country is playing catch up in many ways as the era of reform was not necessarily the era of technology.
“We are in many areas playing catch up. We are playing catch up because while our era of reform started three decades ago, the era of reform was not necessarily the era of technology,” he argued.
