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Using analogies from the Ramayana to explain India’s foreign policy, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar Wednesday compared the role of diplomats to the character of Hanuman, the four Quad countries — India, Japan, Australia and the US — as Dasharath’s four sons, and France as an ally, like Lakshman.
“The direct analogy I make for Quad is with the four sons of Dasharath — Ram, Bharat, Lakshman and Shatrughan — who in many ways have conflicting interests,” the foreign minister said, adding, “yet, there is something fundamental which brings them together. When they meet, suddenly everything starts to work”.
Jaishankar was speaking at the launch of his book, Why Bharat Matters, (Rupa Publishers), in New Delhi, where he describes India’s foreign policy through the prism of the epic — how Ramayana teaches statecraft, be it diplomacy, handling pressure or the importance of allies.
This is his second book after ‘The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World’, which was released in 2020. In the earlier book, Jaishankar talked about how India’s current political stand in the world is strikingly similar to Krishna’s stand during the time of Mahabharata.
In the latest book, he has hit out at Independent India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, saying China’s interests were put ahead of India’s when it came to the UN Security Council.
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