The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Be Indian, think Indian: expert

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 05, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Be Indian, think Indian: expert

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Overall national interest should always be the primary and supreme consideration in formulating foreign policy and there should be no embarrassment in placing national interest at the top of the agenda, the former Special Secretary (DG Security), Government of India, R. Swaminathan has said.

He was delivering the keynote address at a two-day national seminar on `India's Foreign Policy: Emerging Trends in the New Century' that concluded in the city on April 3. The seminar was organised by the V.K. Krishna Menon Study Centre for International Relations of the University of Kerala.

India's foreign policy and national security policy should be dovetailed in private and in public. The nation should act as a responsible `big power' whose views and policies are of importance to many other countries. The luxury of making or taking not-so-well-thought-out statements and actions relating to other countries is no longer available to India.

If India does not have a viable long-term strategy, foreign policy swings would become inevitable resulting in a lack of credibility, he said. With the growing status of India as an economic powerhouse and as a regional military power, the nation needs to redefine its foreign policy. "There was a slogan many years go `Be Indian, Buy Indian.' I think we could profitably say now, `Be Indian, Think Indian," Mr. Swaminathan added.

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