We are discussing this question of foreign policy of India today, in the year 1979. I hope that the Minster of External Affairs would look to this problem, not only as a matter of policy for one year, but also agree that India should now consider the projections of foreign policy of the 1980s., i.e. for the next decades what is the world going to be like, what are the world movements going to be like and, in regard to the region in which India continues to exist and continues to influence, how it is going to change and what will be our policies. What is the assessment for a decade, for a longer time, and what is the longer perspective?
Foreign policy is one subject which can very well be handled only if there are long-term perspectives. I hope that after listening to the debate, Mr. Vajpayee will not merely answer the points made here and there, and get-away with the usual eloquence that he has, but will try to take us into confidence and give us his assessment of some of the problems of longer perspective.
There are four important criteria on which the foreign policy of any country can be judged. The first criterion is : What is its relations like with its immediate neighbours, and secondly, with the countries in the region in which this country exists. Naturally if we take the first thing as an important criterion to be taken into consideration, I find there is some sort of a sense of complacency in the mind of the government. They are giving two impressions, that the relations with the neighbouring countries are very good, there is nothing to worry about that, and other it has happened only after the Janata government has come to power. Both these aspects are rather misleading. If there are good relations with the neighbouring countries diplimatically and in other respects, they were there even before. But to say everything is all right with the neighbouring countries is absolutely wrong because neighbouring countries do not necessarily mean Pakistan and Nepal and Bangladesh; that also mean China. It has been the continuation of the foreign policy of Pandit Nehru and we are glad that, we are inheriting a framework of policy and if we are honest and loyal to that framework of policy to the basic principle, no foreign minister, no government can ever go wrong. We will have to be very honest and careful about the basic approaches that have been laid down as the foundation of the policy.
