“India didn’t covet any other country’s resources or territory and that its external policies were based on human values and not on the notion of profit and loss.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made this comment while addressing the first-ever conference of parliamentarians and political leaders of Indian origin from across the globe in New Delhi on January 9.
India organised the conference – titled ‘Persons of Indian Origin Parliamentarians’ (PIOP) – to mark 102nd anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s return to the country from South Africa. A total of 134 parliamentarians from 24 countries, including Britain, the US, Canada, Kenya, Tanzania, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, New Zealand, Guyana, Fiji, and Trinidad and Tobago – attended the conference.
After inaugurating the event organised by India for the first time, Prime Minister Modi told the dignitaries that this South Asian nation has always played a constructive role in international politics. He said: “If there is any ideology to counter extremism and radicalism, it is Gandhian ideals and Indian values.”

In a subtle dig at China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) initiative, the PM stressed: “Our model of giving development aid is not based on ‘give and take’. India is that country which has always played a constructive role in the world arena. We do not measure our policy towards any nation on the basis of profit or loss, but view it through the prism of human values.” He explained that India does not want to know what it can get from any country in return before becoming the ‘development partner’ of that country. According to Modi, India prepares its policy towards any country only by judging its requirements and priorities. “We have no intention of exploiting their resources and we don’t eye their territory. Our focus has always been on capacity-building and resource development,” he told the Indian-origin parliamentarians.
Although he didn’t name China, it is quite clear to the diplomatic community that Modi targeted the Asian giant, which is increasing its economic influence in Pakistan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and other parts of South Asia. Its efforts have helped Beijing bag huge projects amid the sky-rocketing debts of some of these countries. Experts are of the opinion that the PM actually referred to the Chinese territorial disputes with several countries, including India and Japan, by saying that India was not eyeing the territory of other nations.

For long, India has been providing development aid to Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and some other countries in the region. Very recently, China, too, has started sending aid to these countries in an attempt to increase its influence there. The diplomatic community has opined that PM Modi actually tried to highlight the ‘real purpose’ of China’s ‘benevolent’ character.
Meanwhile, he assured the global community that India would continue playing a constructive role in world arena, saying that his government firmly believed in respect for all faiths and sects. He further pointed to India’s “inclusive philosophy”, as seen in the slogan “Sabka saath, sabka vikas” (taking everyone along, with progress for all).

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das