"PM Modi asked us to think about next 25 years": Jaishankar
May 27, 2023
Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], May 27 : External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministers not to think about the next year or term but about the next 25 years.
Jaishankar said that the government is today thinking about an "era of a generation".
His remarks came while addressing 'Modi's India: Rising power' in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
"Prime Minister asked us to think a little bit differently. He didn't ask us to think for the next year or the next decade or the next term. He asked us to think about the next 25 years. And I say this because that 25 years is going to be determined by all of you. We are actually today thinking of an era of a generation or more," Jaishankar said.
"We have to bring to the international stage our personality, our culture, our heritage. So when Prime Minister Modi motivated the world to celebrate the practice of yoga, it wasn't just a cultural or a fitness exercise he was advocating. "When he pushes AYUSH during COVID wellness practices from India, it is today something bigger which is happening. How do we make the world understand our beliefs and practices? How do they, in a sense, get to know what is India about? What are Indians about, what is the heritage, the culture? What is the DNA of this system? Because that is really when a country is seen as rising," Jaishankar added speaking on the awareness about India's cultural heritage," he added.
He said that PM Modi's India is like a designer which is trying to "shape the world".
"Think of (PM) Modi's India as a designer and think of rising as a process of design, because what are we trying to do today in international relations, we are trying to shape the world. We are trying to redesign it because there's already a design that we have inherited over many years. It is partly a design process, partly it's an architectural exercise," he added.
The EAM said that "PM Modi's India is different from its predecessors".
"It is different in its outlook. If you look today at the politics of India, the representation of India, at the thinking, the parlance, the metaphors, the policies, it is the result of 75 years of a very deep democracy whose inclusiveness has really brought forth leadership and a thought process that is really authentically Indian," he added.
