Indian External Affairs Minister (S Jaishankar) has expressed hope that India-Bangladesh relations will improve following the national election, scheduled for 12 February.
“Most of our neighbours have the realisation that India’s growth today is a lifting tide. If India grows, all our neighbours will grow with us. They will have many more opportunities. That, in a sense, is the message I also took to Bangladesh," Jaishankar said in response to a question at a lecture series organised at the Indian Institute of Madras (IITM) on Friday.
The Indian top diplomat wished Bangladesh well for the upcoming election scheduled for 12 February.
"We hope once things settle down, the sense of neighbourliness in this region will grow," he remarked.
Jaishankar spelled out the achievements of India's 'Neighbourhood First Policy' under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Indian foreign minister noted India's response in supplying not only vaccines, but also food, fuel and fertilisers to its South Asian neighbours - Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Myanmar and Sri Lanka- following the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020-21.
He highlighted India's role as a "good neighbour" in extending a $4 billion economic package to Sri Lanka following the economic crisis as well as the
"If you ask the average person, they will say that I have a neighbour like India. When things go bad, I can rely on a country like that. It doesn't always have to be a crisis. You could work with neighbours by way of power grids, waterways, roads, by ports, doing business, tourism, and having people come for medical treatment. So, this is the positive scenario.
Jaishankar added that one could also have "bad neighbours", noting Delhi's persistent concerns about cross-border terrorism from the western border.
"Nobody could tell us what to do or what not to do. We have the right to defend ourselves. That is a common sense proposition," Jaishankar said, an apparent reference to external mediation claims from the US and recently China.