Lecture by Ambassador Shyam Saran at Ashoka University

During his presentation, at the invitation of the Department of International Relations, Ambassador Saran said, “Geopolitics is now everybody’s business.” He added, “It is no longer something which remains in smoke-filled chanceries, where there is a group of diplomats deciding what foreign policy should be.”

Ambassador Saran underlined the challenges India faces as a consequence of the shifting American focus toward hemispheric control. America is now looking more to its own hemisphere- towards Greenland, the Caribbean, and South America- than elsewhere. “India has been the beneficiary of a U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy for the last 25 years. That has now changed,” Ambassador Saran observed. “This transition will be much more difficult and anarchic.” He cautioned, “Don’t do anything from your side to provoke, but at the same time be absolutely ready that this is going to get worse.”

Talking about India’s task ahead, he noted that India “diversifying by reaching out to the Chinese, refurbishing the relationship with the Russians, and reaching out to the Europeans is the right response.”

Ambassador Saran, who has dealt with China over decades, pointed out that “India-China relations are essentially an adversarial relationship between rivals. But that does not exclude the possibility of us working together in certain areas where we have converging interests.”

However, while doing all this, he emphasised, “You must get your own periphery (South Asia) right.” India needs to shore up its relations with its immediate neighbours as the top priority.