9th Raisina Dialogue 2024: India is a bridging power, world views us relatively unbiased: Foreign Minister S Jaishankar

Speaking at the ninth edition of Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, on February 22, 2024, the EAM Jaishankar called India a bridging power and said that people have seen the country as relatively unbiased. “We are a bridging power to a great degree and we have shown that in the G20. People see us as relatively unbiased. We should get common ground; we should strike common ground. Vishwamitra is like maximizing relationships and that is what we are doing,” he said.

The minister has said that when the United Nations was invented, it had approximately 50 members and now it has approximately four times more members, so it is a common-sense proposition that you can’t continue the same way. “If you look at the last five years, for all the big issues, we have not been able to find a multilateral solution.

So, the lack of results demonstrates the case for reform. In many cases, the rules have been gamed. We speak about globalisation. The fact is that the world trading rules have been gamed. And we have a lot of challenges today which also emanate from how countries have used that for their benefit at the expense of the international system,” he said.

Jaishankar also said India took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations and others made it an accession issue and used it for geopolitics. He further went on to say that in addition to the old issues, there are also new issues in the UN. “The big debates of the day, connectivity, debt, trade and how this are leveraged today, are not necessarily all coming out of the West. So, the West seen as the dominant force earlier is largely responsible for where we are today. The new players haven’t helped.” he said

“If you take the UN Security Council reform the biggest opposer is not a Western Country. So let us get the totality of the problem right. We have to battle bit by bit to create groups for change. On many issues, you will get different combinations of countries and we will have to live with a long period of incremental progress before we get to some kind of landing point,” Jaishankar said.

Raisina Dialogue is India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics, committed to addressing the most challenging issues facing the global community. Every year, leaders in politics, business, media and civil society converge in New Delhi to discuss the state of th world and explore opportunities for cooperation on a wide range of contemporary matters. The theme of the 2024 edition is Chaturanga: Conflict, Contest, Cooperate and Create.

There are six thematic pillars which are Tech Frontiers: Regulations and Realities, Peace with the Planet: Invest and Innovate, War and Peace: Armories and Asymmetries. Decolonizing Multilateralism: Institutions and Inclusions, The Post 2020 Agenda: People and Progress and lastly, Defending Democracy: Society and Sovereignty.