'You'll say hello': On Bangladesh question, Jaishankar's ‘good and bad neighbours’ comparison

Two days after visiting Bangladesh to attend the funeral of the country’s first female prime minister, Khaleda Zia, external affairs minister S Jaishankar spoke about India’s “good neighbours” and “bad neighbours” and how New Delhi’s approach to the neighbourhood is guided by “common sense”.

Jaishankar represented India at Zia’s funeral on Wednesday and also handed over a letter of condolence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the former prime minister’s son and acting chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Tarique Rahman.

During an event at IIT Madras in Chennai, the external affairs minister replied to a question on India’s neighbourhood policy amid violence and protests in Bangladesh. He shared how India chooses to be with “good neighbours”.

He said, “If you have a neighbour who is good to you, or at least not harmful to you, your natural instinct is to be kind and to help that neighbour. If the neighbour has a problem, you would like to contribute in some way. If nothing else, you will say hello, try to build friendships and bonding, and that is what we do as a country.”

The EAM said that whenever there is a spirit of good neighbourliness, India chooses to invest, help and share. “With good neighbours, India invests, helps and shares, whether it was vaccines during COVID, fuel and food support during the Ukraine conflict, or the $4 billion assistance to Sri Lanka during its financial crisis,” Jaishankar said.

Jaishankar then spoke about India’s “bad neighbours” who decide to “deliberately, persistently, unrepentantly continue with terrorism”, adding that India has the right to protect itself from such “neighbours”.

“We will exercise that right. How we exercise that right is up to us. Nobody can tell us what we should do or not. We will do whatever we have to do to defend ourselves. It is a common sense proposition,” he said.

In an apparent dig at Pakistan and India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty in response to the Pahalgam terror attack last year, Jaishankar said, “Many years ago, we agreed to a water arrangement, a water-sharing arrangement, because the belief, the underpinning of that, was that it was a gesture of goodwill."

But if you have decades of terrorism, there is no good neighbourliness, Jaishankar said.

He added, “If there is no good neighbourliness, you do not get the benefits of that good neighbourliness. You cannot say, please share water with me, but I will continue terrorism with you.”