Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's address at the foundation stone laying ceremony of Jawaharlal Nehru Bhavan

"I am honoured to be associated with this ceremony to lay the foundation stone of Jawaharlal Nehru Bhavan. This building, I believe, will become another landmark in these historic and beautiful environs.

It is befitting and natural that we name the building that will house our foreign office after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. With his immense pride in India's great heritage and abiding faith in our country's capacity to march forth to a bright future, Panditji came to symbolize the hopes and aspirations of a free India in a brave new world. He was truly the architect of modern India and laid the foundation of a democratic, secular and pluralistic polity. The institutional and policy foundations laid by him have come to underpin India's rapid ascent on the global political and economic scene.

Panditji dreamed big for India and worked tirelessly to realize those dreams. His leadership of India and his boundless love for India and its people, however, did not confine him within the frontiers of our country. His gigantic personality and the breadth of his vision had a far bigger canvas. He was the architect of free India's Foreign Policy. Within six days of his taking the reins of the Interim Government in September 1946, he pledged, in the course of a radio broadcast, that India would work for one world in which there was free cooperation of free peoples and no class or group exploited another.

Addressing the Constituent Assembly on the night of August 14, 1947, when his thoughts were focused predominantly on India and her future, Panditji's commitment to humanity at large came out clearly when he said that his dreams are not just 'for India, but they are also for the world as a whole. All the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart' he went on to add, 'peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.' This thought encapsulates movingly, the impulse that drives our work. No better vision for the world has been conceived till today.

Panditji's great quality was that his idealism and vision were rooted in the hard, and often harsh, reality of an unequal world. He recognized that a newly democratic India must take difficult decisions to regain its glory and to ensure the well-being and prosperity of our people. He told the Constituent Assembly in December 1947, and I quote again, 'Talking about foreign policies, the House must remember that these are not just empty struggles on a chess board. Behind them lie all manner of things. Ultimately, foreign policy is the outcome of economic policy.'

Along with all the great leaders of our freedom struggle Panditji also saw an intrinsic link between our foreign policy and the economic aspirations of our people. A free India had to also be a prosperous India. This vision has informed our foreign policy and must continue to do so. Every democratically elected Government has to be mindful of the well-being of its people. The foreign policy we pursue abroad must reflect our national priorities and concerns. There cannot be a disconnect between domestic capabilities, national aspirations and external policies. Our foreign policy must help create an international environment conducive to India's rapid social and economic development.

Our civilisation has had a message for the world that informs our foreign policy vision. That has been a message of unity in diversity, of pluralism, inclusiveness and secularism. The idea of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' - The Whole World is One Family. A policy that combines these universal values with national interest is what Panditji visualized and shaped. For it was our national interest to seek space in the world to facilitate our development.

But our nationalism was not based on narrow chauvinism or aggressive jingoism. At the time of our Independence, the world had just rid itself of one manifestation of such negative nationalism when it defeated fascism. Our nationalism was elevated by larger universal principles as well as an abiding commitment to the well-being of our people. That is precisely why it was an enlightened nationalism.

Similarly, Panditji's idea of "non-alignment" was also based on the principle that we were not aligned with anyone against anyone, but only with our values and national interest. Non-alignment was neither an empty slogan nor a pretext to shirk the responsibility to define our own world-view based on national interest. Indeed, non-alignment was an expression of our enlightened national interest and continues to be so even today.

We have worked hard to create the space needed to have the freedom to make policy choices in an increasingly inter-dependent world that we live in. The means we adopt to pursue our enduring objectives of peace, national security and development will, of course, change from time to time. They will have to be evolved in response to the changing realities of an ever-changing world. While the instruments of our policy and the tactics and strategy we adopt may change with time, the values in which they are embedded are universal and remain true for all time.

Our diplomats are called upon to steer the course of India's foreign relations in an extremely complex global scenario. In recent years, we have witnessed a much sharper consonance between our foreign and domestic policies. The Indian economy has taken on an outward orientation as a result of the reform policies that were initiated in the early 90s. Our growth rates have been increasing and we seek to sustain annual growth rates of between 8 -10 per cent in the future. These demands have created new challenges for our foreign policy in terms of seeking access to markets, sources of energy and investment and advanced technologies. These challenges have also led India towards new thrusts in our foreign policy and there are new directions in our policies towards our major economic partners, towards our wider Asian neighbourhood and towards other developing countries.

We face a turbulent neighbourhood. It is our foremost challenge to create a stable and cooperative atmosphere in our region that will allow us to concentrate our energies on tackling the problems at home and in our region. Peace, prosperity and stability in South Asia is a top priority concern of our external policies. The destiny of all countries of the region is closely interlinked.

I do believe that the External Affairs Ministry has risen to the occasion to face many challenges and seize new opportunities. I compliment our diplomats for their good work and urge them to show creativity and enterprise in dealing with a rapidly changing world. We must, however, invest more in our capabilities and in our institutions to sharpen the edge of our diplomacy. In the fast evolving international arena of today, introspection and adaptation has to be a continuous process. The business of diplomacy increasingly requires engagement with the diplomacy of business. Given India's rising demand for energy, the uncertainty of supply of hydro-carbons and concerns about global warming, issues relating to energy security have important implications for the conduct of our foreign policy.

Equally important is the need for more representative and effective international institutions that reflect contemporary realities, in view of the growing interdependence of all nations. At the same time, the turbulence that now characterizes much of the Islamic world also merits deeper analysis. This also applies to the rise of China as a major global power. There is much that we can learn from China's most impressive economic development. We have to grasp the implications of the knowledge revolution through which science and technology have now emerged as major determinants of the power and wealth of nations. Our diplomats must have a deep understanding of the factors which contribute to the rise and fall of nations and of civilizations. I have no doubt that each and everyone in the Ministry is alive to these issues.

I am glad that the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhavan will be a modern, state-of-the-art building and one in complete harmony with its environment. I am certain that the modern facilities being incorporated in this building will be of tremendous assistance to the Ministry of External Affairs in the discharge of its onerous responsibilities. I hope that the C.P.W.D., which is executing this project, will prove its 150 years of engineering excellence by completing the building in time and fully in keeping with the needs of a modern Foreign Office.

Thank you and let me felicitate you all on finding a home of your own."