April 5, 2022
Saugata Roy’s speech in Lok Sabha during the discussion under Rule 193 on the situation in Ukraine
Sir, before the beginning of the Second World War, the great poet, Tagore wrote, “it is wrong to lose faith in humanity. It is a sin.” Today, when half of Ukraine is run over by Russian forces, when Mariupol is being bombarded, when Kiev is in ruins, and Kharkiv is in ruins; 4,000 people have died; and four million people have been evacuated, we still have faith in humanity that the situation is going to improve. This is one of the biggest
foreign policy challenges we have faced in the last 50 years ever since the Bangladesh crisis passed away. It is a challenge because of the geostrategic and geopolitical reasons. I am not going into the details of how much Russia is justified. They had some fear because NATO was trying to take Ukraine into their fold. They may have some fears. On the other hand, mostly all the countries in Europe, they have totally grouped behind America. The lead is being given by the US President himself. At this stage, let us consider our options. We had one problem to start with – 20,000 Indians were stranded in Ukraine. Our big job was to bring our Indian students back; we brought back
13,300 Indians by 63 flights. We accomplished that by 8th March. We need not have self-praised ourselves. Four Ministers are present here, and three spoke. It was the duty of the Government and they did a good job. That problem is over. But the war continues. We are caught in a situation between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, one Daleep Singh came, he said that if China does further aggression on Indian soil, Russia will not help. We have abstained in the United Nations repeatedly; we have abstained in the Security Council; we have abstained in the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. Mr. Jaishankar who is ideally suited for the role is walking on a tight rope. He is walking on a knife’s edge. On the one hand, he must understand that Russia has committed aggression but, on the other hand, as Shashi Tharoor said we have many IOUs, Russia gave six vetoes in our favour at different times of crisis. We have hopes of getting petroleum from Russia. We have the S-400 Missile systems which we hope to get from Russia. But at the same time, we face the economic crisis. Russia is already out of the SWIFT system of international transactions.If America gives us further pressure, what are we going to do? Mr.
Jaishankar is the ideal man for the job. He speaks less. He speaks to the point of being taciturn. He has not spoken much which is a good thing. The hon. Ministers are chest-thumping that they went and brought back all those children. Mr. Jaishankar has been restrained for which he deserves praise. But I was just thinking, what would have happened if Pandit Nehru were the Prime Minister today? Foreign affairs can be dealt with by experienced
diplomats like Mr. Jaishankar or Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri. Foreign policy can be dealt with by statesmen. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a statesman who gave a direction to our foreign policy. You remember his role during the Korean War, how he brought an end to the Korean war. You remember his role during Suez crisis. We have not seen
anything. Our hon. Prime Minister has been known to be a big traveller who is travelling to countries like Texas and thumping Trump’s back and calling himself the ‘Vishwa Guru’. … (Interruptions) I was just reading. This is a famous diplomacy. On 1st March, he spoke to the President of the European Union and to the President of Poland. On 7th
March, he spoke to Mr. Putin and to Mr. Zelensky. On 9th March, he spoke to his counterparts in Hungary and Holland. What has been lacking during this whole crisis is a proactive role by the Indian Government and by the Indian Prime Minister. We wanted to see a Nehru or Krishna Menon in action. There was no such action and Mr. Jaishankar has been busy. … (Interruptions)
