00:01What role should India play in this war?
00:05Will the Hormuz block it, the Straits of Hormuz being affected,
00:09hit the economy, especially India's oil purchases?
00:13Is the Gulf losing the safe haven status that it has?
00:17Lots of questions to answer.
00:20Sayyid Agbaruddin, former permanent representative of India to the UN,
00:24someone who's worked across the region, including Saudi Arabia, including Iran.
00:29I appreciate, Agbaruddin, you joining me.
00:33From an Indian perspective, you've heard the Prime Minister today
00:36reach out to different Gulf neighbours once again,
00:41Gulf countries once again, spoken to the King of Jordan,
00:44speaking to other affected countries.
00:47Do you believe that this outreach is the right way to do this
00:55or should we be, in a way, calling out what some believe is now
01:01an unprovoked, unnecessary, disproportionate war that Israel and U.S. are calling out?
01:08Why the reluctance to call out the U.S. and Israel?
01:12Do you believe that's the right approach?
01:14Thank you very much, Rajdeep, for having me on your show.
01:18So, West Asia is not a distant theatre for India.
01:22It's part of our proximate neighbourhood, if I may say.
01:27For India, the Gulf is not a foreign policy file only.
01:33It's an economic and human security reality.
01:38Our energy flows, oil, LNG, LPG, aviation fuel,
01:44come from there in significant measure.
01:49So, any increase in prices due to the closure of sea lanes
01:53will have an impact on our budgetary lines, on our bottom lines.
01:58And there's the safety of nearly 9 million Indians in the region
02:02where we have a direct state.
02:06So, India's approach is not going to be a pure norms, values, first posture.
02:14It's likely to be a more hedged norms posture.
02:18And the logic is pretty simple.
02:21Diplomacy must be calibrated rather than doctrinaire.
02:25So, you see the way that we are responding.
02:29We are not doing it in a very manner of vocal symmetry.
02:34But in crisis, you speak first where your people and your economic interests lie
02:40and where they are most exposed.
02:43So, calibrated diplomacy provides options and rhetoric closes them.
02:49So, I'm not one for having a rhetorical approach.
02:53So, you're saying it was the right because, you know,
02:56this has become part of domestic politics, the opposition, large sections of it,
03:01including Sonia Gandhi, interestingly today, questioning
03:04why has the government been so silent on the assassination of a head of state
03:10like Ali Khamenei, someone who may have been anti-India in his positions on Kashmir,
03:15but at the end of the day is a head of state.
03:17That international rules demand that you can't just take out a head of state
03:23with this kind of an external strike.
03:25Do you, that's immoral, illegal?
03:28How do you respond?
03:29Has India done the right thing by not openly condemning the US and Israel at any state so far?
03:38So, Rajdeep, let's first acknowledge that our ties with Iran are historic,
03:45are traditional, and are deep.
03:46And many Indians feel a sense of civilizational affinity
03:51and strong cultural bonds with Iran.
03:54And of course, the killing of Iran's supreme leader in military strikes
03:59is seen by many as a grave breach of accepted norms.
04:03Now, what the government wants to answer, perhaps it'll answer over itself
04:07because I'm not the spokesperson right now.
04:10I have no knowledge of the inner thinking of the government.
04:14And as Mrs. Sonia Gandhi herself said,
04:16that perhaps the best place for this is to discuss it in parliament.
04:21But that said, I think the important thing is for us to ensure
04:28that we prevent the next strike.
04:31And that is what matters rather than condemning the last one.
04:35India is not there to win applause.
04:39It has to work to protect lives, its own interests.
04:44And the Ministry of External Affairs has already said that sovereignty
04:49and restraint and territorial integrity remain our core principles.
04:54But we have other priorities.
04:57So, I think what the government has to say, it'll say.
05:01So, to those who say that we've taken a picture side,
05:06we are veering closer and closer with every passing year or month
05:12towards the Israel-US axis,
05:15that that, in a way, limits our options.
05:18You don't agree with that.
05:20You believe that we are in a multi-aligned world.
05:23So, we are having relations, strong relations with the Gulf states.
05:26At the same time, we built this strong equation with Israel.
05:30You believe that's the way forward?
05:32Have we embraced Israel and the US to the extent that we have
05:35no strategic autonomy now in the region?
05:40Radhi, engagement should not be confused with alignment.
05:44We need to separate the optics from the policy.
05:48Yes, the Prime Minister was in Israel a few days before the strikes took place.
05:52But that doesn't make India complicit in what followed.
05:56Critics, crises erupt between meetings.
06:01And if diplomacy meant endorsing every subsequent action of a partner,
06:06no country would maintain a relationship with anybody.
06:09So, you don't agree with the views expressed by some of my previous guests
06:13in an earlier program that this visit was ill-timed in any way?
06:17No, I don't think India can afford to be part of any block in West Asia.
06:24Our job is much more measured.
06:27It's much more focused.
06:29And we need narrow diplomacy for that.
06:31And that narrow diplomacy can only be if we keep all lines open
06:36rather than think that, you know, we need applause lines.
06:41So, it's easy for people to come on television and say that.
06:45Right.
06:45So, you're saying it would be unfair to say that the visit was ill-timed.
06:50We have to carry on engaging the Gulf states, UAE for example.
06:55We are building a strong relationship with…
06:58And we continue to engage with Israel and both are possible.
07:01They are not mutually exclusive.
07:03Am I correct?
07:03And Iran itself, remember the Chabahar port.
07:07I mean, while Iran has been critical on India's position on Kashmir, for example,
07:12or Iran has been seen to echo almost Pakistan's position at times on Kashmir,
07:17the Chabahar port was an important access for us to Central Asia.
07:23So, Rajdeep, I think government's actions should be judged by outcomes
07:27rather than look at it at the middle of a process or at the beginning of the process.
07:34What we need to see is, can India speak and engage with all sides?
07:38And that they have done.
07:40The Ministry of…
07:41The External Affairs Minister has talked to his Iranian counterpart.
07:45Prime Minister has talked to all the leaders of the Gulf.
07:48The Ministry of External Affairs in its first statement itself said that for us,
07:53territorial integrity and sovereignty is important.
07:56So, we need to see whether they're talking to all sides.
07:59Can they help in reducing the escalation risk?
08:02Can they protect our citizens?
08:04Can they ensure the economic lifelines?
08:07All this will require access, not alignment.
08:10And we need to judge India's policy by its results of whether the markets are steady,
08:16whether the Indians are safer, and whether a diplomatic off-ramp can be there
08:22and India can support that.
08:23Rather than these applause lines that people come and say in public,
08:27because quiet diplomacy is also part of substantive diplomacy.
08:31We need to generate, we need to put some brakes on this momentum of war and hyper-talk.
08:42I take your point of a quiet diplomacy prevailing over optics,
08:46but then when you go to Israel and are seen to be embracing it,
08:50almost calling it fatherland, do we have to be conscious that on the Arab street,
08:56or indeed even in Iran, that will be seen very differently?
08:59Do we need to be conscious of that as well?
09:02That you can't be seen to be embracing Netanyahu at a time when he's reviled in large parts of West
09:09Asia,
09:10certainly on the street, if not by the leaderships?
09:13So, Rajdeep, again, you're mixing up optics with substance.
09:17So, yes, what you say may be valid in some parts of the world,
09:21but I've served in the Gulf.
09:23Many of the Gulf states speak or sing from the same hymn sheet that the Israelis sing towards Iran.
09:32So, let's not be thinking that, oh, the Arab street.
09:38And we know what the Arab street in the Gulf is, Rajdeep.
09:41So, let's understand that our outcomes will be decided not on optics and give the government a chance and space
09:49to work it out.
09:50And let's discuss this when Parliament convenes or when there is greater space,
09:54rather than putting every action under a magnifying glass and say, oh, I could have done this better.
10:00Sure, everybody can do this.
10:04Finally, do you believe India is taken, therefore, seriously across the region that because also of the large population that
10:11we have,
10:11we have soft power across the region in countries like UAE, UAE again,
10:16because of the presence of so many Indian workers, that therefore we have a role to play?
10:22So, Rajdeep, you know, when I first served in the Gulf, there were about a million Indians there.
10:29Today, there are 10 million.
10:32Our economy, our trade with the Gulf was something like 2 or 3 billion, 2 or 3 billion totally, all
10:41the Gulf countries.
10:42Today, if you look at it, it's 170.
10:44Obviously, we are a major player there.
10:47People take us seriously.
10:50To be fair, also, India has invested a lot in deepening ties with the Gulf in an unprecedented manner.
10:57And that's not because of ideological affinity.
11:00It's because our interests have converged.
11:03And if interests converge, there are people who take each other seriously.
11:07And I think the India of today is certainly taken seriously in the Gulf.
11:13And let's see, first, the safety of our people and the economic ties are protected.
11:21Everything comes secondary to this.
11:24I'm going to leave it there, Sayyad Akbaruddin.
11:27You are a voice of reason amidst the noise around us.
11:31And obviously, in the difficult, polarized times we live in to navigate with quiet diplomacy, not easy.
11:40We'll wait and see what the outcomes are.
11:43But for now, for joining me, thank you so much.
11:45Sayyad Akbaruddin.
11:46On what India's role could be as the war escalates.
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