External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Tuesday, February 21, said that former prime minister Indira Gandhi had removed his father Dr K. Subrahmanyam as secretary of defence production soon after she was elected to power in 1980 and that the Rajiv Gandhi government had superseded him with a junior for the post of Cabinet secretary.
Describing his journey into bureaucracy and later as a Cabinet minister, Jaishankar, who was foreign secretary from January 2015 to January 2018, recalled in an interview with ANI how he came from a bureaucratic family and that his father was regarded as one of the most knowledgeable persons on defence and national security.
He said his father was probably the youngest secretary in the Janata government in 1979, but in 1980, when Indira Gandhi was re-elected, he was the first secretary that she removed.
His father was a very upright person, and "may be that caused the problem, I don't know," he said.
"But the fact was that as a person he saw his own career in bureaucracy, actually kind of, stalled. And after that, he never became a secretary again. He was superseded during the Rajiv Gandhi period for somebody junior to him who became a Cabinet secretary. It was something he felt. We rarely spoke about it. So he was very, very proud when my elder brother became secretary," he said.
On Congress, Rahul Gandhi's remarks on China
On Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks that he doesn’t know much about foreign policy matters and needs to learn more, Jaishankar had a strongly worded response.
“The narrative that the Indian govt is on defensive, being accommodative…Who sent Indian Army to LAC? Rahul Gandhi didn’t send them. Narendra Modi sent them,” he said. “If he has superior knowledge, wisdom, I am always willing to listen.”
“Everyone saying that we have our troops up there, should have border infra. But why didn’t you build it? During the Modi govt, the budget has gone up by 5 times. Look at the roads, bridges being made- it's tripled. This government is serious about border infra,” he said.
“They (China) were building a bridge in Pangong Tso. When did that area come under China? The Chinese first came there in 1958 and captured it in 1962. Modi government being blamed in 2023 for constructing a bridge that was captured in 1962? You don’t have honesty to say when it happened?” he retorted.
"They must have some problem understanding words beginning with a ‘C’. It’s not true. I think they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation…," the minister said on Congress’ plaint that neither PM nor EAM mentions the word China.
On BBC documentary on Modi
Jaishankar also said that "actual politics" is being played by people who do not have the "courage to come into political field", in an apparent reference to the controversial BBC documentary titled 'India: The Modi Question" targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Terming the furore as "politics by another means," he said, "Sometime politics of India doesn't even originate in its borders, it comes from outside. There is a phrase 'war by other means'; this is politics by another means.
He questioned the timing of the documentary.
“I don't know if the election season has started in India, Delhi or not, but, for sure it has started in London, New York," he said.
"I mean, do you doubt it? Look who the cheerleaders are. What is happening is, just like I told you — this drip, drip, drip — how do you shape a very extremist image of India, of the government, of the BJP, of the Prime Minister. I mean, this has been going on for a decade, " he told ANI.
On becoming minister
Jaishankar, who joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1977, became a secretary in 2015, after his father passed away. He retired in 2018 and was associated with Tata Sons group as global corporate affairs head.
“I was contributing my fair bit there. I liked them, I think they liked me. Then completely as a bolt out of the blue, the political opportunity came,” he said, recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to become the external affairs minister. "It had not crossed my mind, I don't think it had crossed the mind of anybody else in my circle," he said.
Though he was simply not prepared for the job of a minister, he said it’s been four years of very intense learning.
“It will be four years this summer. It has been a very, very interesting four years. When I look at these four years, for me actually it's been four years of very intense learning, going to a state which I had really very little knowledge of," he said, referring to his election as Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
First Published: Feb 21, 2023 9:01 PM IST
