WASHINGTON: The Indo-US relationship is busy coping with the challenges of normalcy as there is no great problem in bilateral ties to solve, Indian Ambassador S Jaishankar has said.
“The reality is that the Indo-US relationship is busy coping with the challenges of normalcy. Sadly, we have no great problem in our ties to solve, nor a crisis to defuse.
There is no big idea either in the works with a transformational potential,” Jaishankar said yesterday.
“So, in an era where the news cycle becomes a barometer of ties, this has led to the relationship dropping off the radar, and being left to political operatives, instant market analysts and social media,” he said in his address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in Chicago.
“Since they have become arbiters of the state of international relations, life is apparently defined by extreme outcomes. Our ties, for good or bad, are however currently positioned in the median zone. The rest of us – who think seriously about long-term strategic relations – therefore, have a problem on our hands,” he said.
In the last two months that he has been in the US representing his country, Jaishankar said the top five news have been incident involving one of Indian diplomats in New York, the downgrading of India’s aviation safety status, attacks on pharmaceutical industry, the US filing a WTO complaint on India’s solar industry and Congressional hearings on market access in India.
“It is not my case that these issues are not important. In fact, each one has not just significance but even lessons for the relationship. But it is my assertion that such headlines are not representative of the totality of our ties.
“What they actually do is to present a skewed picture of what is being built on a solid foundation of converging interests,” he said.
“We could well take the view that this is just another case of bad news being news and good news being detail. But I do believe that there is more to it than that,” he added.
Jaishankar said Indo-US ties need to be worked upon at different planes.
“There are pressing issues on the immediate agenda which require more give and take. But while doing so, we must not lose sight of the larger connect that provides an enabling environment where more ambitious visions could unfold,” he added.-PTI
