In response to George Soros's criticism of Narendra Modi, Jaishankar said, "India's voters decide how the country should function."
'India's voters decide how the country should run': Jaishankar takes a dig at George Soros's anti-Modi comments
prativad
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Indian foreign minister, referred to George Soros as "aged, affluent, opinionated, and dangerous" on Saturday in reference to the billionaire investor's recent criticism of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On Thursday, Soros, speaking ahead of the Munich Security Conference, said that India was a democracy but Modi was not a democrat.
Jaishankar told a conference in Sydney on Saturday that Soros’s comments were typical of a “Euro-Atlantic view”.
He said there was “a debate and conversation that we must have on democracy”, including whose values defined democracy as the world rebalanced and became less Euro-Atlantic.
Jaishankar was responding to a question about Soros at the Raisina@Sydney conference.
Calling Soros “old, rich, opinionated and dangerous”, he said that when people with necessary resources have such views “they actually invest in shaping narratives,”
India’s voters decided “how the country should run,” he added.
“It worries us. We are a country that went through colonialism, we know the dangers of what happens when there’s outside interference,”
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute think-tank hosted a one-day conference where Jaishankar highlighted in a speech the urgent need to “de-risk the global economy” as India took over the G20 presidency.
He earlier met with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Australia is seeking to increase its trade with India to reduce its reliance on China and has formed the Quad security group with India, which also includes the United States and Japan.
