Dr S Jaishankar said this on April Fool’s Day after interacting with young business leaders in Gujarat’s diamond hub Surat. And he wasn’t fooling anybody, least of all the people of India who have formed their opinions about both Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party and Jaishankar’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

Jaishankar’s business-like treatment of Germany, US and the UN won him more friends. Here was another glimpse of Modi’s “56 inch chest”. Jaishankar spoke as if he would be EAM for another Modi term and Germany, United States and the United Nations better take note of it. It is not how Kejriwal feels and copes with conditions, but how Germany, United States and the United Nations should get used to more of Dr. S. Jaishankar and the Modi regime.

The message one got was of continuity both at home and abroad. Jaishankar’s response cut through the fluff and the floss. “There are some countries who are in the habit of commenting on other countries...they should understand that now time has passed and now it is too late. If you keep speaking to the world, someday the world will respond," Jaishankar said.

The idea one got was "Mind your own business”. The message was clear: Rising power India doesn’t brook interference. And India’s Ministry of External Affairs has nothing to do with Tihar Jail and Kejriwal in it. Aam Aadmi Party and Kejriwal shouldn't be topics at US State Department briefings or should be bothering Germany’s high and mighty. Dr. S. Jaishankar has bigger issues on his plate including China getting into the renaming game, which is the favourite pastime of BJP governments.

Jaishankar has told China that renaming places in India’s Arunachal Pradesh will be of no consequence because nothing changes on the ground. China is inventing names for places in Arunachal Pradesh and the frustrated Chinese cannot get over the fact that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India just like Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal happens to be “India’s internal affairs".

The Modi government has been going into general elections taking hits on its China policy. For the entirety of the Modi decade, Modi governments 1:0 and 2:0 have been badgered with allegations of massively buckling under Chinese pressure with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raking up the issue before, during and after elections. It didn’t work and Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power with a massive mandate. And EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar's smug confidence irritated some people.

Will Narendra Modi clinch 2024 also, with an even bigger mandate? The manner in which External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has been talking betrays his confidence. The Ministry of External Affairs is not giving China hope for a change of guard in New Delhi. The China Policy will not budge and Arunachal Pradesh will remain an integral and inalienable part of India, it does not matter which party or front wins the mandate. India’s External Affairs Ministry called the China move to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh “senseless”.

But with Arunachal Pradesh settled and locking horns with China over the border state for the time being taken as a “victory” of sorts, EAM Jaishankar has to contend with Sri Lanka now. This, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not all of a sudden but for obvious election purpose, picked up the Katchatheevu Island – an uninhabited island in the Palk Strait – issue and insisted that India’s territory was “callously handed over” to Sri Lanka by the Congress government of Indira Gandhi.

An RTI reply was obtained and it was said that the issue had been alive since the time of M Karunanidhi. Last week saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi wading into the muddied waters surrounding Katchatheevu island. Modi blamed the DMK and the Congress for doing "nothing”. With that said, it became incumbent upon EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar to do something to ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi got at least one Lok Sabha seat from Tamil Nadu for his “Dream 370”.

No wonder then that EAM Jaishankar suddenly discovered Congress prime ministers have been "displaying indifference" and had done nothing to retrieve Katchatheevu after callously giving it away to Sri Lanka doing harm to Indian fishermen's rights.

The question arises, if so, why the decade of silence since Modi’s first coming; why were Indian fishermen’s rights ignored for a decade and there were no dearth of fishermen caught and treated roughly by the Sri Lankan Coast Guard? The fish at least wouldn't be wondering why Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar have suddenly become alive to this great disadvantage with which Tamil Nadu and Kerala fishermen set out into choppy waters every morning of their fishing careers. (IPA Service)