Full Text | 'PM Modi Is to Blame for Provoking Tariffs': Sanjaya Baru

 Sanjaya Baru, one of India’s most prominent political analysts, told Karan Thapar in a recent interview for The Wire that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to blame for mishandling US president Donald Trump’s ego and provoking steep tariffs and a further penalty on India. 

The following is the full text of the interview, transcribed by Sayani Chakraborty.

Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. Whilst Britain, Japan, and the European Union have got away with tariffs of just 10% and 15%, and whilst Pakistan is euphorically thanking Trump for the deal he's given them, India has been hit with 25% tariffs, a further penalty for buying Russian oil, and who knows, perhaps a BRICS penalty on top of that.

And yet we talk of Narendra Modi and Donald Trump as the best of buddies. So what's gone wrong with the relationship? What sort of dilemma has this created for Indian foreign policy? And who's to blame for this unhappy outcome? Those are the key issues I shall discuss today with the former editor of the Business Standard and the Financial Express and former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sanjaya Baru. Sanjaya Baru, President Trump has only levied tariffs of 10% on Britain and 15% on Japan and the European Union. He's even reached a deal with Pakistan, which Shehbaz Sharif is cock-a-hoop about. But in contrast, India, a low-middle-income country, has been hit with 25% tariffs, a further penalty for buying Russian oil and arms, and it's even possible there's a BRICS penalty on top of that. Can there be any doubt we've come off very badly? 

Sanjaya Baru: Well, I think, Karan, first of all, the fact is that the European Union, Japan, and even Britain have been able to get this deal by making promises about investment.

They've promised to make large amounts of investment in the United States. Now, that's not the kind of promise India can make. As far as Pakistan is concerned, I think the Pakistanis have handled Trump very smartly, not just on the trade issue, but even earlier, reaching out to his sons, his family, etc.

And then Pakistan also seems to have opened up its oil exploration to President Trump or to the United States. So each of them has made some concession to be able to get these tariffs. I believe we were also asked to make some concessions, which I think our side has not been willing to.

 Now, my argument is that, in these trade negotiations, you have to give and take, and then every government has to decide how much it is willing to give, how much it is willing to take. But I don't think the 25% tariff on India, that to the manner in which it was announced dramatically on the 31st of July, when we were all expecting that some announcement would come maybe in the middle of August, I think it signals something more than about trade. There is a deterioration in the U.S.-India relationship.

And I think that is what I draw my attention to in my column this morning. 

Karan Thapar: I'm going to quote from that column. You write, perhaps this is the lowest point for Indian foreign policy.

Can you start by explaining, why do you believe this is the lowest point for Indian foreign policy? 

Sanjaya Baru: You see, because the basic foundational principle, at least for the last quarter century, in India's relations with the United States, has been to keep the U.S. on our side. Given the fact that we have seen a growing kind of alliance between China and Pakistan. Now this China-Pakistan alliance saw recently reflected in the manner in which the Pakistanis were able to conduct themselves during Operation Sindoor.

But this was an alliance that goes back a long way. The Chinese have described that friendship as high as the tallest mountain, as deep as the deepest sea. So it's been an important relationship for 50 years.

I mean, ever since Henry Kissinger used Islamabad to take off for Beijing and establish a new phase in U.S.-China relations. Our attempt, particularly from the tenure of Prime Minister Narsimha Rao, followed by Prime Minister Vajpayee, followed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has been to keep the U.S. on our side. And during the first 10 years of Prime Minister Modi, he also pursued the same approach of keeping relations with the U.S. on a firm footing.

But I say that for the first time now, we see, particularly in the case of the tariff issue, but also on other issues, the Chinese and Americans seem to be having good relations with Pakistan.The Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir had lunch with Trump. I mean, this was an unprecedented event, as you know.

First time ever in history, in American history, for the U.S. President to host a meal for a head of an army of another country. Beginning with that, and Trump's insistence that he was responsible for the end of the Operation Sindoor, to the tariff discussions, you see that the U.S. has pursued a good relationship with Pakistan, and now the U.S. is seeking a good relationship with China. Just yesterday, Mark Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, actually said that the United States seeks “strategic stability with China”.

In other words, he's signaling that, no war over Taiwan, no war in the West, in the Pacific. We want strategic stability.

So here you have two major powers, China and the U.S., actually having a good equation with Pakistan. To me, this is the lowest point for Indian foreign policy.I mean, we were working so hard to ensure that, we had a good equation with one side because of a worsening equation with the other side.

How we will be able to remedy this remains to be seen. 

Karan Thapar: But you're making a very important point, aren't you, Sanjay Bahru? Not only have we come off very badly in terms of the tariff issue, but geopolitically, in terms of the relationship with the United States, with Pakistan and China, two countries that we're extremely wary of, we even there are coming out rather badly. 

Sanjaya Baru: Indeed.

In fact, I'm making the point that we have come out badly on the tariff issue because we have not been able to manage the geopolitics of the changing world smartly. 

Karan Thapar: In other words, this is why it's a failure of Indian foreign policy. We should have been able to handle this and we haven't.

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, exactly. Because also, let's not forget that our expectations were high. I mean, if we had started with a situation where already our relations with the U.S. were testy and fraught and Prime Minister Modi didn't have a good equation with President Trump, our expectations would have been lower.

But our expectations were set high by the fact that during his first term, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi seemed to have hit off well. We had Howdy Modi and Trump coming to Ahmedabad and addressing a huge rally, etc., etc. And Prime Minister Modi going around the world saying Trump is my friend. And when Trump returned to office, you know well and I know well that many in Delhi, many in the foreign office assumed that this was going to be a golden period for India-U.S. relations. The expectation was that Trump is our friend, he's back in the White House and things will move smoothly. But he shocked all of us by first inviting Xi Jinping for his inaugural while not inviting Prime Minister Modi.

And ever since then, I think in some ways, as I alluded to in my column, there is now a clash of egos between two highly egotistical political leaders. 

Karan Thapar: But is there a sense in which we could go one step further? Has Trump begun to, in a sense, turn against India? He says it doesn't matter too much whether we have a deal or whether we charge them a certain tariff. He accuses India of all things not good.

And then he says India has a dead economy. Doesn't that sound as if we've fallen out of favour? 

Sanjaya Baru: Yes but, Trump I think is the kind of person you can fall out of favour with one day and get back into business with him the next day. He's raising the stakes.

He's raising the bar. He's now saying, okay, now you want to make a deal with me. This is what I demand.

The question for us is, are we willing to accede to his demands, whatever those demands are. And it's tough for this government. That is why I say that we could have taken a very different approach.

 If, for example, the day he tweeted that he declared ceasefire, or he was instrumental in declaring ceasefire. If he had only thanked him. I mean, what is a big deal? At the end of the day, the problem between India and Pakistan can only be settled bilaterally.

But having said that, during one episode of a brief conflict, the American president says, look, I stopped these guys. They are nuclear powers. They are going to war. I stopped them. He would have been happy. Now look what he did with Cambodia and Thailand.

Because Cambodia and Thailand listened to him and came for a ceasefire negotiation in Malaysia, which the United States blessed. They have got away with 19% tariff. So, in other words, he's this kind of guy.

So he will give you a reward if you treat him well. And he will punish you if you don't treat him well. As I said, he's very egotistical.

But that is also the character of our Prime Minister. Two very, very big egos are clashing and the country is paying a price. 

Karan Thapar: This is what you meant, I imagine, when you wrote in your column for the Indian Express, there's more to the Trump action than just trade and tariffs.

That additional dimension is our failure to handle Trump's desperate desire to be acknowledged as the man who brought the ceasefire about. We've stonewalled and we've won his anger instead of winning his good reward.

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, I mean, I don't follow American politics very closely.

But for whatever reason, from day one, he has said he'll stop the war in Ukraine, which he has not been able to. And therefore, we are told he is now very angry with Putin because he thought Putin would play ball and settle the war in Ukraine. Then he claimed that he stopped the Israeli bombing of Iran and that he finally brought this whole issue of Israeli bombing in Gaza to an end.

So he's claiming credit for all these things. And clearly he wanted to take credit for the end of the India-Pakistan war. Now, I know we normally in the past have not allowed other countries to take credit for whatever disputes we have been able to settle with Pakistan.

But I think we should have had a good judgement of Trump's ego and Trump's kind of policy on this matter, given what he was saying on Ukraine or what he did with Iran and Israel. To say, okay, boss, thank you very much. You helped us and get along. Why we didn't do it is a question.

Karan Thapar: And by the way, the interesting thing is, in 1965, the Russians got the credit for solving the issue between India and Pakistan at Tashkent. And in 1999, the credit went to Clinton for ensuring that Pakistan stopped the Kargil war.

 It's not that major powers have not played a role in bringing India and Pakistan to ceasefire and to peace. This time around, when Trump was determined to claim credit, we defied him, we stonewalled and as a result, we put his back up. 

Sanjaya Baru: Exactly.

That's the point I make. That in the past, even though our policy has been to say that the India-Pakistan problems can only be settled bilaterally, we have not kept everybody away. We have allowed the Russians and the Soviets in the past to negotiate between two sides.

We have allowed the United States to do that. And I'm told this time, even the Saudis and the UAE were involved in carrying messages between Delhi, Islamabad, and so on and so forth. So, all of this happened.

But the question is why didn't we acknowledge it? Why didn't we give credit? And we could easily have given even credit to the Saudis or to the Dubai Sheikh and to Trump and said, look, all these guys are helping us and we are grateful to them because all of them want peace in South Asia because we are a rising power, we are a rising economy, we are an opportunity for the world. The rhetoric could have been such that we could have couched the concession we are making within a more self-serving rhetoric. 

Karan Thapar: But this sounds not just a failure of foreign policy, but also a failure to realise that if a friend of yours is claiming credit for something he's done, grant it to him, don't put his back up.

Pure discretion would have required, don't put your friend's back up by saying no. Also, I'll add another point. No one in India really seriously believes that DGMOs are authorised to declare peace between the two countries.

That is a decision that is taken at the political level. And when the Vice President of America is phoning the Prime Minister of India, presumably that's when those issues were sorted out. No one believes DGMOs did it.

So, give credit where it's due, be discreet, keep him on your side and play the foreign policy game properly. 

Sanjaya Baru: Exactly. And you know, given the fact that Mr. Trump repeated this for God knows how many times.

 I mean, I tried to count and gave up and said nth time. But more than 30 times, I mean, okay, the first time we let it pass. Second time also, you may have thought, okay, he's just repeating.

But the minute you saw the President repeating himself and repeating the claim, I think good sense should have prevailed here in Delhi. Okay, this gentleman is seeking something. Now, let me give it to him because it doesn't really cost me much in making a gesture to the world's most important country and most powerful power. You then actually have an IOU in your hand, which is what the Pakistanis did. The Pakistanis hold an IOU because they've been able to sell something to him which he's happy for. I think we misjudged.

And then I also won't be surprised if President Trump's decision on July 31st to dramatically tweet that 25% had something to do with his disappointment with Prime Minister Modi's speech in Parliament. Because maybe they waited to see if finally, in Parliament Prime Minister Modi would make some gesture, which he didn't. 

 Karan Thapar: You do believe there is a connection between Mr. Modi's speech in Parliament where he didn't even take the name Trump once.

And I suppose the speech the next day by Jaishankar, our foreign minister, where he pointedly said and his phrase was, ‘kaan khol ke sunlo’, that there was no phone call or conversation between Trump and Modi between the 22nd of April and the 16th of June. Both of those could have put up Trump's back.

Sanjaya Baru: Yeah, and that reply of Mr. Jaishankar in the Rajya Sabha is a disingenuous one.

Because I don't think actually President Trump would have had to pick up the phone and speak to Mr. Modi. I think the fact is that the other officials on the American side would have been engaged in this. Marco Rubio certainly was in touch with Jaishankar, as Jaishankar has confessed.

And maybe others. And it doesn't require the heads of government to be in touch with each other for the governments to play the kind of role that they claim they played. And so that was a disingenuous reply- ‘Kaan khol ke sunlo’, the President didn't speak to the Prime Minister. But, the Americans played a role. The Saudis played a role. Dubai played a role. Why not accept that? 

Karan Thapar: In your article you write, the government was clearly not prepared to deal with the larger challenge of the Trump presidency, that of pandering to and appeasing Trump's ego. Who do you pin the blame on first? Who do you pin the blame on second? Modi or Jaishankar? Modi because he's Prime Minister and he knows that he carries the canon. He's the one who has the personal friendship with Trump and should have been responsive to Trump's ego and the need to appease and pander to it. Or Jaishankar because he's Modi's advisor and Modi presumably relies on his foreign minister for guidance and some measure of insight.

 Sanjaya Baru: I'm sure Modi relies on his foreign minister for guidance and insight.

But, you know, the way this government has been run for 11 years, it's not a big secret that ultimately at the end of the day, every decision is that of the Prime Minister. And therefore, these are decisions which I'm pretty sure he would have taken. And from whatever we hear, you and I, in the corridors of what they call Luthien's Delhi, the final word is always that of the Prime Minister, never of any minister.

So, the question of any minister saying, no Prime Minister, you're wrong, doesn't arise in this government. It's always, yes, Prime Minister.

Karan Thapar: So, Modi is to blame for mishandling Trump?

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, I think that's why I say it's a clash of egos.

Manmohan Singh used to often say this to us. It's an interesting phrase. In fact, I put it in my column and I had to cut it out because of the length.

It was becoming too long. He used to always say, one needs to stoop to conquer. And I think that that was a phrase that seems to have kind of guided him on many occasions.

You stoop to conquer. You give a little to get a little. Or as they say, you give an inch to take a mile.

And that was always his approach. If you remember, Dr. Manmohan Singh was criticised for saying that, when he said to President Bush, Indians love you. He said to George Bush, Indians love you.

Now, incidentally, that statement was based on the fact that India today did an opinion poll that showed that a majority of Indians like George Bush. So, there's a statistical basis. Being an economist, he had data to support his statement that Indians love you.

And yet he was criticised. From the left to the BJP, across the board, he was attacked for saying, how can the Prime Minister of India tell the President of America, Indians love you. He was attacked for saying that.

But I'm sure it fed in to George Bush's ego. I'm sure it made negotiations with him easier. And it must have changed George Bush's attitude in dealing with his own staff, who are the ones creating problems on the nuclear deal.

His own people were the barriers to a final conclusion of the deal. And finally, he must have said, look, I'm hated around the world. I'm not liked much in America.

But Indians love me. So, let me do something for these Indians. And he did the nuclear deal for us.

Karan Thapar: There's a strange paradox over here. Modi is a man with an enormous ego. And one would assume that a man with an enormous ego would know how to handle someone else who has a big ego. You'd sense immediately what they're sensitive to. You'd sense immediately what you need to concede to them. You'd know instinctively how to keep them on your side.

And yet he failed. 

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, I mean, that is what is surprising. And that is what I think is disappointing.

Because for all its faults, the United States is an important partner for us. I've been very critical of the U.S. on many issues. And I've also been critical of our government handling the U.S. in the past.

But at the end of the day, India's national security requires maintaining a good relationship with the United States. That has to be understood across the board in India. Indian political leadership, intellectual leadership should understand that we need not bow and bend before the Americans.

We need not supplicate before the Americans, which we will never do. As a nation, we are a proud nation. But we have the resources, we have the capacity to maintain balanced and good relations.

And I think we have now kind of pushed ourselves into a corner where the President of the United States is bad-mouthing us, which has never happened before. The last time Indian leadership was bad-mouthed like this was when Nixon called Indira Gandhi all manner of names, if you recall. And these are all now publicly available. I don't want to mention those words on your show. But Nixon used very foul language in referring to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. That was in the early 70s.

After 50 years, you see an American President talking crudely about India. For me, this is worrying.

Karan Thapar: Let's explore the corner that we've been pushed into. Because it creates, I think, a piquant dilemma for India. On the one hand, we need to appease Trump and get back into his favour.

On the other hand, India also has to defend its relationship with Russia. Apart from oil, it's a major arms supplier and it's a traditional strong supporter of India politically at the United Nations on the issue of Kashmir. But can we manage both at the same time? 

Sanjaya Baru: Karan, that is our destiny.

I mean, our political leadership has always said that we will have relations with all countries based on our interests. We should have good relations with China. That's something I have been arguing also.

In fact, in the last few years when we are seen as tilting towards the United States and saying things that upset the Chinese. Jaishankar made a remark once that the world is a China problem. There's no need for the Indian foreign minister to speak on behalf of the world.

But, we were upsetting the Chinese. I think now there is balance in our relations with China. We should maintain a balance with all major powers, whether it's Russia or China or the United States or the European Union or Japan.

We should maintain a balance because ultimately our objective is to rise as an economy, is to, again as Manmohan Singh used to say, to create a global environment conducive to our economic development. 

Karan Thapar: You say we should maintain a balance. Is it now going to be possible to maintain that balance easily because we've offended Trump? We need to win his favour back and we can't do it at the cost of offending Putin.

So, we're suddenly betwixt and torn between. 

Sanjaya Baru: Well, that is where smartness comes in.

Karan Thapar: That was lacking, wasn't it?

Sanjaya Baru: Well, hopefully we have the resources. I mean, hopefully Prime Minister Modi and Foreign Minister Jaishankar will sit down and say, “Okay, what can we do now to retrieve the ground to ensure that we maintain a balance in our relations with all major powers, China, Russia, and the United States?”

It's not an easy task, but that is our destiny. That is where India has to be. 

Karan Thapar: Let me give you an example why that balance will be difficult for us to bring again.

Because what must be particularly galling for Modi and Jaishankar is that Pakistan has not only secured a deal, as after our high tariffs of 25% were announced, but America and Pakistan will together work on developing Pakistan's oil reserves. And Trump went one step further and taunted India by adding, who knows, maybe they'll be selling oil to India one day. Many people now have the impression that Trump has tilted away from India towards Pakistan.

And let me add, the Pakistanis have also been winning favour with Trump's family by suggesting possibilities with cryptocurrencies. 

Sanjaya Baru: Look, Pakistan has always played this game. And we in India get all upset about it. Pakistan's capacity to hurt us is what? To send a few terrorists across the border. In what other way has Pakistan been able to hurt India in the last 50 years? Right? So we have an exaggerated view of Pakistan's capacity, capability, etc.

Because they do cultivate this terrorist business, which is something internal security in India, the Home Ministry in India has to deal with. As far as foreign policy is concerned, I don't think we should worry too much about Pakistan's capacity. It will serve any master.

It has served the Chinese, it has served the Americans, it is even willing to serve the Russians. Pakistan is a country that has been created by the West to serve the interests of the West. All of us know this whole history of Pakistan.

But in India, because of our domestic Hindu-Muslim kind of issues, we have exaggerated the influence, the power, the role, the relevance of Pakistan. And then we go on, breast-beating, say, Hay, Pakistan is getting away with this. Pakistan is... Let them.

How does it hurt me? I'm a $4 trillion economy. And I need to maintain good relations with everybody else. And if Pakistan is serving Trump's family's interests, let them do that. That is for their people to ask why. 

Karan Thapar: But your words of balance and advice are ignored by Jaishankar and Modi. They are obsessed with Pakistan. They judge people in terms of the relationship those people have with Pakistan. 

Sanjaya Baru: No, but that is because of domestic politics. I think it's no secret that the whole attitude towards Pakistan is shaped by the Hindutva ideology of the present regime.

Otherwise, frankly, in what way is Pakistan such an important... It's a nuclear power. But as a nuclear power, we have been able to maintain balance. I mean, even the chief of defence staff, where he gave that interview in Singapore, used two words in reference to what happened during Operation Sindoor.

He said that both sides were rational and responsible in their actions. What did it mean? It means that as nuclear powers, they did not do any sabre rattling as far as the nuclear... So this is a Western thing that every time there's a conflict, it's the West that says, oh, my God, nuclear powers on the verge of nuclear... 

Karan Thapar: Yeah, but we judge the West in terms of where they stand on terror inflicted upon us by Pakistan. We're extremely upset if they don't mention it.

Our opposition points out to the government that Pakistan wasn't mentioned. And what I'm saying to you is it may be our domestic politics that keeps us obsessed with Pakistan, but that is Modi's domestic politics in particular. 

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, yes, of course, that's what I meant.

And if the rest of the world is not saying much about Pakistan's role in the Pahlgam attack, I think the question we have to ask ourselves is why? Because as it came out in the parliament debate, many people made this point. We have not been able to establish till today the real citizenship of these characters who did this. Some data has been manufactured. We don't know still how authentic it is. So I think there are reasons why the rest of the world is asking questions. But they've always condemned terrorism. Nobody has held back in condemning terrorism. But the origins of these attacks, people are asking, give us evidence. 

Karan Thapar: Absolutely. Let me end this interview by asking you two questions. All of this has happened at a time when we believed that there was a fairly good relationship between Narendra Modi and Donald Trump. They frequently refer to each other as friends. But now, where do you believe that friendship stands? How damaged is it? 

Sanjaya Baru: Well, I think and I have said this in the last six months, I think the turning point was the day that President Trump invited Xi Jinping for his inaugural and did not invite Prime Minister Modi. That day, we should have sat back and asked the question why? And there is something there. What is it that the United States is seeking? Ashley Tellis has written a column suggesting that the United States seeks a more explicit alliance, that they want us to dump Russia and work with the United States and move closer to the United States. Is that what they're seeking? That they will never get. Because India will always remain an independent power, not allied militarily with any other country. But apart from that, I don't know.

We have to ask this question to those who are in the government. There must be something that the Americans want from us, which we either are unable to give or unwilling to give. Then the question arises, how do you deal with it? What is it that you can give? Which is why I wrote this column saying giving Trump the credit on Operation Sindoor is a small price to pay. It's not as big as agreeing for a military alliance. 

Karan Thapar: And it may also be the truth.

Sanjaya Baru: It may also be the truth. I think it is. 

Karan Thapar: So therefore, we really mishandled that issue, didn't we? 

Sanjaya Baru: Absolutely.

Karan Thapar: So in a nutshell, Modi is to blame for mishandling Trump and Trump's ego.

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, that's what I've said. 

Karan Thapar: Finally, after all that's happened, how difficult or how easy will it be for India and America to reach a mutually beneficial treaty? Scott Besant, the American Treasury Secretary, has now told CNBC, America is frustrated with India. 

Sanjaya Baru: You see; we have a lot of friends in the United States.

It's not as if India does not have friends. I think we need to patiently work with them. I had the opportunity 25 years ago when I was not in government, when I was editor of the Financial Express, of being a participant in a track two dialogue, the Aspen dialogue, at a time when the United States had imposed sanctions on India after the nuclear tests.

When Prime Minister Vajpayee wrote a letter to President Clinton explaining the tests and saying, we did this because our neighbour China is a nuclear power. Clinton passed on that letter to Hu Jintao and to inform the Chinese that, look, the Indians are blaming you for the nuclear tests, etc., etc. That was a bad phase.

We worked through that. Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbot had this long dialogue. They tried to understand each other. Condi Rice wrote a famous article in the Foreign Affairs in 2000, explaining to the American people why India is important. So there was a period when our relationship was not good, where we put in the intellectual effort, the diplomatic effort, and the government of the day, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, involved civil society, which is how I got involved. I was the editor of a newspaper. But many others like me got involved in this process of building bridges, reaching out to the people in the U.S., influencing public opinion in the U.S. and convincing them that India is an important country for you and you are an important country for us. That is how the nuclear deal finally happened. We created the intellectual and diplomatic foundation.

Karan Thapar: But you're suggesting it will take persistence, perseverance and time. It's not going to happen overnight. It has to be worked at.

Sanjaya Baru: It has to be worked at with our egos held in check to accept we are a low-income developing economy. We can't go around saying we are the world's fourth largest economy. We are this, we are that, we are that. And then say, no, no, please don't hurt us. We can't handle high tariffs. We have to protect our industry. We have to protect our agriculture. We have all these problems with farmers. No, you can't be treated as a developing economy and claim to be a superpower. You are not a superpower. 

Karan Thapar: That's the other contradiction Modi has got himself caught in. Vishwa Guru actually is just rhetoric. 

Sanjaya Baru: Yes, and this whole thing of we are the world's fourth largest, whatever, fifth largest, third largest, whatever the number. Per capita income is about $2,000.

Where is our agricultural economy in global terms? Where is our manufacturing? So I think we need to have a good honest view of ourselves and deal with the world like that. Then everybody would also be kind to you, generous with you. If we go around sermonising to the world, lecturing to the world, acting high and mighty and allowing free reign to our egos from one seminar and conference to one summit and other.

I mean, that is what was happening in the last few years.This approach of our diplomacy and our political leadership has come to bite. And today what we are seeing is the consequence of that.

Karan Thapar: I hope, Sanjaya Baru, that Jayshankar and Modi listened to this interview. There are words of advice that you've given that they need to heed. But more importantly, they need to listen to very, very carefully.

You can't, when you are a low middle income country with the per capita income somewhere around $2,500, $2,600, 20 times less than Britain, just to take that example, go around claiming that you are a super power, that you are Vishwaguru. That, as you said, is going to come back and bite you and bite it. Thank you for this interview. Take care. Stay safe. 

Sanjaya Baru: Thank you, Karan.

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