The Department of International Studies, History and Political Science, in collaboration with The Ministry of External Affairs, organized a lecture on 29 August 2022, on the topic of Contemporary Challenges to Foreign Policy, a part of India @ 75: Videsh Niti and the Distinguished Lecture Series. The guest speaker for the lecture was Ambassador Amit Dasgupta, an eminent officer from the Ministry of External Affairs.
Dimple Baruah, the emcee of the event, called upon Dr. Madhumati Deshpande, Coordinator, Department of International Studies, Political Science and History, to deliver the welcome address. She started the speech by welcoming everyone and mentioning the significance of this collaboration between the Department of ISPH and the Ministry of External Affairs. She introduced the speaker to the audience by sharing his acclaimed profile. Ambassador Amit Dasgupta served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1979 – 2016.
He has held positions in the Ministry of External Affairs, including Director of Finance, Deputy Director General at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and Joint Secretary of Public Diplomacy during his diplomatic career. He held the positions of Director of Economics, Head of the Office of the SAARC Secretary General in Kathmandu, First Secretary Political at the Indian Embassy in Brussels, Deputy Ambassador in Berlin, Consul General in Sydney, and Ambassador in the Philippines with concurrent accreditation to the Republics of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia. His efforts to foster intercommunal harmony during the attacks on the Indian community earned him the highest honor from the New South Wales government's Community Relations Commission in Australia.
After the welcome address, Ambassador Amit Dasgupta proceeded with his lecture on ‘Contemporary Challenges to Foreign Policy’. He expressed gratitude for organizing the lecture in part of India @ 75: Videsh Niti. His starting remarks were focused on Joseph Nye’s Public diplomacy, involving people in connecting across nation-states. As part of public diplomacy, he mentioned that it is important to educate the youth to make them understand the efforts made to stabilize relationships with other countries. He mentions the necessity of federal roots along the states and capture their concerns like West Bengal about Bangladesh, Tamil Nadu about Sri Lanka, etc., thus making it important to integrate domestic ideas into foreign policy.
He also addressed the narrowminded approach of considering national security as foreign policy, but it has extended to various issues such as Climate Change, Intellectual Property Rights, Terrorism and so on. So, one of the challenges to Foreign Policy is the expansion of the foreign policy agenda. He talked about international stability and the difficulty attached to it. Also, he mentioned the economic instability in India’s neighborhood and how the conflict between Ukraine and Russia is shaking the world order. As a third foreign policy challenge, he mentioned the importance of perception, expectation, and output. Another challenge is the ‘All Government Approach’. He also mentions the five stakeholders and the importance of their inclusion in foreign policy: Government, Bureaucracy, Media, Big companies, and Business communities. The final challenge to foreign policy, he referred to as cybersecurity. The threat level rises from the Traffic systems getting hacked to high-level cases. In concluding remarks, he narrated the story of British vessels attacked by Argentina with a French missile and explained the importance of negotiations and conversations through the story. He concluded that today’s world is turbulent and that the need to look after neighborhood relations is more important than ever.
The ambassador's speech was followed by a Q&A session, where students and faculty raised interesting and engaging questions. The repeated one was India’s leaning towards the realist side. The ambassador replied that the state is not following any particular principle but reacting to the situation on the ground according to its self-interest. Even for the question of ethics and international relations, he stressed the importance of self-interest over ethics. When the question about the influence of China in the neighborhood regions, he pointed out that there is no need to curtail Chinese influence in the region. For neighbors to build good relations, mutual cooperation is needed. We should not build a community afraid of others' influence over the region, especially the Business communities. The students also questioned world governance and the United Nations' role in global governance; the Ambassador expressed his contention that the large set of UN bureaucracy failed to improve international relations and the non-cooperation among nations.
Following the Q&A session, Dr. Ardra, Professor, Department of ISPH, delivered the vote of thanks. She expressed her gratitude to Ambassador Amit Dasgupta and extended it to the faculty members who organized the event and the audience as well. The lecture proved to be an insightful and informative one with its focus on India’s relations with other nations and the dynamics of world politics.
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