Union Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar on Thursday said that the implications of the situation in Ukraine will throw up a three ‘F’ (fuel, food and fertilisers) crisis leading to hunger situations and a cascading problem on the next harvest in many countries.
He was speaking on ‘Eight years of National Security’ — an interaction organised by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in collaboration with Internationals Studies Network Bangalore (ISNB) in Bengaluru on Thursday.
“The Ukraine conflict is controlling a large part of the world. The prices of fuel, food and fertilisers have shot up. They have a very significant inflationary impact. In the case of food, it will actually lead to hunger situations and in the case of fertilisers, it will create a cascading problem down the road. So the next harvest in many countries is going to be indented,” the Minister said.
Pointing out that the Ukraine situation shows how something far away can actually have a direct implication on our well being, the Minister said, “This can actually impact our competitiveness. So, I want you to really imagine national security as something that is not just country borders but beyond the borders. It can come as a virus, it can come as costlier petrol, it can come as a shortage of food, it can be a problem with fertilisers, it can come as a radical idea in your neighbourhood or something which could come because in your country, the system was not geared to get the right responses when it was being taken from us.”
The Minister said India has been facing four challenges in the last few years. “The challenge of COVID-19, the challenge of what is happening in India’s northern borders, the challenge of what happened in Afghanistan, the outcome and its implications. And now the challenges of the Ukraine conflict and its global repercussions and how that is impacting our lives,” he said.
“The decisions we make, the causes of action that we chose, the outcomes that resulted, how much different life would have been had we done some things. The point I wish to drive home is the external world impacts us every day in a more globalised world and we have to be very conscious of this,” he asserted.
“The last eight years, India has faced a a behavioural challenge, which is Pakistan and its sponsorship of cross border terrorism. I think we have seen the degree of clarity that we will not be brought to the table by the pressure of cross-border terrorism,” the Minister said.
“Where China is concerned, we are again very clear that we will not allow the line of actual control to be changed unilaterally and in violation of understandings that we have,” he said.
“One important achievement of these eight years was actually the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh. It has had an enormous impact on the India-Bangladesh relationship. It has really opened up huge possibilities for Bangladesh for all our north-eastern states. Similarly, where Myanmar is concerned, we have had a foreign policy that has engaged the regime and made it very difficult for Indian insurgent groups on a different track,” he added.
