IDSA in collaboration with Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Mumbai hosted the third Y B Chavan Memorial Lecture, the founding President and guiding light for the Institute in its formative years, on 30 November 2012. Ambassador Kanwal Sibal delivered the lecture on “India’s Foreign Policy – Future Challenges.” The Institute was privileged on the occasion by the presence of Ambassador Leela K Ponappa as chairperson, Shri RD Pradhan and Shri Ajit Nimbalkar from the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan.
Shri Y B Chavan was born in the state of Maharashtra on March 12, 1913. He spent many years in jail as a freedom fighter and played a major role in the Quit India movement in 1942. Following India’s independence, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in 1946 and rose to become Chief Minister of the bi-lingual State of Bombay. In 1960, he became the first Chief Minister of the newly created state of Maharashtra. He was requested by the then Prime Minister Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru to become the Defence Minister in 1962. Subsequently, he held the offices of Union Home Minister from 1966 to 1970, Union Finance Minister from 1970 and Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1977. He was also the Chairman of the 8th Finance Commission. The Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan has given a corpus to the IDSA to hold an annual eminent persons’ lecture series In memory of Shri Y B Chavan.
Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director General, IDSA, acknowledged the support of the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan in organising the event. He spoke about late Shri K Subrahmanyam’s admiration for Shri Y B Chavan and about the pivotal role played by the two in establishing and then mentoring IDSA through its formative years. He brought out the role played by Shri Y B Chavan by quoting Shri Subrahmanyam “if IDSA was not nursed at that time by late Shri Y B Chavan, it would have been killed at the infancy itself.” Dr Gupta also noted that 2012 marks the birth centenary of Y B Chavan and hence it is an important year in the calendar of the IDSA.
Shri Ajit Nimbalkar elaborated on the tremendous contribution of late Shri Y B Chavan to the nation in general and Maharashtra in particular while serving in various capacities both at the centre and in the state. Shri Nimbalkar expressed hope that the annual event organized by the IDSA will draw more attention at the national level and that it would be a fitting tribute to the memory of a towering figure like Y B Chavan.
Ambassador Sibal said that identification of the problems and challenges will help India in a prescriptive analysis for the future. While giving a comprehensive account of the near and distant future challenges facing the country, he said that the biggest challenge before India was to maintain coherence and balance in its foreign policy. Shri Sibal said that national interest is a fluid concept and defining it is not easy. However, a clear and sharp understanding of our national interests is in many ways important to the formulation of a sound foreign policy and addressing various challenges facing the nation at the international level. Foreign policy challenges, according to him, largely remain the same over a period of time and India is no exception in this regard. Therefore, he concluded by saying that the future foreign policy challenges for India will remain the same albeit in a different form; protection of our independence and sovereignty, friendship with all and enmity with none and a peaceful environment in which we can economically grow and meet our internal challenges.
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The talk evinced a lot of interest and the question and answer session generated a host of points. Some salient aspects brought out are as follows: -
Shri Y B Chavan integrated both internal and external agenda, which is the benchmark of a successful foreign policy. The need of the hour is to rebalance our domestic and foreign policy goals. There is a limit to what a country can achieve internationally on its own and this is true for India also. For example, India can achieve very little vis-à-vis Central Asian republics as it is limited due to the geographical constraints. So we can aspire only for certain things in a given situation.
Commander Sarabjeet Parmar thanked Ambassador Kanwal Sibal for his invaluable observations on this important subject. He extended his thanks to Shri Ajit Nimbalkar for being present on the occasion and sharing his experience about Shri Y B Chavan and IDSA. He also thanked RD Pradhan for his support and encouragement for this event. Last but not the least, he thanked Ambassador Ponappa for sparing some time out of her busy schedule to chair the event and share her incisive remarks.
Report prepared by Amit Kumar, Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).