New Delhi: External affairs minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday slammed the West for professing democracy at home and supporting non-democratic forces in the Global South. Criticising Western double standards while speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the foreign minister said, “What Western ambassadors do in India, if my ambassadors did a fraction of that, you would all be up in arms.” He added that “in India, we have been dealing with external interference for a long time”. “The West treated democracy as a Western characteristic and was encouraging non-democratic forces in the Global South. It still does. I can point to some recent ones. Everything you say you value at home, you don’t practice abroad,” Mr Jaishankar said in the German city.Mai Jaishankar’s remarks come soon after United States vice-president J.D. Vance slammed European hypocrisy on democracy and attempted to show the mirror to Europe, an ally of the US. The foreign minister termed Indian society as a “consultative pluralistic” one and described India as an “open society”. Criticising the Western attitude, he said, “The idea that there is one truth and one judgement and one norm and that should be propagated, evaluated and judged… That is one of the big issues that we are having in politics. It is done by think tanks, newspapers … people who never fought an election, nothing to do with democracy and telling the world what is right and what is wrong with democracy. It is inevitable that it will be challenged.”Challenging an American senator who said that democracy “doesn’t put food on the table”, Mr Jaishankar said that in India it does. He was apparently referring to the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY) at a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference, where he countered US Senator Elissa Slotkin.”Senator, you said that democracy doesn’t put food on your table. Actually, in my part of the world, it does. Today, since we are a democratic society, we give nutrition support and food to 800 million people,” Mr Jaishankar said, adding, “… The point I want to make is that different parts of the world are going through different conversations. Please do not assume that this is a kind of universal phenomenon, it is not.”
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