Indian High Commissioner Pankaj Saran on Monday said his country’s ‘policy’ towards and ‘interests’ about Bangladesh would remain unchanged in case of changes in Indian government as both neighbours need to ‘survive and prosper together’.
“Every country has interests and those interests really don’t change over time,” the diplomat told a country-lecture while responding to a question what will happen to Bangladesh-India relations after the ongoing national election in India.
India, the world’s largest democracy, went into nine-phased parliamentary elections yesterday.
Pankaj said a policy is the functioning of a country’s interests and the interests remain more or less constant. “I would suppose that the policy would also remain constant.”
He elaborated it further saying as long as the fundamentals of the relationship are strong, as long as the two country’s interests remain constant, as long as both countries have a general understanding of what need to do, the policy will have to continue to remain very much the same.
Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) arranged the country lecture titled ‘India and India-Bangladesh Relations’ held its auditorium in the city.
BIISS Director General Maj Gen Shafiuddin Ahmed also spoke on the occasion with Chairman of BIISS Board of Governors Munshi Faiz Ahmad in the chair.
The Indian diplomat said India wants to continue build a stronger relationship with Bangladesh, no matter which government is in power in Bangladesh, too. “In other words, we’ll proceed in our relations with Bangladesh at a phase and in a manner that is convenient with and acceptable to the people of Bangladesh.”
