'Big bullies don't give $4.5 billion aid': Jaishankar's retort to Maldives President Muizzu's 'bully' remark

External affairs minister S Jaishankar has reacted strongly to a barb over India being a ‘bully’, stating that “big bullies don’t provide USD 4.5 billion” when neighbours are in trouble, neither do they supply vaccines to other countries when Covid-19 is on, or make exceptions to their own rules to respond to food demands or fuel demands or fertilizer demands of countries in distress.

EAM Jaishankar’s response came after Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu had remarked that “no country had the right to bully the Maldives.”

During a book launch event in the national capital on Saturday, when Jaishankar was asked if India was being a “bully” in the sub-continent and the Indian Ocean region, the minister said, “The big change today in this part of the world is what has happened between India and its neighbours. When you say India is perceived as a big bully, you know, big bullies don’t provide four and a half billion dollars when the neighbours are in trouble. Big bullies don’t supply vaccines to other countries when Covid-19 is on, or make exceptions to their own rules to respond to food demands or fuel demands or fertilizer demands because some war in some other part of the world has complicated their lives.”

Talking about the enhanced and improved connectivity between India and its neighbouring countries, Jaishankar said that trade, investments and travel with Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Maldives have seen a sharp uptick.

“Today at the connectivity, just the volume of people moving up and down, the volume of the trade which is there, the investments which are there, it’s actually a very, very good story to tell. Not just with Nepal and Bangladesh, with Sri Lanka as well, I would say even with Maldives…And Bhutan…I mean I don’t want to miss them out because they have just been consistently strong partners,” he said.

“You also have to look today at actually what is changed between India and its neighbours. Certainly, with Bangladesh and Nepal. I mean, today you have a power grid, you have roads which didn’t exist a decade ago, you have railways which didn’t exist a decade ago, and there’s usage of waterways. Indian businesses use ports of Bangladesh on a national treatment basis,” Jaishankar added.

Earlier in the year, Muizzu, in a veiled attack at India, had said, “We might be small but that doesn’t give you the licence to bully us.”

Relations between the two countries strained after Maldivian ministers made derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had posted pictures from his visit to Lakshadweep and promoted the Union Territory as a tourist destination. The ministers were later suspended by the Muizzu government.

With inputs from agencies