Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], January 2 (ANI): External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that India will exercise the right to defend itself from terrorism and that no one can dictate how India exercises its defence.

Jaishankar, while speaking at the inauguration of Shaastra 2026- IIT Madras Techno-Entertainment fest, said that India will do whatever is required to defend itself.

On being asked about India's neighbourhood policy, Jaishankar said, 'You can also have bad neighbours. Unfortunately, we do. When you have bad neighbours, if you look to the one to the west. If a country decides that it will deliberately, persistently, and unrepentantly continue with terrorism, we have a right to defend our people against terrorism. We will exercise that right. How we exercise that right is up to us. Nobody can tell us what we should or should not do. We will do whatever we have to do to defend ourselves.'

'Many years ago, we agreed to a water sharing arrangement, but if you had decades of terrorism, there is no good neighbourliness. If there is no good neighbourliness, you don't get the benefits of that good neighbourliness. You can't say, ' Please share water with me, but I will continue terrorism with you. That's not reconcilable,' he added

Jaishankar also talked about 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', the philosophy which translates to 'the world is a family', and revealed various shades of India's foreign policy.

'When we use this word so casually 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', what is actually the messaging of that word of that term? The term is that we have never considered the world as an inimical or a hostile environment from which we have to defensively protect ourselves... If you are in a problem-solving mode, with limited resources, how do you have maximum impact? That is actually the problem which has to be solved. What we try to do in Indian foreign policy today, in Indian diplomacy today, is actually solve that problem, and we try to do that by partly using our competitiveness, using our strengths, leveraging other institutions and possibilities,' he said.

On being asked about another neighbour of India- the unrest in Bangladesh, Jaishankar talked about his recent visit to Dhaka to attend the funeral of their former Prime Minister Kahleda Zia.

He said, 'I was there in Bangladesh just two days ago. I had gone to represent India at the funeral of the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Begum Khalida Zia. We are blessed with a lot of neighbours of various kinds... If you have a neighbour who is good to you or at least who is not harmful to you, your natural instinct is to be kind, to help that neighbour, and that's what we do as a country,' he said.

Jaishankar added that most of India's neighbours have understood the fact that India's growth translates to the growth of the region and act accordingly.

'Most of our neighbours have a realisation that India's growth is today a lifting tide. If India grows, all our neighbours will grow with us. I think that's the message which I also took to Bangladesh. They are right now heading for their elections. We wish them well in that election, and we hope that once things settle down, the sense of neighbourliness in this region will grow,' he said. (ANI)