congratulate pasang lama for that
fantastic
what an adventurous life what a
dangerous life that she lived I have not
climbed any mountains I have lived all
around the world trying to solve
problems mountains of problems of the
world and most problems still remain so
when I talk of an unexplored world or an
unchartered realm I’m going to say that
today the world itself is an uncharted
realm five days ago the world changed I
don’t know whether you realized it
thanks to a gentleman called Donald
Trump the world was dangerous even
before it was volatile already but there
was a certain comfort zone for all of us
we knew that the United States and
Russia would be fighting with each other
we knew that India and Pakistan can
never be friendly we knew that there is
climate change which is going to destroy
all of us we knew all these things and
we tried to fight all of them but today
the world is very different we have to
get ready for a new world good or bad we
don’t know but it’ll be a new world this
is not the first time that we have these
dramatic changes in the world when the
Second World War ended there was a big
change when the internet came into being
there was a big dramatic change in the
world when the Berlin wall collapsed
there was a dramatic change and now we
have a dramatic change with a leader who
is most unpredictable can diplomacy cope
with Donald Trump that is the topic
today how do we deal with this uncharted
realm or world diplomacy can it succeed
can we cope with the changes can one man
change the world can human civilization
deal with certain idiosyncrasies
of the leaders of the world is the
question and the answer is no one man
nor one movement can ruin the
civilization on the world and that is
our best hope so the story I am going to
tell you is the story of diplomacy over
the ages many people have tried to
define diplomacy the most famous story
it’s famous explanation or description
of diplomacy is a diplomat is an honest
gentleman who lies abroad for his
country or he is someone who asks you to
go to hell in such a way that you look
look forward to the trip or a gentleman
who who walks on thin ice and does not
fall into the hot water and you know of
course the difference between a lady and
a diplomat if a lady says no she means
maybe when a lady says maybe she means
the diplomat is the opposite if a
diplomat says yes he means maybe when he
says maybe he means no if he says no he
is not implement and also there is a
definition that diplomacy is doing the
nicest things nastiest things with the
nicest face you have to have two faces
for every diplomat to show it one to the
world and the other to be Indian
mythology is full of diplomats and the
greatest and the oldest diplomat in
Ramayana is the Hanuman and I would say
Hanuman is an ideal diplomat because he
goes on a message of peace and
friendship gets hurt and then he turns
in
– a weapon himself and burns the country
which in irritated the models insulted
him so that is the so in the ancient
base the diplomat survived not because
of any other skill but because of the
skill of physical strength and it was
shown that you need superhuman qualities
and that is what Hanuman was all about
but think about Krishna the way diplomat
that he was he tried to negotiate with
the cover was a good deal for the
Pandavas and finally when the arguments
failed the Cobra was wanted to arrest
him and the Kurukshetra war followed so
diplomats of ancient times had to resort
not only to arguments and negotiations
but also to physical strengths and
today’s diplomats do not have that
physical strength and what did what
happened in the old days when one
country did not like another so you sent
a gunboat that was the oldest kind of
diplomacy you send a gunboat and
immediately the other side will
surrender but today it has changed and
now they say that when the natives are
revolting he says send a million dollars
to them that is that is called silver
bullets diplomacy so from gunboat
diplomacy we have moved to silver bullet
diplomacy and that story is what we are
going to tell today there was some way
of dealing with various things and the
wife tells him that you should have
tried diplomacy first because seeing him
after his adventures abroad she says
maybe diplomacy was better than than war
so the ancient times when first time the
sovereign states were established became
a new tribe of people called
plenipotentiaries so those days an
ambassador called a plenipotentiary even
now we are called that but we don’t have
any of those powers that the planing
potential we had so they sailed into the
sunset to the unexplored world
and then they went there and they had
the power to negotiate war and peace and
sometimes even married princesses in
order to create peace in that country
and of course there are all the all
kinds of dangers some of them never came
back in fact one of my predecessors told
me that he went to a country when he
visited the head of state the head of
state said you are very welcome and then
he added that your predecessor was
delicious because it was a cannibal
country so this was the kind of danger
but those who have the golden age of
diplomacy because they had the power to
do anything their country the president
of the Prime Minister would not even
know what they were doing and he could
write a letter once in a month by the
diplomatic bag otherwise they were
enjoying themselves and enjoyed what was
called the authority of the state but
that changed very soon when there was
greater interchange or transportation
became easier and there was even very
modern technology like collects and
teleprinter and then diplomacy changed
again because you couldn’t send any news
home because the news was already at
home and your job was not to send news
not to fight with international agencies
but to give analysis and that is the
first thing that happened in diplomacy
as a result of the telecommunications
revolution but that was a very primary
revolution at that time and then came
the CNN the CNN in the 80s transform
diplomacy beyond recognition because
they still the CNN came what I told my
government was the law what I told them
was happening in my country was
important to the government but then CNN
started streaming live stories into the
four offices so we in the embassies had
a tough time coping with CNN but CNN did
the fantastic thing this is what the CNN
did because what they wanted to realize
that they were fast and communicating
very fast with the rest of the world but
then we realized that they were
doctoring their pictures they were
trying to present what
they thought was the world should know
and then the role of the diplomat
changed again the role of the diplomat
became not simply describing not simply
telling the people what it is but also
telling them what the truth is so CNN
made the diplomacy important to
distinguish between what they wanted to
tell the world and what the world really
was and that was another change in the
diplomatic attitude but then came the
revolution in in diplomacy which was the
internet the internet completely
transformed diplomacy because everything
was available everywhere and there was
no need at one time we also thought that
diplomacy had become redundant there was
need no need for us in this world but
then came the realization that internet
can nor can not only be helpful and
useful many of you might consider
internet dangerous because your children
should not be see those scenes but it
became dangerous for diplomacy with the
advent of two gentlemen Julian Assange
and Snowden they did what he did was
Julian Assange started hacking
diplomatic mails since 2006 and he in
fact released ten million documents
between 2006 and 2015 so confidentiality
which was considered the most important
ingredient of diplomacy disappeared from
the face of the earth always we are
trying to tell people what we wanted
them to hear without realising if you
knew that all you set your counterparts
abroad would come out into the open
people who are scared about it and that
is really what happened Julian Assange
and Snowden in fact began exposing
diplomacy
exposing particularly the US State
Department and of course we some of us
came out well in that because all
our telegrams also leaked but there is
no single Indian diplomat who had some
said something different in private what
he would not say in public but many
countries of the world were embarrassed
by it many countries of the world
actually thought that in fact Assange
and Snowden we’re the kind of people who
will take care of the world because it’s
not an in fact showed to the world that
it was the United States intelligence
itself was you know was nosing around
with other people’s lives and then the
source became change you can see people
say believing not what we say or what
appears in the press but they will ask
Snowden’s advice as to whether Obama
will come to the Soviet Union or to the
to Russia so that kind of situation has
developed as a result of this low loss
of confidentiality in diplomacy so when
someone says that I hear that the
diplomats of the United States are very
upset with us or the Europeans are very
upset with us they say yes that is what
we hear from the monitor telexes of
these governments so it all shifted
diplomacy is shifted from a human
activity from a human activity to an
activity which is very secret and very
secretly taken out to embarrass the
people of course secrecy was very
important in diplomacy even today it is
because it is essential for us to wait
and say things or find things when only
it is ready for for exposure and that is
what has changed as a result of the
Internet and the and the new
developments and of course you all know
what happened into 2016 elections in the
United States it was said it was a
tussle between emails and females on the
one side somebody was accusing the
others of females and the other accused
back and saying emails so Hillary
Clinton said the email era is over
and then now they like now the internet
internet decides what the people should
behave like because the hashtag is a
very important one so whenever there’s a
hashtag which affects you you have to
check out as to what is happening to the
world so that you are afraid you are
scared about what happens you realize
that this is the kind of information
that you have and you get you know even
yourself more from the internet hashtags
than from anything else and now with the
Facebook and Twitter
now diplomacy is on Facebook and Twitter
now someone says Iran is declaring
ourselves a friend on the internet what
do we do so it is Facebook diplomacy and
today all the prime ministers and
presidents have gone to Twitter so that
in 140 characters they are able to
convey to the world what exactly they
want to do
so therefore the diplomatic traditions
have changed over the years but what are
the message I want to convey is that in
the different circumstances that the
world has faced diplomacy has survived
all that and has also changed itself
adapted itself to remain relevant
because the world without diplomacy will
be a poor world in spite of all the
changes that have taken place but the
gifts the real gift of the Internet to
the world to the diplomatic world is
what is called public diplomacy because
today diplomacy is not confined to the
government’s not confined to diplomats
it is now the property of the whole
world public diplomacy is important
because you need to keep your people
informed in the old days people who are
not bothered as to what you did with
foreign policy but today it is open
there is public diplomacy so every
country in the world justifies
themselves to the their audiences their
home audiences it’s not only that you
convey things to the other governments
and try to resolve issues try to get the
best of them with giving them the least
and that kind of
has changed and now the people have to
go to the public
and tell them as to what the government
proposes to do in a particular situation
so from a situation where diplomacy was
secret it was powerful it was a
plenipotentiary affair then we could the
revolution they try the communications
revolution like any other profession
diplomacy has also changed and then we
were able to stem through all these
crises through the various technologies
the various methodologies that we had in
the last many years of diplomatic life
and now everything has changed with stir
with with mr. Tom so what is it that he
is trying to do what is it the world is
going to be because what he is trying to
do is to really remove all the kinds of
beliefs and the face that we had cold
war was a reality Cold War II was over
before Putin came back to power but he
had in fact started the cold war again
so two countries who are cold warriors
all these years are saying that they
will be friends again
is that possible is it possible for the
United States and Russia to be friends
and cordial are they going to trust each
other if that happens the whole story of
the world will change China will change
India will change Japan will change
because all these are fixed in various
positions various areas of human
activity and if it changes what happens
we believe that climate change is a very
serious problem
we believe that 200 years from now many
parts of the world will disappear but
mr. Trump says climate change is a hoax
made by the Chinese how comfortable it
is there’s not going to be any climate
change you don’t need to control your
greenhouse gas emissions he says for
example that the United Nations is not
reliable why the United Nations he says
it’s a club where everybody comes to
come and talk and not do anything so I
don’t want I don’t
care about the United States United
Nations so this is a major issue that
faces us the world of the future because
it is a United States he was president
of Columbia it would not have made any
difference to us but of course the
comfort that we have is mr. Trump has
been very friendly within you had a very
good conversation with mr. Modi last
night and they’re of the same feather
don’t you say that Modi is very much
like he says this is nativism my country
is great and both of them say the same
thing both of them say we are great so
there is going to be some kind of a
friendship between India and the United
States we are already friendly maybe
we’ll become friendlier but the message
is that diplomacy has a role to play
whatever happens in this world and we
have reached a stage in our civilization
that no single person or a single
movement can destroy the world on that
happy note thank you [Applause]