2018•01•11     New Delhi

Shantesh Kumar Singh, Postdoctoral Fellow, working under the project Governance for Global Health, participated in an interdisciplinary conference on “Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay: Vision and Mission” organized by Maharaja Agrasen College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India, between January 5-6, 2018. Dr. Singh presented a paper on “Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s Idea’s on Foreign Policy: An Assessment”. In the presentation, he explained the ideas of Upadhyay Ji on foreign policy issues, which are still relevant not only for India but also for other countries in the world.

Upadhyay Ji rightly warned against an increasing habit of resorting to an ‘eco-destructive consumerism’ and called for the need to evolve or re-discover the fundamental balance between nature and man, which is being followed by Indian governments. In 1950’s and 1960’s, long before the debates in UN on 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals, Upadhyaya Ji, in a sense, pointed to the need for focusing on different issues of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), rather focusing on ‘sustainable consumption’. SDGs clearly talk about the food security, which was argued by Upadhyay Ji long way back in past. Dr. Singh argued that Upadhyay Ji always wanted to see India as a self-reliance nation in food production. Upadhyay Ji once said that India need to ensure food security since seeking foreign food assistance will deprive and entangle it for a longer time. Achieving the goals set by Upadhyay Ji will be somehow achieving the SDGs by the government of India. Finally, Dr. Singh said that Upadhyay Ji, being a pragmatic thinker, always expected from the Indian policy makers to have a more practical and result oriented foreign policy.