SYDNEY (Reuters) – India’s foreign minister said that the democratic world need a discussion on democracy, referring to billionaire investor George Soros as “old, wealthy, opinionated, and dangerous” for his statements on India that failed to acknowledge the country’s tough route from colonialism.
In a lecture delivered Thursday ahead of the Munich Security Conference, billionaire investor Soros criticised India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating that although India was a democracy, Modi was not.
Saturday, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told a conference in Sydney that Soro’s remarks were representative of a “Euro-Atlantic perspective.”
As the globe rebalanced and grew less Euro-Atlantic, he said that “we need to have a discussion and dialogue about democracy,” especially whose ideals characterise a democracy.
In answer to a question regarding Soros posed at the Raisina@Sydney conference, Jaishankar said, “He is elderly, wealthy, opinionated, and dangerous, because when such individuals, such beliefs, and such organisations engage money in influencing narratives, they become hazardous.”
He said that the people of India determined “how the nation should be managed.”
“That concerns us. As a nation that has experienced colonialism, we are aware of the hazards associated with external involvement “he continued.
After India assumed the G20 chair, Jaishankar emphasised the urgent need to “de-risk the global economy” in a speech at a one-day seminar held by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
He met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier. Australia seeks to expand its commerce with India in an effort to minimise its dependency on China, and has joined the Quad security group with India, the United States, and Japan.