External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday stated that the countries from the Global South have a “high degree” of trust and expectations from India. 

Addressing an interactive session with students at FLAME University in Pune today, Jaishankar said, “What do we mean by the Global South? We largely mean countries that were colonized, who got their independence or who are still developing, who would be largely low-income countries… They have a high degree of trust and expectation in India and with a reason.”

The foreign minister noted three instances in recent years where India had stood with Global South countries, including Covid times. 

He recalled that New Delhi delivered COVID-19 vaccines to many countries at the time India was still vaccinating its own people. 

“I can give you three examples. In much of the Global South, people do remember that during COVID, when the developed world was actually stockpiling vaccines, many of them got their first vaccines from India and they got their vaccines from India when India was still vaccinating its own people. I cannot overstate the emotional impact of this on the world,” Jaishankar stated. 

During his interaction he also mentioned that the African Union joining the G20 under New Delhi’s presidency, saying that African countries think that India has a ‘conscience’. 

“A second example was Ukraine…A third example would be during our G20. For many years in G20, the African Union wanted a seat. Every G20 would begin like this, on the first day of the G20, everybody tells the African Union not to worry, during this meeting and we’ll take care of you but at the end of the meeting when nothing happened, they say, sorry this time we couldn’t do, next time we will look at it…We took up this cause and pushed it in a way that everybody had to accept it. The African countries do think that India has a conscience. India has a standing, India has a confidence today…” the External Affairs Minister said.