Amitabh Bachchan impressed as Jaishankar slams 'India a bully' jibe

VETERAN Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan on Monday (5) lauded the country's external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar for asserting that India 'is not a bully'.

Last week, the diplomat was speaking at a book-launch event in New Delhi where his reaction was sought in context of the Maldivian president Mohamed Muizzu's indirect dig at India a few weeks ago when he said nobody had a license to "bully" the Indian Ocean archipelago.

"When you say India is perceived as a big bully, you know, big bullies don't provide USD 4.5 billion when the neighbours are in trouble," Jaishankar said.

Read: We may be small, but that doesn’t give you license to bully us: Maldives’ Muizzu amid India row

Bachchan, 81, took to his X account where he shared a video of the Indian minister's response and said, "Wah (wow).. well said Sir."

Read: Can’t guarantee every country will support India: Foreign minister Jaishankar amid Maldives row

Muizzu, who is perceived to be pro-China and has taken steps against India after taking oath as the president last November like asking New Delhi to withdraw its troops stationed on the Maldivian soil, had said in January amid a diplomatic row with New Delhi, "We may be small but this doesn't give them the license to bully us."

"This (Indian) ocean does not belong to a specific country. This ocean also belongs to all countries situated in it," the president had said in an indirect jibe at New Delhi.

“We aren’t in anyone’s backyard. We are an independent and sovereign state,” the 45-year-old had added.

The row started after some Maldivian ministers posted allegedly derogatory posts against Indian prime minister Narendra Modi after he visited India's Lakshadweep chain of islands and spoke in favour of promotion of the picturesque location.

Several Indians, including celebrities and common men, strongly protested against the remarks and some Indian travel agencies even cancelled bookings for the Maldives, where Indians constituted the largest group of visitors before the escalation. Muizzu's domestic opposition slammed his hardline stance vis-a-vis India but Muizzu, who was touring China when the row started, has not budged.

In his response to the allegation of 'big bully', Jaishankar said India's trade, investments and travel with its neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and even the Maldives have witnessed a sharp rise.

"Big bullies don't supply vaccines to other countries when COVID-19 is on or make exceptions to their own rules to respond to food demands or fuel demands or fertilizer demands because some war in some other part of the world has complicated their lives," he said.

"Today at the connectivity, just the volume of people moving up and down, the volume of the trade which is there, the investments which are there, it's actually a very, very good story to tell. Not just with Nepal and Bangladesh, with Sri Lanka as well, I would say even with Maldives," Jaishankar added.

Bachchan had also spoken out at the time of the row. In response to a post from former India cricketer Virender Sehwag who spoke in favour of promoting India's own places, the Bollywood actor echoed the latter and said "our own are the very best".

"I have been to Lakshadweep and Andamans and they are such astonishingly beautiful locations .. stunning waters beaches and the underwater experience is simply unbelievable...Hum Bharat hai, hum atmanirbhar hai, humari atmanirbharta pe aanch mat daliye (We are India, we are self-reliant, don't let anything blemish ourself-reliance), Jai Hind @virendersehwag," he had said in his post on X.