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India's Foreign Secretary: "We don't believe in the export of Democracy"

In an article published on 26 May 2006 by The Press Trust of India Limited, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said that "we believe that India as a mature and stable democracy, has an increasingly important economic powerhouse and it will have the capabilities to contribute to a more harmonized and increasingly global and multi-polar world. Therefore we see our emergence as a major and positive development in international business."

Asked whether India is keen to ensure emergence of democracy in its neighbourhood, Saran said: "As a functioning democracy ourselves naturally we feel very comfortable and enthused if there are more democracies emerging. Our policy is very clear. However, he said "we don't believe in the export of ideology. We don't believe in the imposition of democracy or democratic values on any country. But if there is any interest in any country about our democratic institutions or in the institutions such as EC, Human Rights Commission which India built over a period of time or the strong judicial system or training programme for Parliamentarians, we are very ready to share these with any country".

"This is the spirit in which we have contributed to the UN Democracy Fund and we have said that our contribution to the UN Democracy Fund could be used by recipient countries to gain some benefit of our experience. We don't believe in the export of democracy to any country," he added.

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