Amitabh Bachchan goes ‘wah’ at S Jaishankar's comment on whether India is ‘being a bully’ to its neighbours

S Jaishankar was asked at a recent event about India's relationship with its neighbours and Amitabh Bachchan was impressed with his response.

Responding sharply to a question on whether "India was being a bully in the region" (Indian sub-continent and the Indian Ocean region), at a book launch event in Delhi, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said 'big bullies' don't provide $4.5 billion in aid when neighbours are in distress. His response was not only a hit with the general public but also Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

Amitabh Bachchan has praised S Jaishankar's latest comment on India's relations with its neighbours,

Amitabh Bachchan praises EAM

Amitabh Bachchan reposted the comment on Twitter and praised S Jaishankar. “WAH!! Well said sir,” Amitabh said in his tweet on Monday afternoon. His tweet also got a bunch of replies with someone even asking him if he plans to join politics. “Absolutely ji. He's one of the best diplomats and EAM (external affairs minister) this nation has seen. Amit ji, are you joining politics?” read a reply. “Good to hear this from a legend,” wrote another.

What did S Jaishankar say?

A video clip of Jaishankar's response to the 'barb' was widely shared across social media platforms.

"The big change today in this part of the world is what has happened between India and its neighbours. When you say India is perceived as a big bully, you know, big bullies don't provide four and a half billion dollars when the neighbours are in trouble. 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," Jaishankar said at the event on Sunday.

"You also have to look today at actually what is changed between India and its neighbours. Certainly, with Bangladesh and Nepal, I mean today you have a power grid, you have roads which didn't exist a decade ago, you have railways which didn't exist a decade ago, there's usage of waterways. Indian businesses use ports of Bangladesh on a national treatment basis," Jaishankar added.

Amitabh was at the Ambani bash in Jamnagar, Gujarat on Sunday with his family. He attended the pre-wedding function of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant with wife Jaya Bachchan, son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai and daughter Shweta Bachchan. His grandkids Aaradhya, Agastya and Navya were also there. Amitabh even took to his blog to share his experience in Jamnagar. The family came back to Mumbai in the early hours of Monday.