Cultural Diplomacy in International Relations

Look, I will answer both your questions in sequence. The Prime Minister

presented the book by Saint Tiruvalluvar,

which is considered a deeply revered and respected text in Tamil literature.

It is called the Tirukkural. This Tirukkural

has a total of one thousand

three hundred and thirty verses and is divided into three parts.

They are called Aram, Porul, and

Kamam. And exactly, now look, some of our

people may get really upset about this. Aram, Porul, and Kamam. This is exactly

the same thing

that is called Dharma, Artha, and Kama

in the Manusmriti, in the Dharmashastra scriptures. And in that too,

it is called

the Trivarga, and the Tirukkural also has only three parts, and all three

are in the same sequence: Aram, Porul, and Kamam. Now you may ask,

what was the point of giving this to Russia? So I would like to say that, among your viewers,

perhaps many people may not know that Russia's largest

The Volga is a river. The Volga's largest

tributary is called the Kama. Many people may not

know that the river that joins the Volga is called

the Kama, and another tributary joins the Volga, called

the Moksha. It does not join directly. The Moksha River first joins

the Oka River, and the Oka River joins the Volga. That is,

both the Kama and Moksha join the Volga. This

shows that, somewhere, we have had a very deep connection with Russia

since ancient times, and many of you

viewers may perhaps know that in the Russian language, the word for eleven is

ekadash. This also somehow indicates it, though that is a slightly different subject.

I only want to say that Prime Minister Modi

with great skill, in international diplomatic relations,

in what we call diplomatic, economic, and strategic terms—

Everyone focused on the diplomatic, economic and strategic aspects,

but our cultural aspect, that is, the cultural aspect,

has been used with such skill, and the way it

creates emotional ties with countries shows that

if India is to emerge as a friend of the world, then certainly such

things were very important. As you saw, the Prambanan Temple in Indonesia

was handed over to the Archaeological Survey, and now

Uzbekistan,

the Buddhist monastery in Termez was also handed over. This kind of cultural

connection is not possessed by any country in the world. I say this with great humility and firmness,

China is going to be included in this as well. Remember last September,

when China's Foreign Minister was about to come to India. The Chinese Embassy posted an official tweet,

what did it do? A mural of Lord Ganesha that was there

is in the cave, he himself wrote, “This is the”

statue of Ganesha in the Magao caves by

Tang dynasty in the eighth century. What a wonderful connection we had.

Unfortunately, because of the altar of politics,

we never used to show it to foreigners. We used to show a dead man’s tomb

and say that this tomb alone is magnificent and this is India’s identity.

Now you