 "BJP proposes 'panchamrit' to Nehruvian 'panchsheel'")
However, not once the lengthy resolution, which was in English, use ‘India’ to describe the country, but preferred ‘Bharat’. It termed non-resident Indians or NRIs and people of Indian origin or PIOs as diaspora of Bharatwasis. The resolution said India has emerged as the “pole star — Dhruv tara — of the democratic world” during Modi’s prime ministerial tenure.
In a sign that the Modi government is attempting to come out of the deeply rooted Nehruvian imprint on the Indian foreign policy, the resolution talked of ‘panchamrit’ (five themes) that will become the ‘new’ pillars of India’s foreign policy architecture.
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According to the resolution, the Modi government’s panchamrit are: “Samman — dignity and honour; samvad — greater engagement and dialogue; samriddhi — shared prosperity; suraksha — regional and global security; and sanskriti evam sabhyata — cultural and civilisational linkages.”
The panchamrit are likely to replace Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea of panchsheel or five principles of peaceful co-existence that have remained one of the guiding principles of India’s foreign policy in the past six decades. India, China and Myanmar inked the panchsheel treaty in 1954, which had five principle tenets — mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and cooperation for mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence.
The BJP resolution lauded the PM’s efforts to have the UN declare June 21 as the International Yoga Day, his speaking in Hindi at the UN General Assembly that “revived the memory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee” and his addresses to the Australian, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius, Sri Lankan and Fijian parliaments.
It congratulated the PM on his “purposeful focus on the neighbourhood” to redress the failures of the “lost decade of UPA”, in improving relations with neighbours like Nepal and Sri Lanka and noted his “personal rapport” with leaders of big powers like the US President Barack Obama. The resolution also claimed that during the last 10 months “India’s global aspirations have been matched by greater global engagement with countries of all regions ignoring power bloc politics”.
The resolution expressed concern at the toxic fumes of war in the West Asia and parts of Africa where “jihadists are running amok”. It said this was also a “battle between the proponents of faith supremacy and those committed to faith pluralism” and that Bharat cannot remain impervious to the crisis and should continue to work with other democratic countries to eliminate terrorist militias.