India's preference would be strategic autonomy: Ansari

India's preference in immediate and medium terms would be "strategic autonomy," to create an external environment that is conducive for rapid development, Vice-President M Hamid Ansari today said.
"We would seek mutually beneficial cooperation with all. Interests would converge and diverge, particularly in the neighbourhood, and the challenge would be to our ability to work together, handle differences and compete and cooperate at the same time," he said.
Ansari was speaking at the '20th Anniversary Conclave Vision-2034' organised by the Delhi Policy Group.
The Vice President said that some years back a Distinguished sociologist had opined that an optimal view of security is obtained when three pitfalls are avoided, namely genocide, 'culturocide' and ecocide.

"It is evident that the goal in any such endeavour should be Human Security that has to be comprehensive and all encompassing rather than selective. It would of necessity be cooperative rather than competitive," he said.
On the issue of 'India's role in a rapidly changing world', he said this would depend in good measure on the nation's ability as a state player on the global stage which in turn would hinge on the size and weight of its economy.

"Challenges to social peace in any form would detract from it," he said.
It would also depend on its scientific and technological progress, the state's defence capabilities and on the ability of our society to respond to the aspirations of the citizens seeking inclusiveness and social cohesion, he said.

The determining factors would be capacity and vision and neither can be taken for granted but both can be developed.
"Both require a comprehensive approach to national security that goes beyond (but does not exclude) the traditional dimensions and attends in adequate measure to the imperatives of non-traditional security," he said.