The Hindu : A 'new-look' Foreign Office

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 03, 2002

National

National

A 'new-look' Foreign Office

By K.K. Katyal

NEW DELHI JULY 2. Rarely in the past did the Foreign Office get a completely new look at the top as is the case now, with a new political head, Yashwant Shina, and a new administrative leader, Kanwal Sibal. Not that it was planned that way, it being a matter of chance that the change of Foreign Secretary, decided some time back, coincided with the shuffle of the Union Cabinet, involving a swap that brought Mr. Sinha from Finance to External Affairs and took Jaswant Singh from the Foreign Office to Finance. Since the totality of the change was not the result of a conscious decision, it will be pointless to look for signs of policy changes in it. To the extent the styles of individual ministers differ, the functioning of the ministry and the implementation processes may not necessarily be the same as in the past.

This is a simple point but needs to be the emphasised. The swap was anticipated and, as such, diplomatic tongues had been wagging for days about the implications of the change. Will Mr. Yashwant Sinha be able to master the intricacies of the new assignment? Will the new orientations, particularly the pro-U.S. slant, continue? Should a shift be expected in the handling of the relationship with Pakistan? Those who ask these questions do not take into account the functioning of the system here — in particular the fact that the Prime Minister has played a major role in shaping major policies and sometimes in implementation of major policies. It was within this framework that Mr. Jaswant Singh operated — and did a creditable job. He was not the sole framer of policies but a part — an essential part, at that, of the top-level apparatus. To say this is not to deny him the credit due to him but to suggest that continuity in foreign policy will not be expected.

Here is a joke that used to do the rounds in the Central Hall of Parliament during the tenure of the Janata Party government under Morarji Desai: Q: Morarjibhai formulates foreign policy, Jagat Mehta (then Foreign Secretary) executes it, what does A.B. Vajpayee (then External Affairs Minister) do? Ans. Atalji translates it into Hindi. This of course, was not a charitable comment on Mr.Vajpayee's performance for, in some cases — for instance, in the dialogue with Zia-ul-Haq's Pakistan — he did a commendable job. In any case, Mr. Jaswant Singh had a much wider space to function, a lot more scope for initiatives, and had achieved some concrete results.

In one area — the equation between the political boss and the bureaucracy — the style of the new External Affairs Minister will be watched closely. In the past, on some occasions, the Foreign Office mandarins got the feeling that their advice was either not sought or not given due weight or was brushed aside. There are several instances — the promptness in announcing support to the U.S. plans for missile defence or the line to be taken on Robert Mugabe's election success in Zimbabwe.

In the case of the Foreign Secretary, the distribution of work between him and the Secretaries — there are three of them — has been a subject of caustic comments over the years. In practical terms, it has been an unhappy spectacle — an overworked Foreign Secretary spreading himself thin, and underworked Secretaries. At times in the past, the Secretaries felt sore over the lack of work, but when one of them was elevated to the post of Foreign Secretary, he made no attempt to change the norm — on the contrary, relished continuity of the existing arrangement. This was so even in the recent past, though the outgoing Foreign Secretary, Chokila Iyer, preferred a low profile and, in the eyes of her uncharitable critics, did not fully assert herself in her role as leader of the Foreign Service for no fault of hers at times. She did not get a chance to engage in a substantive dialogue with her Pakistan counterpart — a task that would have tested her mettle. Mr. Sibal hopefully will get this opportunity — it will then mean an engagement with an Indian hand in Islamabad, Riaz Khokhar.

Mr. Sinha starts with one distinct advantage, familiarity with economic diplomacy. Among his immediate tasks — dealing with Pakistan, keeping up the momentum of the ``new beginning'' with the U.S., pursuing the slow but steady task of deepening and expanding ties with China, greater attention to Europe, on the one hand, and neighbourhood on the other.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National