The Hindu : `Modernise' Indian diplomacy: Sinha

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Sunday, Jan 05, 2003

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`Modernise' Indian diplomacy: Sinha

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI Jan. 4. When they read out speeches, Ministers in the Union Cabinet focus most of the time on policy. One rarely hears them talk about the process that makes policy or the professionals who let it all happen.

In a happy exception on Friday, the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, spoke on the new challenges to Indian diplomacy, which is the mechanism that implements the republic's foreign policy.

The setting was just right. At the ornate Hyderabad House, a new batch of officers was being inducted into the Indian Foreign Service. Mr. Sinha's message was simple: expand the Indian diplomatic corps and modernise its ways.

The thought itself may not be original. The Foreign Office has long complained about an acute shortage of officers to man its growing number of missions abroad and cope with the rapidly increasing work load at the headquarters here.

But the External Affairs Minister making a public case for an expansion of the IFS is certainly new. Coming from Mr. Sinha, it had a special ring to it. For, he started his career in the Indian Administrative Service, the less glamorous but domineering cousin of the IFS.

For "an emerging world power'' like India, Mr. Sinha said, "600 and odd officers are not sufficient to provide the sinews for Indian diplomacy''. It was music to the ears of former ambassadors and friends of the foreign office who had gathered there.

To be sure, proposals for enlarging the IFS will run headlong into the rightful demand for down-sizing Indian bureaucracy. The answer is easy: cut down the IAS and expand the IFS.

Much of the business that the IAS used to dabble in, from running hotels to managing steel plants, has begun to move to the private sector. Clearly, the nation does not need as many IAS officers as it once did.

Diplomacy, however, will remain one of the core functions of any state even in the age of privatisation and globalisation. Diplomatic trade has ballooned in recent years covering every aspect of human life from counter-terrorism to environment, Mr. Sinha says.

To deal with this expansive external agenda, Mr. Sinha wants not only a larger number of IFS officers, but also better skilled ones. A continuous and "on-line'' training of the IFS is his answer.

Mr. Sinha wants Indian diplomacy to go digital, by using modern information and communication technology. The IFS, compelled to deal with the changing world outside, is better attuned to modern methods of doing white collar work.

Unlike their IAS cousins, more senior officers in the IFS are adept at using the computer and the internet. But Indian diplomacy has a long way to go in improving its technical skills and the efficiency of its operations.

In urging the diplomatic corps ''to get its act together'', Mr. Sinha has other ideas on offer — from the emphasis on economic diplomacy to the building of what he called "a sound foreign policy establishment'' in the form of a network of institutions to enhance India's resource base on world affairs.

Yet, the modernisation of Indian diplomacy is easier said than done. To mobilise the resources to expand and upgrade the IFS, Mr. Sinha knows he has to get the proposals past his compatriots from the IAS who are not known to be generous to other services.

With Brajesh Mishra, from the 1951 batch of the IFS, as the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Jaswant Singh, who ran Indian diplomacy until recently, as the Finance Minister, it should not be impossible for Mr. Sinha to begin the long overdue modernisation of Indian diplomacy.

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