Foreign Secretary-designate Ranjan Mathai has been variously described as “mild-mannered”, “gentlemanly” and “non-combative” over the 36 years he has served in the Indian Foreign Service. It is precisely these qualities that could hold him in good stead when he takes over the reins of the foreign office, for two years from August 1.
First of all, the foreign office is squarely in the middle of a severe policy crisis, as well as low officer morale, to which both serving and retired diplomats will readily testify on the condition of anonymity.
The first is a function of an easily-distracted political establishment, unable to come to grips with the decisions India needs to take to pursue its hard-nosed national interest, especially in the neighbourhood, Central Asia, Russia and the US.
With the exception of Afghanistan and the recent Africa-India summit in Ethiopia, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced $500 million worth each of additional credit lines in the hope that trade and investments will translate into Indian influence, the pursuit of policy in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka as well as large parts of Africa has been riddled with a lack of political vision, as well as allegations of financial corruption.
Mathai will also be confronted with another serious challenge, that of coordinating with the ministries of commerce and finance so to make foreign policy that much more relevant in the post-G20 global order.
Already, the ministry of commerce has quietly taken over policy in India’s neighbourhood, whether it is about reducing non-tariff barriers for 10 million garment pieces (increased from eight million) with Bangladesh or easing trade restrictions at integrated checkposts at the Wagah-Attari border with Pakistan.
In fact, it didn’t matter how hard External Affairs Minister S M Krishna tried; Home Minister P Chidambaram simply refused to give up the sanctioning authority for visas for Pakistani visitors, after the Mumbai attacks of 2008.
Over the last year or so, since the PM-led initiative to improve the relationship with Pakistan has moved, slowly but surely, Pakistani businessmen have suffered severely at the hands of the home ministry’s tough rules. In the face of the ministry of external affairs’ inability to force the issue, it has been the commerce ministry which has pushed for a relaxation of trade visas with Pakistan, citing the PM’s directive to improve the political relationship via trade and investments.
“There is critical need to create a collegial relationship with other ministries,” said India’s former ambassador to Germany, Kishan Rana, adding, “in fact, India must move towards a new arrangement where at least a part of the ministries of commerce, external affairs and finance are merged so that all three are able to create a much more integrated policy with the rest of the world.”
In fact, Mathai’s contacts with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives will come in seriously useful — even if they are a bit rusty, considering he was joint secretary in charge of this division in 1995-98 — especially since there is come concern in Delhi over the resurgence of religious fundamentalist groups in Bangladesh, as well as Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s determined efforts to make peace with the Tamil community only on his terms.
Mathai’s big-picture initiatives, which necessitate the serious improvement of relations with the US and Russia — Europe continues to be severely damaged by its economy-in-recession to be a serious player for some time to come, while China, beset with its change of political guard over 2012-13, as well as a tapering of its economic miracle, is somewhat quiescent — will occupy a major part of his time as foreign secretary.
There has been recent disquiet in the aftermath of the 2008 path-breaking Indo-US nuclear deal over the tightening of rules by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). These do not allow the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to countries such as India who have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Russia, which claims to be a strategic partner of India, has also stated that it will stand by the NSG’s newest guidelines.
Mathai, with his background as ambassador in France, Israel and Qatar, understands well that it is as important to pay attention to lesser powers and the big ones. After all, each of them has a vote in the UN General Assembly, which India needs to change the shape of the Security Council.
For example, Vladimir Putin’s Russia seems unwilling to break ranks with the US on nuclear issues, though Moscow has several times done this in the past, because it feels Delhi is unable to focus on more than one relationship — such as the US — at the same time.
Mathai’s tour of duty in the tiny Gulf nation of Qatar, in fact, could become one of the hallmarks of his tenure as foreign secretary. The Gulf and the Arab world are an incredibly important neighbouring region, not only because of the huge Indian community there or the presence of the holy shrines in Saudi Arabia, but also because the nature of these states is changing as a result of the ongoing Arab spring.
It might also be time for Mathai, in fact, to look at the state of the Indian community in the Gulf and the Arab world. For too long, Delhi has neglected India’s poorest citizens who travel to these parts in search of a better life, for the glitz and glamour of Paris, London and New York.
But Mathai has now been both in Doha and in Paris, and he should be able to see that the Indian community, often maltreated and denied its rights, need India’s protection much more. After all, it is these Indians who generate the largest foreign direct investment, totalling $18 billion, not their more-prosperous counterparts in the West.
Mathai will also be faced with a much more aggressive media than he has been used to since his time in Delhi in the late 90s. There are the private TV channels to contend with as well as a burgeoning regional media, which used to be given short shrift in the days only English used to be an important means of communication.
It must be said for outgoing Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao that she brought a new level of skill to the handling of the media. Not only is there now a separate department for public diplomacy — whose initiatives on the traditional seminar-cum-conference circuit, as well as progressive spaces such as Facebook and Twitter are the considerable source of envy across government — but the foreign secretary herself responds to messages from the citizenry (including journalists) on Twitter.
A former spokesperson of the ministry, Rao will definitely be able to use her skills in her new job as ambassador of India to the US, a country given to enormous media-savviness.
Perhaps Mathai’s core challenge will be within, to improve the morale of the foreign service. Stories of bureaucratic corruption, capitulation and sheer indifference have been doing the rounds of the ministry for some time now. This culminated in a recent reshuffle of joint secretaries, allegedly demanded by S M Krishna, which the outgoing foreign secretary could not prevent. No reasons were asked, and none said to have been given.
“The new foreign secretary,” said Rana, “must definitely have time to mind the store”.
