Chatter doesn’t interest Nancy J Powell, the new US ambassador to India. She’s quiet, prefers to listen rather than talk. And judging by that oracle that helps us all make up our own minds about the US — Wikileaks — she is adept at taking interlocutors by surprise with the depth of her knowledge.
Powell, who has been ambassador in Islamabad and Kathmandu (in addition to Ghana and Uganda earlier), reports her first encounter with Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Maoist Prime Minister of Nepal in May 2008. Remember, her predecessor has been the somewhat shrill James Moriarty who has been exceedingly critical of the Maoists. Powell does not raise the past but suggests to Dahal that in his own interest it would help if he were to immediately address the activities of the Young Communist League.
The issue Powell flags is not extortion by the organisation, kidnapping or use of arms. She says it is imperative for YCL to immediately stop detaining Nepali drug users in so-called YCL “rehabilitation centres” in Kathmandu and torturing them. “The Ambassador noted that she had spoken to one of the victims who had testified to her mistreatment. The Ambassador informed the Prime Minister that this issue would be raised during any meetings Dahal had with senior US government officials in New York during the UN General Assembly, and he should be prepared to have answers” the WikiLeaks cable says.
Prachanda was speechless. He seemed to have expected many things but not this. The cable records: “The Prime Minister expressed surprise and concern at the news and asked for details. He stated — referring to the YCL — that his government was trying to control all these illegal activities. He also assured the Ambassador that these “remaining” activities would be dealt with.”
The WikiLeaks cable abounds with similar nuggets of information that suggests the management style of the new US Ambassador to India: in a word, ‘different’.
The last few US envoys in New Delhi have been political appointees rather than career diplomats. Robert Blackwill (2001-2003) was a towering intellectual but not a particularly good administrator. David Mulford (2004-2009), a retired banker, worked hard on economic issues. Timothy Roemer (2009-2011) was a civil servant with a marked political tilt but was adjudged by the Wall Street Journal as an ambassador who tried and failed (the US was cut out from the contract for 126 fighter jets worth $10 billion, although it did get a smaller contract for transport aircraft, and civil nuclear liability rules were not framed the way the US wanted them).
Nancy Powell is a career diplomat and more importantly a South Asia hand. She was known to do pretty plain talking to Pakistan — she was ambassador in Islamabad from 2002 to 2004, the most difficult years in the relationship between India and Pakistan. She complained publicly that Pakistani militant groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban had reconstituted themselves under different names. Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistani president, re-banned the groups.
Powell’s Delhi posting will not be her first. She has served in the consulate in Kolkata and in the US Embassy in Delhi. She is currently Director General of Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. She was also the National Intelligence Officer for South Asia at the US National Intelligence Council.
Before she joined the foreign service (in 1977) she taught social studies in a high school in Iowa. No one knows what will happen in 2012 when President Barack Obama seeks re-election. That he has named an ambassador before then (though her appointment is yet to be confirmed by the Senate) suggests he has some plans for the somewhat sterile patch that Indo-US relations have fallen into.
