With Vikram Doraiswami taking over as high commissioner in Bangladesh on Monday, it is quite apparent that the path to high-profile ambassador assignments in the neighborhood runs through the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Last week, Rudrendra Tandon went to Kabul to take up the post of Indian ambassador to conflict-torn Afghanistan. Both Doraiswami and Tandon have served in the PMO as private secretaries to the Prime Minister and director of the PMO.
While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MEA) will never publicly admit it, key diplomatic assignments in the neighborhood are awarded to foreign service officials with inter-ministerial experience that goes beyond diplomacy. Indian envoys to neighboring countries are now rigorously screened and handed over to those who are experienced in the big picture.
India’s Ambassador to Nepal is Vinay Mohan Kwatra, who was Deputy Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and so was India’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Gopal Bagley. The last Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan, Ajay Besaria, had served in the PMO and the current Ambassador to Myanmar, Saurabh Kumar, has served in the Secretariat of the National Security Council, a deputy of the PMO in front of the National Security Advisor. The only exception to this rule is the Indian ambassador to Bhutan, Ruchira Khamboj, as the Indian envoy to Beijing, Vikram Misri, has significant experience in PMO.
While the neighborhood is one of the top priorities of the Modi government, the selection of envoys by the South Block for the Indian subcontinent has taken on a different meaning after Beijing began sending non-diplomats as ambassadors to South Asia, particularly those with direct links to the PLA. intelligence or the United Front Works Department (UFWD) directly under President Xi Jinping. The current Chinese ambassadors in Islamabad and Dhaka belong to UFWD, while the envoy to Nepal has intelligence experience.
Although ambassador assignments are currently the domain of most senior officers in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), several key allies of India post non-diplomatic specialists as their envoys to Delhi. At least eight of India’s close allies have appointed non-diplomats with experience in electoral politics, trade and economics as ambassadors in Delhi. They are Kenneth Juster (United States); Ron Malka (Israel); Barry O’Farrell (Australia); Nadir Patel (Canada); Nilamber Acharya (Nepal); Austin Fernando (Sri Lanka); Saud bin Mohammed Alsati (Saudi Arabia) and Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al Banna (UAE). All of these envoys have rich experience and present a healthy vision of the country they represent. If Juster is a trade and commerce expert, Malka has run the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and O’Farrell has served as Prime Minister of New South Wales.
.
