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Is the finance ministry’s gain the foreign ministry’s loss?
Will the new foreign minister, Yashwant Sinha, who swapped places with Jaswant Singh in the latest Cabinet reshuffle, be able to handle the post with as much élan as his predecessor?
Will he be able to replicate the personal rapport that Singh had established with his counterparts worldwide?
That is the question being asked in diplomatic circles in India, and the answer, so far, remains ambiguous. A poll in the weekly newsmagazine, Outlook, however, showed that more than 60 per cent of those polled felt this was not the right time for such a change.
“Broadly speaking,” says former foreign secretary S K Singh, “we should all be pleased that a good English-knowing person has taken over the post. He will be able to represent and inject an economic foreign policy, which is crucial in today’s world. He should manage all right.”
“It shouldn’t really affect policy,” concurs another former foreign secretary, Maharaj Kumar Rasgotra. “He is an experienced person. Besides, the Opposition and government work together on crucial foreign policy decisions, so he cannot take too many unilateral decisions anyway.”
Jaswant Singh, who steered India through difficult times on the foreign policy front following the nuclear tests in 1998 and the escalating tension with Pakistan, is on first name terms with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Then US President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright, known for her peremptory nature, always had the time for him. So did her deputy Strobe Talbott, with whom Jaswant Singh had innumerable meetings.
“As far as these seemingly personal relationships are concerned," says Rasgotra, “they are conditioned by the needs of the two nations concerned, and this is not likely to change with a change in the minister.”
What about the improving ties with the US, and the worsening ones with Pakistan?
“As far as ties with the US are concerned,” said a senior foreign ministry official, “remember that Sinha too cultivated a lot of contacts during his annual visits to America as finance minister.”
“To be fair,” he said, “Sinha met a lot of senators and congressmen during these visits, and they seem to appreciate his frank and forthright manner. And he brings economics back into the realm of foreign policy, something that was missing earlier. Besides, the fact that he lived up to his promise to open up the insurance sector to foreign players has impressed many.”
And as for Pakistan, “the new minister has already made it clear that our position remains the same: show us results on the ground before we even think of talks.”
Admitting that there was an element of anger in the ministry of external affairs over the fact that it is now headed by a former IAS official, the official joked: “We forget that the man does have an IFS connection in the form of his son-in-law, who is now consul general in Hong Kong. I am sure the new minister realizes that rollbacks in foreign policy are not as easy to achieve.”
“What can you say?” asks S K Singh. “In a parliamentary system, the prime minister has the absolute right to change and shift people. It is his prerogative. And our prime minister, in his wisdom, has made these changes. Are we going to argue with him?”
“Foreign policy is an evolutionary process” he continues, “and in a nation with the size, the history, the people of India, such policy cannot shift far too much to either the left or the right. There has always been continuity, and this is unlikely to change.”
Sinha is not the only new man in South Block. Former foreign secretary Chokila Iyer retired on Sunday to make way for Kanwal Sibal, while Digvijay Singh's induction as minister of state in the ministry means that the other junior minister, Omar Abdullah, is likely to go soon.
"Though there is no law saying there can't be two ministers of state, the writing is on the wall for Omar," says an official. "Besides, he cannot run his constituency in Kashmir from South Block."
However, “in our attempts to compare the two ministers,” says a keen foreign ministry observer, “we tend to forget that key foreign policy decisions are taken not by the minister, but by National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra."
"Mishraji meets each and every major visitor to India, and he has the prime minister’s ear. It was he who initiated the strategic dialogues with Russia, with Britain and with France. He has the ear of US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. In other words, chances of things changing just because the foreign minister has changed are rather bleak…the continuity factor is something that unlikely to unravel any time soon. If anything, Mishra’s role is likely to become even more dominant in the new setup.”
The Complete Coverage: Cabinet Reshuffle 2002
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