In the month of November last year, the Sydney based Lowy Institute released the 2019 Global Diplomacy Index which maps 61 Diplomatic Networks across the world. The biggest takeaway from the Index was Beijing overtaking the United States in terms of diplomatic posts across the world. While China has 276 Embassies and Consulates across the world, the United States has 273. This shows China’s expanding diplomatic footprint across the world.
As far as India is concerned, New Delhi is ranked 12th in this list with 123 Embassies and High Commissions, and 54 Consulates globally. In this sense, India lags far behind China, something that doesn’t augur well for PM Modi’s foreign policy blitz and New Delhi’s ability to take more Article 370 abrogation-like decisions without having too much to worry about international public opinion/manufactured outrage.
Firstly, the lack of diplomatic posts and fewer diplomats have an immediate fallout- compulsion to ignore the smaller, supposedly ‘insignificant’ countries. When diplomatic infrastructure and resources are limited, there is naturally a compulsion to reduce the engagement to strategic allies and countries with greater momentum. But this can result in a major fallout in certain situations.
Voting in the United Nations General Assembly, for instance, takes place on the principle of one country, one vote. In such a situation, considerations such as the size or the relative importance of a country become somewhat irrelevant. Garnering the support of those countries where you do not even have a diplomatic mission becomes a major obstacle.
Secondly, the lack of diplomatic posts reduces the scope of establishing Consulates. When you can barely manage Embassies at all important places, there is not much scope for establishing too many Consulates.
While Embassies and High Commissions are the main representative bodies, the Consulates are crucial for building people-to-people contact and closer cultural ties. Consulates can also play a role in crisis situations.
Imagine for example how much easier it could have been for the Indian diplomatic staff to reach out to Indian citizens during the Coronavirus epidemic outbreak in China, had New Delhi enjoyed the convenience of a Consulate in Wuhan. In the present context, the Indian Embassy had to manage operations far away from Beijing because India didn’t have enjoy the luxury of a Consulate General in Wuhan unlike say the United States.
Even when it comes to boosting tourism, attracting investments and other engagements, Consulates can play a big role especially in big countries like Russia, China or the United States. Consulates save a lot of trouble by avoiding unnecessary expenditure of time and money in approaching the Embassy for all matters, including Visa approvals.
With Modi government at the helm of affairs, an attempt is indeed being made in the right direction. Five Embassies were established in Rwanda, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Guinea and Burkina Faso recently in the year 2018-19.
According to the 2019 Budget, India is also looking to expand its diplomatic presence in the African Continent, with 18 new Diplomatic missions in the pipeline in the region. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had then said, “We have decided to open Indian embassies and high commissions where India does not have diplomatic missions yet. We have approved 18 new Indian diplomatic missions in Africa.”
As India expands its diplomatic footprint as an integral part of Modi government’s global outreach, New Delhi will also have to ramp up the number of its diplomats. Presently, the strength of India’s diplomatic corps is pegged at 1,400- which is grossly deficient in the present context.
But the Modi government is likely to unveil some major reforms in this area since BJP’s 2019 General Elections Manifesto also promised to “increase the strength of the diplomatic and allied cadres to keep pace with our increasing global engagement”.
After storming to power for a second term with an even bigger mandate, PM Modi has shown the appetite to ramp up India’s diplomatic network and also to uplift India’s capacity building as far as the sheer strength of diplomats is concerned.
This also explains appointment of former Foreign Secretary (retired IFS officer), S. Jaishankar as the External Affairs Minister. As India has embarked on a Foreign policy blitz with Modi government at the helm of affairs, his appointment definitely comes as a shot in the arm for the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) cadre which is directly going to boost the number of diplomats that New Delhi can boast of.
India would also need to look at recruiting technocrats apart from increasing recruitment of IFS officers through the UPSC examination. Lateral entry of exceptional thinkers and strategic experts is needed. Foreign policy and diplomacy is no longer limited to wars and protocols.
A number of specialised diplomats are needed in order to match fast-changing requirements such as enhanced co-operation in commerce, economic and energy sectors. These requirements can be fulfilled by roping in strategic experts through lateral entry.
Public policy commentator Aashish Chandorkar said, “In the last few years, the focus on the IFS has been higher, with international branding of India as well as ‘consumerisation of services’ like passport and visas getting more focus.” He added, “To this end, it was logical that the focus on IFS would eventually increase. Even before Jaishankar joined this government, the process had started.”
With a career development in charge of affairs at the Ministry of External Affairs, we can expect a rise in the number of posts in the IFS cadre and a “re-engineering” of the colonial era structure might also be on the cards.
A greater number of diplomats is needed not only in order to fill in the greater demand that will be created by new Embassies and Consulates that India is in the process of establishing, but also in order to undertake the brand India building exercise.
India is in dire need of a good PR machinery of the kind that Beijing managed last year when 37 countries- nearly half of them Muslim countries, came out in defence of China over human rights violations concerning Uighur Muslims in China’s far-western Xinjiang province.
This was in reply to a joint statement by 22 countries to the High Commissioner of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council criticising China over its detention camps and other violations in the region.
On the other hand, New Delhi was slightly taken back when Malaysia and Turkey had stepped up the diplomatic offensive over the totally innocuous move to abrogate Article 370- a decision that was totally internal to India.
More recently, India was not able to check the rumours and fake news that was flying around in international media about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Lack of ability to engage at multiple levels at one time and paucity of diplomats had clearly put India at a disadvantage.
Whenever China dragged the Kashmir issue into the UNSC at the behest of its all-weather ally Pakistan, India’s view prevailed thanks to tremendous hard work by the Indian government and its few but brilliant diplomats, however, with a view to counter and demolish any variety of future onslaughts on India’s global stature by its enemies and competitors, it will be wise to expand India’s diplomatic cadre and infrastructure.
With the world politics getting highly polarised and charged up, India needs to engage aggressively at a more frequent rate. Even Delhi riots had opened led to bizarre rumours in the international media, and if India has to counter such narrative then it needs greater diplomats who can engage local media in other countries, clear misconceptions and represent New Delhi’s case strongly. A well organised, positive PR is needed and a lot more diplomats are needed for that.
India aspires to be a rising power- something that is also finding a lot of acceptance in the existing world order. But if New Delhi has to expand its diplomatic clout and footprint permanently, it must show a lot of urgency in establishing more Embassies, more Consulates and most importantly, recruiting more diplomats.
