Anomalies in the MEA reshuffle: Govt's mistake or planned strategy in India's Pakistan approach?

The recent major reshuffle in the Ministry of External Affairs’ top level hierarchy is by and large good and well-thought but certain anomalies have come up and sadly, these pertain to Pakistan. In the Indian diplomatic establishment, there are three key posts for dealing with Pakistan – foreign secretary, joint secretary in charge of PAI (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran) division and Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan. These three diplomats are the prime architects and practitioners of India’s Pakistan policy. [caption id=“attachment_2445938” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Gautam Bambawale, a senior additional secretary level career diplomat, who is currently Indian ambassador in Bhutan, will move to Islamabad to replace Indian high commissioner TCA Raghavan in January 2016. This will be Bambawale’s last posting as he is scheduled to retire in 2018. Now the anomaly that has erupted is that after Bambawale takes over from Raghavan, for the first time in living memory, none of the three key posts mentioned above will be manned by a diplomat who has had a posting in Pakistan. None of the three – Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar or Indian High Commissioner-designate in Pakistan Gautam Bambawale or JS (PAI) Rudendra Tandon – has ever been posted in Pakistan. Before he went to Bhutan last year as Indian envoy, Bambawale was the joint secretary in charge of the crucial East Asia division in the MEA, a division which drives India’s foreign policy with regard to China and Japan, among others. Bambawale is a Chinese speaker. Bambawale is a hands-on diplomat who is an expert on China and thus familiar with China-Pakistan relations. This will naturally come in handy at a time when China is embarking on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a crucial component of which goes through Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, for which China has pledged to invest 46 billion dollars. But this may not be enough as Indian envoy in Pakistan is expected to be familiar with intricacies of Pakistan’s political, social and cultural milieu which comes only when the diplomat concerned has served in Pakistan. To make matters worse, Bambawale’s deputy will be JP Singh who has completed just about 13 months on his first-ever posting in Pakistan, though he is exceptionally bright and very well networked in the Af-Pak region because of his earlier stint in Kabul. He had taken over as deputy high commissioner in Islamabad only in August last year. Now let’s talk about JS (PAI). The desk of JS (PAI) is responsible for dealing with every bit of India’s Pakistan policy and is the nodal centre for all departments and ministries of the Government of India for any inputs regarding Pakistan. Traditionally, JS (PAI) has been someone who has had a posting in Pakistan and knows Pakistan like the back of his palm. But Rudendra Tandon has not done a Pakistan posting yet. He had been selected to head Indian Consulate in Karachi years ago but he could not make it as the Karachi consulate was closed due to Indo-Pak tensions. In such a scenario, India will be heavily dependent on inputs from Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the overall direction from National Security Advisor Ajit Doval who lived in Pakistan incognito for seven years and knows Pakistan inside out. But their inputs will be primarily from security viewpoint, not from diplomatic perspective. This is a serious anomaly and one has no idea whether it was a genuine oversight or a deliberate strategy to enhance Doval’s role in India’s Pakistan policy. If it was an oversight, it can still be rectified. Obviously, India cannot have a new foreign secretary or a new envoy-designate for Pakistan. The only possible way in which this anomaly arising out of an oversight can be corrected is by having a new JS (PAI) who has had a posting in Pakistan. There are many such diplomats available. Take for instance Gopal Baglay, currently in headquarters as JS (States), who was India’s deputy high commissioner in Pakistan till last year.