The debate over what is required of the foreign secretary continues to rage after Sujatha Singh has been moved out and S Jaishankar has taken over. Interestingly, soon after taking over Jaishankar said that his agenda would be that of the government. What he meant was that he considers Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy to be his. Singh is arguing in her own defence that she has done all that was needed to make Modi’s foreign policy moves successful. There seems to be a consensus that the foreign secretary should be doing what the political master of the day wants her or him to do. Of course, the PM will have to make his own judgment call whether he is satisfied with the foreign secretary’s performance. In this whole debate, the role of the minister for external affairs Sushma Swaraj remains eloquently subdued. It is now an established fact that Modi is a domineering figure, and many before the 2014 Lok Sabha election believed that India needed a strong Prime Minister and not a self-effacing one like Manmohan Singh. And that it would not be right now to complain that Modi is over-asserting himself.

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The change of foreign secretary and the debate surrounding it should go beyond a peeved Singh and a triumphant Jaishankar. Perhaps this is as good a time as any to discuss what is expected of a foreign secretary. India follows the British tradition of a permanent bureaucracy. What is expected of a bureaucrat in this system is supposed to be that the government follows a steady path despite political vagaries. The other demand that high-souled rhetoricians had been making in India for a long time has been that it is the duty of a bureaucrat to give the right advice to the political boss, and it is not the business of the bureaucrat to please the master. The implication is that the bureaucrat is expected to do the right, and not the politically opportune, thing. Most right-wing and left-wing moralists — from time to time — pull up bureaucrats for not following their conscience and allowing themselves to be stooges of politicians sitting in ministerial chairs. In the American system, the President, the chief executive, chooses his teams who share politics and agenda with him. The secretary of state of the United States reflects the views of the President. The demand in India seems to be that the foreign secretary should follow the directions given by the Prime Minister. The confusion arises over whether the bureaucrat is a mere errand boy or girl, or whether he or she is a seasoned diplomat who offers the right counsel. The Prime Minister and the foreign minister would benefit more from a foreign secretary who offers good advice rather than one who remains a meek subordinate.

Apparently, in this instance, Singh is not making a case that she followed her conscience and that she told Modi and Swaraj what she thought was the right thing to do. She seems to be saying that she had done everything that needed to be done and is puzzled as to why the PM and the foreign minister felt that she had not done enough. So, the rift between the former foreign secretary and her political bosses is not about policy. Jaishankar’s statement that he would adopt the government’s political agenda is not as innocuous as it seems to be. Jaishankar seems to regard his job of implementing whatever is required by the PM, seriously. The new foreign secretary’s willingness to be a ‘yes man’ is not good news.