What Are Ambassadors For?

Many Indian foreign service officers these days have taken to writing fiction; and some of them have made a big impression. A few of them af...

Many Indian foreign service officers these days have taken to writing fiction; and some of them have made a big impression. A few of them after retirement have written some fascinating memoirs. The late JN Dixit has written copiously about Indian foreign policy, its history and the men who shaped it.

But Kishan Rana, a former IFS officer and India8217;s ambassador to many countries, including Germany, is perhaps the only one to write on the craft of diplomacy. His earlier two volumes, Inside Diplomacy and Bilateral Diplomacy have earned kudos from diplomatists around the world.

Rana now takes up the institution of the ambassador, and its changing functions in the 21st century for a critical assessment. While the pace of Indian diplomacy has accelerated in the last few years and its scope enormously widened, the image of the ambassador remains frozen in time, not just among ordinary people but also within governments.

This is particularly true of India, where the ambassador is widely seen as an overpaid and under worked bore obsessed with protocol and alcohol. A little more informed view holds that ambassadors do not matter any more. In the new communications age, embassies are little more than post offices for governments and the ambassador just a postmaster.

Rana, however, walks us through a comprehensive assessment of the changed global context of diplomacy and the new functions of a resident envoy. Among the new factors he underlines the following: an end to the monopoly of the foreign offices in the making of foreign policy, the rise of non-governmental organisations, the widening international agenda that brings in many different ministries into play, frequency of high level summitry, the Internet and the information revolution, and the changing class composition of the foreign services.

These new factors have not reduced the importance of the ambassador, but have redefined his functions away from the classical role of a plenipotentiary negotiating war and peace behind closed doors for the sovereigns into a chief executive who coordinates and facilitates interaction between different societies.

By acting as a buffer and a catalyst, the modern resident envoy maximises the economic and political returns from that engagement and minimises the potential for conflict and tension.

Rana scans through the full spectrum of the resident envoy8217;s role 8212; from ceremonial and entertainment functions to the techniques of negotiation. He also examines the challenges an envoy faces in coping with domestic politics at home as well as his resident nation.

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Declaring that the predictions about the death of the resident envoy as an important feature of international politics as premature, Rana argues that the modern envoy is more like the head of a country subsidiary of a multinational corporation.

The envoy-entrepreneur retains considerable latitude for action but remains answerable to the higher management at the headquarters. While pursuing the orders from the capital he is also an important element in shaping the decisions that produce the orders in the first place.

As larger numbers of the Indian middle class reach out to different corners of the globe for business and pleasure, familiarity with the art of diplomacy should make them better at dealing with the world.

Rana8217;s book is a gem that combines a focus on the intricacies of the diplomatic trade with a communication skill that is rare among professionals of any field. As a result, anyone even remotely interested in diplomacy and foreign policy will find Rana8217;s book easy to read and a lot to benefit from.