What’s in a name? Quite a bit, if you reckon with new Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal. Seeking to stamp the MEA with his vision thing, Sibal hit upon the big idea only on his second day in office last week. A new nomenclature for the ministry’s senior citizens as well as some key divisions, which would herald the beginning of a new era. Not since J N Dixit — who, a whole decade ago, brought to the Foreign office the epithet of ‘Viceroy’ from his days in Sri Lanka — has a new Foreign Secretary sought to mould the ministry in his image. So here’s the new deal. Not only have portfolios of senior secretaries been renamed — Secretary (West), for example, has been transformed into Secretary ‘EAA’, signifying Europe, Africa, America, while Special Secretary (East) is now in charge of ‘Asia, North Africa’ — whole departments have also been refurbished. Moreover, Sibal has already moved to make personnel changes, rehabilitating certain officers languishing in some corner of the ministry while quietly guillotining others. His corner in South Block, once merging with the rest of the pink-peach sandstone facade, is now painted white. Clearly, India’s 28th Foreign Secretary has no intention of behaving like a shrinking violet and he doesn’t mind if you know it. But back to MEA’s ‘‘naamkaran’’, or baptism by nomenclature, designed to make the MEA at least sound more in tune with the rest of the new world. The terms ‘‘East’’ and ‘‘West’’, it was said, were ‘‘too Cold War’’ and even misleading. Where, for example, did the ‘East’ end and ‘West’ begin? Questions that should have been answered when the Iron Curtain gave way to the disintegration of the Soviet Union have had to wait. Until now, for Sibal to deal with. So, the ‘Americas’ or ‘AMS’ division has been renamed the ‘USC’ desk, for ‘US & Canada,’ argument being that other countries on the continent, such as Mexico, were already being dealt in another division, namely the ‘Latin American Countries’ desk. The ‘Southern’ division has been transformed into ‘South-East Asia’ for obvious reasons, although both Australia and New Zealand continue to be tagged on to this desk. Among the more interesting new names is ‘CEE’ or ‘Central & Eastern Europe’ in place of ‘Eastern Europe’ or ‘EE.’ With the end of the Cold War, nations who found their feet, like the Czech republic or Slovakia, or those that rose from the rubble of the former Yugoslavia, like Slovenia or Croatia, so wanted to be part of their older ‘Middle Europe’ identity that they threw large sums of money on seminars with themes like ‘The House of Central Europe.’ New Delhi’s new designation is an attempt at reflecting these new times. A more moderate shift has taken place with ‘Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan’ desk or ‘IPA’, now renamed PAI, perhaps in order of importance, certainly to follow the flow of the map westwards from India. IPA’s last major overhaul was in the early 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iran was given to the ‘Gulf’ division for easy handling. Later, after the end of the Cold War, when new desks like Central Asia were created out of the old ‘EE’ divison, ‘IPA’ refound itself. Meanwhile, ‘Europe West’ will now be called ‘Europe West & Commonwealth,’ while the ‘Northern’ desk has been renamed ‘Nepal, Bhutan.’ ‘North’ was felt to be too vague, and in any case, did not include China or Russia or Central Asia that were geographically north of India, or anything in between. While the ‘UNE’ desk, or ‘UN Economic’, will now be called ‘UNES,’ reflecting the ‘economic & social’ nomenclature at the UN itself. Not that Sibal made all his changes in one fell swoop without invitation to discussion. One school of thought felt it was time to organise the ‘EW’ desk around the ‘European Union’, except that periodic new memberships would quickly spoil things. Another possibility was to streamline the ‘CEE’ desk, which only deals with 22 countries besides Russia. Still, Sibal’s first personnel changes have already taken place. Former ambassador to Kazakhstan Rajiv Sikri, who had soldiered on in ‘policy planning’, a desk few still know what to do with (President KR Narayanan’s daughter Chitra Mohan was with ‘Policy Planning’ before she went as ambassador to Sweden), has been brought back as additional secretary, economic relations. But ‘policy planning’ has itself been bifurcated, with P S Ray of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) fame keeping only the ICWA, while additional secretary Rakesh Kumar in the ‘West Asia, North Africa’ desk — which includes Israel — has gone to ‘Policy planning’. Kumar has been succeeded by joint secretary Mahesh Sachdev, who in turn has relinquished the ‘ITP’ charge to Rajiva Mishra, joint secretary in the Economic Relations desk. So, will MEA’s new look also give way to a new broom? Only time, Brajesh Mishra, Yashwant Sinha and Kanwal Sibal, not necessarily in that order, will tell.
