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Recently, a diplomat of ours gave a fiery speech at the UNGA bashing Pakistan as being indoctrinated as an official spokesperson for the Taliban and not his own country. This has earned the diplomat heaps of praises all across the country.

This article will let you know the evolution, restructure, and successes of the mighty Indian Foreign Services.

Tracing the origin of Indian Foreign Services

• On 13 September 1783, the Board of Directors of the East India Company passed a resolution at Fort William.
• It aimed to create a department that would help relieve the pressure on the Warren Hastings administration in conducting its secret and political business.
• Those were difficult times for the East India Company, having just barely saved face against the Maratha Empire in the First Anglo-Maratha War, and losing to Hyder Ali in the South.
• The British Parliament was about to pass the Pitts India Act, 1784, which would further limit the independent powers of the East India Company.
• This department expanded its outreach to diplomacy, to finally become the IFS.

Initial restructuring

• By 1843, the British were powerful. Only Punjab was left to be conquered. By then, however, the East India Company, through a series of Charter Acts, had become a shadow of its past self.
• The British found it necessary to restructure the foreign department for better management, and Governor-General Ellenborough, therefore, carried out administrative reforms and created four departments: Foreign, Home, Finance, and Military.

Establishment since Independence

• By September 1946, India had come close to independence.
• There was a need for a different name and a different structure for a newly formed country.
• The Indian Foreign Service was created for India’s diplomatic, consular and commercial representation overseas.

Need for IFS

• The IFS, being one of the most competitive civil services in the world, and also one of the most exclusive, has carved a niche for itself in diplomatic spheres globally.
• It has managed India’s external relations with other nations through a host of methods:
• the service is responsible for representing India in international platforms and negotiating on its behalf,
• maintaining friendly relations and protecting India’s national interests, and
• gathering important information abroad and reporting back to the nation on the same.

Functions of IFS

• IFS is responsible for representing a country’s interests abroad and also garnering and disseminating pertinent information that forms the core of foreign policy decisions.
• Foreign Service officers constitute the backbone of this wing and aim to promote peace and prosperity while advancing their nation’s interests in other countries.
• They perform a vast array of duties ranging from defending their home nation’s foreign policy in high-stakes political conversations to helping their citizens travelling overseas or vice-versa.
• In an increasingly globalized world, the importance of an effective foreign service cannot be underestimated.
• This is especially relevant, for an emerging power like India, which has harboured intentions of becoming a leading power in global politics and has been actively pursuing this goal.

Representing India

In essence, an Indian Foreign Service Officer represents India in

• Embassies, High Commissions, Consulates
• Permanent missions to multilateral organizations like the UN
• It protects India’s national interests in the country of their posting, promotes friendly relations with the receiving states as well as their people that include NRIs/PIOs
• It reports accurately on the developments in the country of posting which influences the drafting of India’s policies, negotiates various agreements on various issues

Concerns of evolution

• In this emerging new world, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) must no longer maintain its Cold War-era institutional architecture and several changes have indeed been ushered in recent times.
• However, the IFS is greatly limited by its disproportionately small cadre, its inability to shift to a more holistic recruitment process, and its unwillingness to allow experts from other public and private organizations, laterally or otherwise.
• One of the biggest impediments to the growth of the IFS since its conception has been the narrow and limited application criteria, that do not match up to the needs of the service.

Recent Achievements of the IFS

• Irrespective of the criticisms, India has been boxing above its weight in the international arena for decades now. To note some recent achievements of the IFS,
• India managed to get elected to the United Nations Security Council for 2021-2022 with one of the largest positive vote counts ever.
• The foreign service was at the frontline of the Vande Bharat Mission that helped stranded Indians abroad and carried out an enormous evacuation operation.
• The IFS officers and their teams have been working relentlessly with other government agencies and the private sector to provide medicines and Covid-19 protective equipment to more than 150 countries by overcoming daunting logistical challenges, etc.

Way forward

If the IFS is to excel as an institution on its own, it must have a different application process only for those interested in joining the service, rather than being grouped with other civil services.

• Additionally, since the skill-set required to conduct matters of foreign policy is different from those required to manage issues of internal significance, the IFS needs to broaden the criteria on which its recruitment process is based.
• Attempts to reform the IFS must focus on streamlining the recruitment process in a manner that can effectively handle the large number of applicants that apply each year without compromising on the quality of the application process.
• Opening up the IFS to allow entry of outside actors must be done in a phased and structured manner to ensure an adequate balance between different levels/ranks of officials.
• The IFS must also keep up with the changes in the diplomatic world, as different forms of diplomacy, like public and digital diplomacy, gain more relevance.
• And lastly, reforming the IFS would require starting at the very grassroots level to reform the institutions that produce applicants for this service.
• Indian schools and universities need to be better equipped to produce a more capable generation of students in the fields required to be successful in the IFS.

Conclusion

• An effective foreign service is of utmost importance to India’s interests because even the most developed nations have interdependencies on other nations to fulfil their interests and so does India.
• Since no nation can remain isolated, formulation of foreign policy is an indispensable feature of the modern state, so that the states sustain in the international sphere.
• Therefore, the Indian Foreign Service will continue to play a critical role in ensuring a secure and prosperous existence for India within the international sphere.

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UPSC PRELIMS-2021 || Current Affairs Based Most Probable Questions on History – by Sukanya Rana

Q1) With respect to Khajuraho Temples, consider the following statements:

1. It is located in the state of Madhya Pradesh and managed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

2. It was built between 950-1050 AD by the Chandela Dynasty.

3. The Khajuraho group of monuments have been recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1986.

Which of the statements given above are correct?

a. 1 and 2 only

b. 1 and 3 only

c. 2 and 3 only

d. 1, 2 and 3

Q2) Identify the correct statement/s with respect to the Morley-Minto reforms.

1. In the provincial councils, official members were in the majority.

2. Indians were given membership to the Imperial Legislative Council for the first time.

3. Sachidanand Sinha was appointed as the first Indian member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council.

a. 2 only

b. 1 and 2 only

c. 2 and 3 only

d. All the above

Q3) Consider the following statements with respect to Gangaikondacholapuram

1. It was established by King Raja Raja Chola II after his victorious expedition up to the Gangetic plains.

2. The temple located in Tamil Nadu is dedicated to Lord Vishnu.

Which of the statement(s) given above is/are correct?

a. 1 only

b. 2 only

c. Both 1 and 2

d. Neither 1 nor 2

Q4) With respect to Thotlakonda, consider the following statements:

1. It is an ancient Buddhist site found in Andhra Pradesh.

2. The site housed remnants of a flourishing monastery, practising Hinayana Buddhism.

Which of the statement(s) given above is/are correct?

a. 1 only

b. 2 only

c. Both 1 and 2

d. Neither 1 nor 2

29th Sept 2021

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Various Defence Exercises in News

The defence is a major part of any country. Thus, every country tries and devotes half of its budget to defence. So, there are joint military exercises happening which benefits both the participating nations. Thus, in this article, we will discuss some of the important joint exercises in India like Indra and Maitree. Also, these exercises are important from learning as well as the strategic point of view for both the nations.

Other Important Exercise

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Recently a new trilateral security partnership was announced between Australia, the UK, and the USA. This has created ripples in the India-Pacific Region.

France is smarting from the humiliation at being blindsided by the AUKUS pact that it says was drawn behind its back and is furious at being “stabbed in the back”.

AUKUS: A Backgrounder

• This new partnership is known as AUKUS and the major highlight of this arrangement is the sharing of US nuclear submarine technology with Australia.
• The first major initiative of AUKUS would be to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia thereby giving it a nuclear heft in the Pacific where China has been particularly aggressive.
• Apart from this AUKUS will also involve the sharing of cyber capabilities and other undersea technologies.
• This alliance is considered to be most significant security arrangement between these three nations.

Ripples created by AUKUS

(A) US shift of focus

• AUKUS is both an acknowledgment of and a concession to the loss of US strategic primacy.  
• It gives justification for the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan — to be able to better focus on the strategic rivalry and trade competition with China.

(B) Resentment in the EU and France

• The deal has complicated the relations between France and Australia, and also France and the US. France is upset as it has been kept out of the loop.
• France has even ordered the recall of its ambassadors to Washington and Canberra.  

(C) Chinese offensive reception

• China, expectedly, has strongly criticised AUKUS and the submarine deal as promoting instability and stoking an arms race.

(D) Confusion among the SE nations

• The new great power contestation might actually generate much room for the Southeast Asian states to manoeuvre, as they are wooed simultaneously by China, AUKUS, and the Quad.
• They realise that AUKUS is a challenge to the hallowed notion of “ASEAN centrality”, a totemic rhetorical device which seeks to have others acknowledge its relevance.

Why is France offended?

• France takes its role as an Indo-Pacific power seriously in a region.
• One must know that France has 12 time zones. The areas in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean are mainly responsible for this.
• It maintains four naval bases, stations around 7,000 soldiers and has 1.5 million citizens in island territories such as New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
• France’s anger also stems from the realization that NATO is now a defunct organization in absence of the glue, USSR, that held it together.
• It is finding it difficult to deal with America’s clear shifting of focus from NATO to Indo-Pacific.

Why such an alliance?

(A) Deteriorating China-AU relations

• Tensions have been high between Australia and an increasingly assertive China, its largest trade partner.
• Australia banned Chinese telecom giant Huawei in 2108 and its PM called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 last year.
• China retaliated by imposing tariffs on or capping Australian exports.

(B) US act of counterbalancing

• China has nuclear-powered submarines, as well as submarines that can launch nuclear missiles.
• The three signatories to the AUKUS deal have made it clear though, that their aim is not to arm the new subs with nuclear weapons.

(C) Bringing Australia at the centrestage of Indo-Pacific

• In the context of the AUKUS agreement, nuclear-powered submarines will give the Royal Australian Navy the capability to go into the South China Sea.
• This is primarily because a nuclear-powered submarine gives a navy the capability to reach far out into the ocean and launch attacks.
• A nuclear-powered submarine offers long distances dives, at a higher speed, without being detected gives a nation the ability to protect its interests far from its shores.

Exactly, How?

• To go from a diesel-electric fleet to a nuclear fleet is thus a change of strategy, not just of propulsion.
• It provides a way to project power from the shipping lanes which feed the all-important Malacca Strait to the waters off Taiwan.
• Add on the capacity to launch much longer-range missiles—a submarine could deliver missiles to China’s mainland while sitting to the east of the Philippines—and the country has a greatly expanded offensive capacity.

AU: Another US Base

• If Australia’s strategic stance is changed by the deal, so is America’s.
• Since the second world war the US has projected power across the region called as an archipelago of empire.
• There are the island bases from Hawaii in the east to Guam, Okinawa in Japan and, in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia, leased from Britain without the consent of its natives.
• In Australia, America has now, in effect, a beefed-up continent-sized base for its own operations as well as a reinvigorated ally.

Outcomes of AUKUS

(A) Offensive front against China

• There is no gainsaying the fact that rapid accretion in China’s economic and military capacities, but more particularly its belligerence, has led to a tectonic shift in regional security paradigms.
• Several countries have been obliged to review their defence preparedness in response to China’s rising military power and its adverse impact on regional stability.

(B) India as a bridge in Anglosphere

• The transatlantic fissure has also pointed to something inconceivable—that India could emerge as a potential bridge between different parts of the West.
• Our PM was on the phone with French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirming India’s strong commitment to the Indo-Pacific partnership with France.
• India’s solidarity with France at a difficult moment is rooted in New Delhi’s conviction that preserving the West’s unity is critical in shaping the strategic future of the Indo-Pacific.

(C) Exposed Chinese double standards

• China has the world’s fastest-growing fleet of sub-surface combatants.
• This includes the Type 093 Shang-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) and the Type 094 nuclear-powered Jin-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).
• Its nuclear submarines are on the prowl in the Indo-Pacific.
• Yet, China denies Australia and others the sovereign right to decide on their defence requirements.

Implications on QUAD

• Not superseding: This alliance does not and will not supersede or outrank existing arrangements in the Indo-Pacific region such as the Quad, which the US and Australia form with India and Japan, and ASEAN.
• Complimentary to QUAD: AUKUS will complement these groups and others.

Opportunities for India

While the Quad and Washington’s Indo-Pacific pivot generate much interest and anxiety, it is easy to forget that the two ideas are, in essence, about India.

• India’s role has enhanced: Balancing China is the challenge confronting the United States, and Washington has recognized that India is an indispensable part of the answer.
• Just another alliance: New Delhi has no reason to complain if Australia, Britain, and the United States raise the military capabilities of their coalition. The submarine deal is an undiluted example of strategic defence collaboration.
• Intimidating China: The introduction of nuclear-powered submarine through AUKUS has a complicating impact on the Chinese maritime calculus. Anything that maintains a balance of power in the region is desirable.
• Focusing inside on land border: AUKUS also leaves India with a less of a headache in securing its maritime flank from Chinese aggression and New Delhi may focus more fully on the threat emanating from the land border with China.

Creating affinity with France (the Submarine giant)

• In fact, instead of constricting India, AUKUS has opened a window of strategic opportunity and a chance for New Delhi to deepen its partnership with France provided it plays the cards well.
• India and France are strongly committed to making the Indo-Pacific an area of cooperation and shared values.

Way forward

• The setback ‘down under’ may spur France to focus afresh on partners such as India.
• India must strike a balance between continuing imports and implementing the all-important Atmanirbhar Bharat in defence manufacturing.
• France should take AUKUS as a business deal.
• Its momentary reaction at the cancellation of the contract by Australia should soon subside.
• As a major Indo-Pacific power, France is an important part of the regional security calculus.