China specialist Gokhale takes over as foreign secretary

NEW DELHI:

Vijay Gokhale

took over as foreign secretary on Monday, succeeding S Jaishankar, who served an unprecedented three years as India’s top diplomat.

A 1981-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, Gokhale returned to South Block in October 2017 after completing his stint as ambassador to China and, over the past few months, has eased into his new job. Incidentally, he is the fourth foreign secretary to have served as envoy to Beijing, indicating the importance of China to India’s foreign policy.

He is one of the few, however, to have also served in Taiwan as India’s trade representative (India does not have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but maintains a trade and culture office in Taipei).

Jaishankar, a personal choice of PM Narendra Modi, took over from Sujatha Singh in 2015, an appointment that was mildly controversial at the time. In the past three years — he was given an extra year in 2017 — Jaishankar has been closely connected with the conceptualisation and execution of Modi’s foreign policy priorities. From the outreach to the US, East Asia and the Gulf states to crafting an Indian Ocean policy, or the new tougher line with China and Pakistan, the foreign policy brains trust in the Modi government has included Modi, national security adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and Jaishankar.

That is the mantle inherited by Gokhale. By personality and experience, Gokhale is expected to fit right in. Having served in the ministry of external affairs’ (MEA’s) East Asia division (as director and joint secretary), high commissioner to Malaysia, envoy to Germany and China, Gokhale has built a reputation of being a no-nonsense practitioner of foreign policy. He has a clarity about India’s China policy that complements Modi’s — we can expect an unsentimental but tough approach to India’s northern neighbour, which was emphasised in his first remarks at the Raisina Dialogue.

This is important, as the India-China relationship will affect India’s approach to many of its other global partners. Jaishankar and Doval in Delhi and Gokhale in Beijing were the people who piloted the government through the 72-day Doklam stand-off in 2017.

Gokhale’s stint as joint secretary in the internal vigilance division will hold him in good stead as he takes over the job of streamlining the MEA to become a more nimble and transparent outfit, more modern and able to work across sectors and “territorial divisions”. In the Modi system, “outcomes” are deemed important — both Jaishankar and Gokhale have that reputation.

Modi’s conduct of foreign policy has been very different. With the aim of working towards making India a “leading power”, the practice of foreign policy in the past four years has been more ambitious and proactive, and possibly less risk-averse. That is likely to continue.

If observers have expressed surprise at Jaishankar accompanying Modi on foreign visits, a ministry not under his direct charge, their surprise will probably continue with Gokhale in the top seat. It has less to do with putting other officials in the shade, and more to do with the fact that with overlapping interests, the job description of the foreign secretary has evolved into becoming a more across-the-board exercise, necessitating a different kind of visibility for the incumbent.

Jaishankar’s tenure was marked by several inflexion points: A different kind of power relationship with the US and lately the European Union; a willingness to use non-traditional policy tools to advance Indian interests in different parts of the world, for example, climate change and the solar alliance; and making foreign investments a key aspect of foreign policy, while combating terrorism remained a virtually constant mantra.

Within the MEA, Jaishankar revived the policy planning department and opened the ministry to consultants and interns, which has not been easy for traditional South Block mandarins. He was also instrumental in linking up the MEA with the thinktank circuit to provide a growing space for arguments and ideas, with several flagship events that serve as platforms for laying out the government’s foreign policy priorities besides being the venues for soft power projection.