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Mansingh's appointment expected to tilt balance in favour of MEA

Suhasini Haidar in New Delhi

Few in Delhi's rarefied circles are surprised to hear that Lalit Mansingh will be the country's next foreign secretary. First, he is a very well-known name for its culturati, after his successful stint as director-general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Secondly, and more to the point, his name has been in the running for the job for the last three years. It says a lot about Mansingh's popularity that he was even being considered for the post long before he was due for it. He is affable and has been apolitical in the service, so that both juniors and his political bosses have good things to say about him. That he is quite bright is evident from the fact that he topped the Indian Civil Services examination in 1963, after which he joined the Indian Foreign Service. One reason he did not get the top job so far was that there were qualified officers senior to him. Now he has both the seniority as well as the sanction from the powers that be to be India's foreign secretary in the new millennium.

Thirdly, it is a post that Mansingh himself had been hoping for. In fact, insiders say how he was visibly disappointed about being sent out to the United Kingdom last year to replace Salman Haidar as high commissioner, because it could have meant that he would not make it to the foreign secretary's job here.

When he takes over as foreign secretary on December 1 this year, Mansingh will have a lot on his plate. His first, and most important task, will be United States President Bill Clinton's visit to India early next year. Indo-US relations are on a good wicket right now, but there are many areas where the two countries differ.

Mansingh's job will be especially tricky on the issue of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, as the US would like to convince India to sign it, even though the US Senate has rejected ratifying it. An indication of that was Clinton's letter to Vajpayee that was delivered by energy secretary Bill Richardson last week. Sources in the US embassy said that the letter dealt "substantively" with nuclear issues.

Clinton's trip is also expected to give trade relations between the two countries a boost. This is where Mansingh's experience at the finance ministry will be extremely useful. On three separate occasions, in 1969, 1975 and 1984, Mansingh served at the Department of Economic Affairs as under secretary, deputy secretary and joint secretary respectively. "During his tenure as foreign secretary," says one MEA insider, " One can expect a very steady hand at the tiller. Mansingh will be keen to expand economic relations with countries along with bilateral relations." This could be good news for not just ties between India and the US but also for our relations with China, which have been derailed since the blast in Pokharan last year.

Another expectation in MEA circles is that Mansingh may help tilt the "balance of power" that exists between the MEA and the Prime Minister's Officer back in favour of the MEA. In simplified language it means that the PMO through its principal advisor Brajesh Mishra may have a reduced role in external affairs policy compared to the past few years of this administration. Another development at the MEA, i.e. the continuance of Jaswant Singh as external affairs minister, as well as the appointment of senior politician Ajit Panja as minister of state may signal that shift in decision-making policy.

Mansingh's assignment at the top of the MEA may also mean that cultural exchanges between India and other countries will increase. Perhaps Lalit Mansingh has been most in the news for his stint as the head of ICCR, where he organised the Festivals of India abroad. Originally a brainchild of Rajiv Gandhi's coterie, the Festival of India was a great success in New York and Paris largely because of Mansingh's superb organisational skills.

Mansingh himself comes from a cultural background. His father was an Oriya author of great repute and was known as a patron of the arts in the state. Lalit Mansingh's former wife, renowned danseuse Sonal Mansingh, has often credited her father-in-law for his encouragement early in her career. Mansingh is now married to Indira Mansingh, a former Doordarshan official who now heads Murdoch's Star News operations in India. This fact is itself unusual in the MEA, as few foreign secretaries in the past have had wives with active careers.

The other unusual fact is that Mansingh hasn't served in any of our neighbouring countries (Raghunath was ambassador to Bangladesh and China, Haidar served as ambassador to China and Bhutan and so on). In that sense, it is anyone's guess which way our relations with Pakistan or any other neighbours will go under Mansingh.

He is no "foreign office mandarin", and can be expected to take the pragmatic course in each case. What can be safely said is that things will remain on an even keel, with maybe a new impetus to economic and cultural affairs in the corridors of South Block.

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