Sunday, February 24, 2002		Article

All diplomats are not gentlemen!
K.R.N. Swamy

ALL diplomats are not gentlemen. Well..... some are ladies! For us in India, Mrs Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit as the Madame Ambassador in 1946, representing India in the United Nations, began the tradition. But then she was not a career diplomat, but a political appointee, eventually serving as the Indian ambassador to USA, UK, Russia and other countries during her 15 years as a diplomat. Even in the USA, Ms Ruth Dobson became the first woman to be appointed to the Foreign Service in 1943 and it was 54 years before Madame Madelaine Albright reached the rank of Secretary of State. In modern times Pakistan’s Maleeha Lodi serves as a high profile ambassador to the USA.

In India the elevation of Chokila Iyer in 2001 as the Foreign Secretary of India was seen as the final accolade for women as diplomats. Many Latin American countries (recently more than 50 per cent of their ambassadors in India were ladies) and many African nations (especially South Africa, whose High Commissioner to India to Ms Maite Mashabane) give these top assignments to ladies. As on date, there are more than a dozen women ambassadors, including Vina Sikri in Malaysia, Shyamala Kowsik in Netherlands, Madhu Bhandari in Poland, Chitra Narayanan in Sweden, Laxmi Puri in Budapest, Lavanya Pico in Vientiane, and Shashi Tripathi the Indian Consul General in USA.

Discussing the differences between men and women as diplomats, the veteran among them, Madeleine Albright of USA, stated that the greatest difference she found was that lady diplomats paid more attention to the context of a particular problem while their male counterparts tend to look exclusively at the problem in hand. She also felt that the women’s aptitude for developing relationships was an important in furthering diplomatic relations. During the crisis at Kosavo, at the time of her tenure as the US Secretary of State, Albright said that she would make it a point to call all her 15 colleagues involved every day and it was accepted that whatever be the crisis, all the diplomats involved would take each others’ phone calls.

But it has been a hard struggle for the Indian women to climb in the diplomatic ladder. Muthamma, one of the first entrants in the IFS cadre in 1949 (first in the IFS list and third in the all-India list), wrote about her experiences and how she had to face innumerable "imaginary problems" created by the IFS hierarchy. Finally, tired of being ignored for appointment as an ambassador. Muthamma, successfully appealed to the Supreme Court of India and the Government of India had to change its policy of gender discrimination. Even then, Muthamma was promoted only at the last moment, as the Ambassador to Ghana so that the Government of India could make a submission to the Supreme Court that they were not guilty of discrimination. At one time if a lady diplomat got married, she had to leave the IFS. This rule was overturned only in 1964. As such the question of being posted together, when the lady diplomat and her spouse were both in the IFS did not arise. But today, at Consul levels, couples can be accommodated in the same embassy. In cases where this is not possible, they are posted as near as possible.

Again in the 1970s, another reason the higher ups advanced against making Muthamma an Ambassador was that often diplomats (especially in the African countries) had to go to the airport, at 3 a.m in the morning (for seeing off the local Head of State on his foreign trips), and it would not do to have the Indian Ambassador raped by highway robbers!. Her request to be allowed to take her mother with her to help out as the hostess at diplomatic parties was refused. Another point raised was that many in nations like Iran diplomats would not be allowed to meet a non-burqa-clad woman.

Our lady diplomats have executed their task with great verve. Next to Chokila Iyer, Nirupama Rao the spokesperson of the External Publicity Division with Monika Mohata assisting her, can be said to be the highest ranking diplomat in the IFS. Before her appointment to the present post Nirupama Rao was the ambassador to Lima, served in Russia during the cold war years, is a specialist on China and is fluent in German and Spanish.

Ms Kochar, our ambassador to Fiji a decade ago carried out her duties without fear even when anti-India feelings in the country rose. In recent times the most challenging task for any Indian diplomat has been that of Arundhati Ghose who represents the permanent representative to the United Nations, when India carried out a nuclear test in Pokhran in 1998, nuclear powers and ensured almost single-handedly the defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Today out of 775-strong officer cadres of the IFS, only ten per cent are ladies. Twenty are ambassadors and department chiefs. Six are joint secretaries and one an additional secretary. Fifteen per cent of all Indian Foreign Service personnel are women. This compares well with international arena, where only ten out of the 189 ambassadors to the United Nations are women. It is also a fact that for women civil servant aspirants today the IFS is no longer the first choice, but the second and third one. The creature comforts in India, especially the availability of servants seem to be a great incentive to join IAS. Still women are on the march and in 2001, half of the new IFS probationers were women.