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India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, an unusual combination of diplomat, politician and public intellectual, is a globetrotter these days.
One of the Narendra Modi government’s most influential ministers, he is a key architect of the country’s foreign policy, regularly zipping across continents to meet national leaders for discussions on global issues.
His visits to Singapore have been few and far between since his tenure as India’s High Commissioner to the Republic from 2007 to 2009. Yet, he has fond memories of his time on the island.
“I keep refreshing my acquaintance with Singapore and in many ways I marvel at how this country keeps pace with different aspects of development in the world,” he said during an interaction with about 600 members of the Indian community at One World International School in Punggol on March 24.
During his term here, Singapore’s late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was serving as minister mentor, and Dr Jaishankar said Mr Lee was “very much still a presence at the time”.
“I had quite a few opportunities to sit down and talk to him,” said the 69-year-old. “I still have notes from some of (those meetings). Those were, for me, very valuable learning experiences, because I have been in diplomacy for 41 years.
“What I liked about him was that it would be very back and forth. If he found value, he was willing to also make it very interactive.”
Dr Jaishankar felt that what Mr Lee said and wrote over the years “continue to be of relevance”.
“In a way, when our prime minister came here for his funeral (on March 29, 2015), it was an expression of what a lot of Indians actually thought about Mr Lee. It reflected a collective view of his contribution not just to Singapore, but I would say to Asia and perhaps even beyond.”
Known for his skilful diplomacy and strategic vision, Dr Jaishankar is Mr Modi’s “golden child”. In a government where the number of “experts” are limited, he has a firm grasp on his subject.
A career diplomat, he climbed the ranks of the Ministry of External Affairs and reached the supreme post of foreign secretary (equivalent to permanent secretary in Singapore) – after having been ambassador in countries such as China and the United States.
In his second act, he emerged as a politician in his own right, close to Mr Modi in ideology.
Interestingly, just two days before he was due to retire in 2015, Dr Jaishankar was appointed India’s foreign secretary. The phone call to the foreign secretary at the time, Ms Sujatha Singh, that her services were no longer required was reportedly made by India’s then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. Four years later, Dr Jaishankar succeeded Mrs Swaraj in her ministerial post.
“The transition from officer to minister wasn’t a transition, it was a quantum jump,” said Dr Jaishankar, adding that the way he had to function was very different.
“The canvas of responsibility is much broader. It’s one thing to sit in the Parliament gallery and give information to your ministers or prepare your ministers in answering questions. Another is to actually participate in the politics in the House.
“As the secretary, you were far more departmental. The moment you become a minister, the world opens up. There are many other issues, many other considerations... and your public contacts are much more.
“(Being a minister) has also given me a somewhat different outlook. I’m sensitive to many more things than I would have been five years ago because of this responsibility.”
Dr Jaishankar is not the first Indian career diplomat to become foreign minister – Mr Natwar Singh had that honour – but he was the first former foreign secretary to be given political control of the External Affairs Ministry, and probably the first bureaucrat to become a cabinet minister so soon after retirement.
Considered one of the world’s best diplomats, Dr Jaishankar has built a reputation as a tough negotiator, yet exceptionally fair and who knows how to get a deal done.
He was India’s longest-serving ambassador to China, from June 2009 to December 2013.
Top India expert Ashley Tellis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believes Dr Jaishankar is the best man to be India’s foreign minister.
“He thinks strategically about India’s interests in a way that few do,” said Mr Tellis. “He can manage both the Ministry of External Affairs and other government of India bureaucracies better than most because he has come up from within their ranks.
“Most importantly, the PM trusts him in ways that will allow him to implement Indian foreign policy without having to constantly look over his shoulder. And he has deep familiarity with the ‘great powers’ that India attempts to balance – the US, China, Russia and Japan.”
Dr Jaishankar said his work is not always simple or straightforward. “I’m supposed to go out, make friends, influence people and get people to agree with me mostly,” he said.
“Occasionally you have disagreements and you manage them the best that you can. The world’s not always a courteous place. So you end up in situations where people put you under pressure.
“Not everybody is as nice as you are, so you may have very difficult conversations. But that’s where, to some degree, experience and instincts come in.
“If I can use a cricketing metaphor, if you see a yorker coming, you step out of the crease, and take it on the full. Then you know what to do with it.
“So don’t let people come at you. Don’t let people put you on the defensive. Frankly, if you’re standing up for a country of 1.4 billion people, there is a certain responsibility that comes with it. There are times when you need to push back strongly.
“There are times when you are more patient, and you say, ‘Don’t worry, sit down with me. Let me tell you that you haven’t fully understood what I’m trying to get to’. There is a way of doing that as well.
“But in a more intensive social media-driven existence, I think at times you do need to behave like you’re in the IPL (cricket’s big-stage Indian Premier League).”
Dr Jaishankar is the 30th foreign minister of India since independence in 1947. Some leaders served as prime minister and foreign minister at the same time, but none of the former foreign ministers had a doctorate degree in international affairs to their credit.
This shows in how he tackles different viewpoints. “Diplomacy is about finding a way of reconciling different viewpoints and coming to some kind of agreement,” he explained.
“So there will be issues where you have different viewpoints. There will be issues when they are used as a cover, as an excuse, as a justification. We should be able to spot the difference and figure out a way of dealing with it.
“A lot of diplomacy is being able to have different relationships with different powers of people. You have to manage the different relationships. If two (people) have a problem getting along, you have to figure out a way of when to step in and when not to step in.
“That’s really what a country like India does in terms of managing the world.”
“I keep refreshing my acquaintance with Singapore and in many ways I marvel at how this country keeps pace with different aspects of development in the world.”
