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GUEST ARTICLE

        Whether, in the end, Ronen Sen, our Ambassador to the United States of America is recalled or not, the time has come for the government to have a quick look at the role of civil servants and bureaucrats in general in the governance of the country. In the matter of the 123 Agreement between India and the United States over which, rightly or wrongly there has been such a hullaballo in Parliament, Mr Sen is reported to have a told one Aziz Hanifa, a well-known correspondent in Washington that after sixty years after independence, some political parties and leaders 'are so insecure', have not 'grown up' and 'lack confidence and self respect'. And he is reported to have asked: 'Why do you have all this running around like headless chicken, looking for a comment here or comment there and these little storms in a tea cup?'. For a diplomat to damn MPs as 'headless chicken' is not only in poor taste but it is impertinence on the part of a bureaucrat, howsoever senior, to criticise the elected representatives of the people.

        Members of Parliament can take on each other and sadly they do so frequently - but there are lines drawn that bureaucrats cannot and should not cross. In this case Sen crossed them. Three points can be made in this connection. One is that Sen is a retired bureaucrat and therefore the usual rules governing civil servants are not applicable to him and he is free to speak out his mind. The second is that he has been a 'key protagonist of the US India civilian nuclear agreement as it lay dormant' and therefore is entirely within his rights to express his disappointment at the role of the left parties and the BJP. The third point is that Sen is a distinguished diplomay with an unblemished record and is entitled to propound his views in whichever language he wishes to, and cannot be hamstrung. But what comes through is that some of our bureaucrats are getting too big for their boots and have to be reined in.

        One wonders whether a bureaucrat would have spoken out the way Sen has spoken if the Prime Minister was Jawaharlal Nehru or even Indira Gandhi. By using intemperate language Sen was not just showing his disrespect to politicians but defying basic rules unbecoming a civil servant. One would never have heard such language from a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS). In that sense Sen was also showing disrespect to the Prime Minister of India. Of course Sen has every right to hold an opinion. One is reminded of the occasion when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's first and most highly respected Home Minister asked Law Secretary Shavax Lal to give his opinion on an issue raised by Lord Louis Mountbatten, then the Viceroy and Governor-General. Lal just had a some what unpleasant experience of a straightforward but rather unpalatable opinion given by him to one of Vallabhbhai's senior colleagues. To express therefore, his distress and to mind his language, Lal asked Patel whether the Home Minister wanted his 'honest opinion'. The Sardar flared up, and said tartly: 'Does government pay you Rs 4,000 a month for your dishonest opinion? It is your duty to give an 'honest opinion, and it is for me to accept it or not'. Nobody asked Sen to give his 'honest opinion' and, in any event, honest opinions can be expressed in dignified language.

        That is where Sen has failed. This must show to the UPA government of Sen's disregard for his 'superiors' which is not a pleasant thing to encounter. Bureaucrats need to be supported. It is they who run the government and Vallabhbhai Patel made it clear in Parliament when the former Indian Civil Service (ICS) stalwarts who had merely obeyed their earlier British masters, came in for strong criticism in Parliament. On hearing it, Vallabhbhai who was permitted to sit because of his age, while addressing parliamentarians, thumped the desk with his fist, Stoutly insisting that the ICS 'whatever its previous image in the eyes of Congressmen, was a bastion against chaos and the disintegration of government'. As the Sardar saw it, the Service was 'a source of stability'.

        Indeed, that is true whether one speaks of the Indian Administrative Service or even the Indian Foreign Service. That said, the language used by Sen still cannot be condoned. What, additionally, he said about President Bush also requires to be taken into account. According to Sen, there has not been and there will never be in the near future 'such a friend and supporter' of India as President Bush. And to make his point, he added: 'Absolutely none. There is none'. That, unhappily, is not the issue at stake. Nobody is questioning the range or depth of President Bush's respect or regard to India. But he is coming to the end of his term. India's - and the Opposition's - concern is not Bush, but his unknown and unknowable, successors and possibly even the party composition of the American Congress in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Bush may be a friend of India in today's circumstances, but can that be said of future American presidents? What if we have variations of Nixons and kissingers in the coming years, Presidents and Secretaries of State who have an in-born hatred of India and fears of India becoming a Great Power? How does one deal with such situations? True, we want nuclear energy. Also true that China and Pakistan are opposed to the kind of 123 Agreement that is open for signature in their own interests.

        But should that drive us into signing an agreement that could make India a largely dependent nation on America's good will? Does one remember the time when India was badly in need of food supply and was treated with such disdain that drove Indians literally into a ship-to-month existence? In politics it is not always people that count. All decisions must be institutionalised, so that relationships are not personality-based but issue-based and are not susceptible to the wishes of individuals or the fancies of a foreign parliament. Sen should know that nobody is questioning Bush's credentials. Possibly they are impeccable. Eisenhower got along very well with Nehru, his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles not with standing. But Indo-US relations dropped steeply with Nixon as President. What bound Eisenhower was not necessarily binding on his successor, a point that needs to be stressed even if it sounds cynical, the present US Administration's goodwill notwithstanding. Any Agreement that depends on one man's or one party's goodwill will remain unsustainable over the years. By definition, agreements between States must be impersonal validating them under all circumstances and all regimes. Sen's disappointment is understandable but one expects senior diplomats to know better. Agreements have a certain life-period and this must be guarded with due sophistication. That would show political maturity - the hallmark of true diplomacy.