E-Paper
Do foreign diplomats in India need security when there is no threat?
While P-5 ambassadors to India along with Japan, Germany, Canada and Pakistan are given personal and area protection, their counterparts get no red carpet treatment and have to fend for themselves and their staff against anti-India elements.
The pulling down of the Indian National Flag atop the Indian High Commission in London has brought the security of our diplomatic missions and the reciprocity accorded by foreign governments to Indian diplomats into sharp focus.
While the diplomats from countries like the US, UK, China, France, Germany, Japan and even Pakistan are accorded personal as well as area security, their Indian counterparts have no such benefits abroad and have to fend both their Embassies/High Commissions and the staff through Indian security without any privileges.
The fact is that embassies of important countries and their ambassadors have round-the-clock protection with some even allowed to partially block key roads in the Chanakyapuri area. Ambassadors of countries like the US, UK, China, France and Japan are accorded the status of a Union Minister and are given a red carpet treatment by every Union Minister and their ministries. These ambassadors are treated literally as VVIPs by the state governments with even chief ministers granting them appointments as well as security.
These ambassadors also have direct access to Indian media and give statements with impunity on political issues way beyond their brief such as the Chinese, UK and the US ambassador. Their Indian counterparts on the other hand are hardly allowed movement in Pakistan, China and Middle-East countries, while others have very limited access to the governments of the countries they are posted to as part of their tenure.
While the Israeli Ambassador to India has a genuine threat from jihadist elements, ambassadors of other countries have no perceived or detected threat and are seen travelling all over India. “For an extremist being allowed to take down a national flag from the sovereign property of India in London is a huge thing. Shows how seriously the UK takes to Indian security demands while its own High Commissioner is personally protected and so is his High Commission....would the UK have let it happen if it was the US, European or Chinese embassy?, ,” said a former Indian foreign secretary.
Ambassadors and their juniors of adversarial countries like China and Pakistan in the past have been known to keep in direct touch with Indian media while their counterparts are sequestered in their embassy compounds with foreign intelligence breathing down their necks.
Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeatedly talking about the decolonization of the Indian mindset, the first step in this direction would be the decolonization of Indian bureaucracy.
