Tradition of having diplomats in defence ministry revived

The Modi government has decided to revive the past tradition of a senior diplomat being posted in the ministry of defence (MoD) so that military purchases are made keeping emerging geo-political relationships in mind. The decision has been taken at the highest levels in consultation with the two ministries concerned.

Updated on: Sep 6, 2015, 08:38:53 IST

Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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The Modi government has decided to revive the past tradition of a senior diplomat being posted in the ministry of defence (MoD) so that military purchases are made keeping emerging geo-political relationships in mind. The decision has been taken at the highest levels in consultation with the two ministries concerned.

Official sources said a senior diplomat will soon be sent on deputation from the external affairs ministry to the defence ministry to man the planning and international cooperation desk so that India’s military purchases could be leveraged in long-term diplomacy. The post of joint secretary (P&IC) was handed over to IAS officers during the UPA II regime in January 2009 with Ambassador Debnath Shaw being the last diplomat to handle this desk.

This vital post was handled by IAS officers Smita Nagaraj and NK Choudhary from 2009-2015. The post is now vacant with Navin Choudhary repatriated back to Jammu and Kashmir government in May 2015.

The post had become a symbol of tug of war between the IAS and IFS, with the latter accusing the former of not understanding defence diplomacy and delaying acquisition of vital hardware due to lack of global vision. Then defence minister AK Antony was, however, not too keen to have a diplomat in defence ministry as he felt that diplomatic inputs were already coming from the external affairs ministry.

“India today is a net provider and receiver of defence equipment with ties with countries from Chile to Vietnam. There a long-term need to leverage these humongous military purchases from source countries,” said a senior official.

It is understood that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in consultation with defence minister Manohar Parrikar has given a green signal to placement of a diplomat in the heart of the armed forces establishment. This was done during a monthly review of defence ministry functioning last month.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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