As expected, the day was open. As expected, there were inside
stories. As expected, Sujatha Singh’s resignation letter found its way to the media.
And as expected, there was the war of words between Congress and BJP.
The turf for the controversy that was laid Wednesday night when
the Narendra Modi government removed Sujatha Singh with a terse order that
‘that curtailed her tenure with immediate effect’ gained further ground on
Thursday and got the concluding part on Friday with Sujatha Singh opening up
and clearly speaking out her grievances.
In effect, it is going to change nothing.
The decision has been taken and implemented and the new Foreign
Secretary, S. Jaishankar, has taken charge. The facts - that Mr. Jaishankar was
the first choice of even the former prime minister Manmohan Singh when Sujatha
Singh, a year senior to Mr. Jaishankar, was made FS in August 2013 - and that Mr.
Jaishankar’s exposure to the P5 countries as well as his stints with Japan and
Sri Lanka that gives him an upper hand in Modi’s scheme of things for Indian
foreign policy centered on having broader engagement at the world stage –
further shorten the life of the controversy beyond two-three days on ‘newsworthiness’.
Yes, but it does validate the premise that left us in bad taste –
owing to the unhealthy ‘suddenness’ of the unceremonious exit – the way she was
forced to resign - and the timing of it – Barack Obama left India on January 27
afternoon and the order came around 10 PM on January 28.
A Foreign Secretary is sacked immediately after a highly publicized
and successful event of Indian foreign policy when no one was talking about it,
when no one had expected it – it was bound to get questions and was a fertile
ground for controversy ahead.
Even if she was already sidelined as the insider accounts say.
Even if she was not willing to step down as the insider accounts
said and as was validated by her account today – the Narendra Modi government
clearly erred here.
The argument that Mr. Jaishankar was retiring on January 31 and it
was necessary to appoint him before that date falls flat when we go by the
example of Nripendra Misra, Principal Secretary to Narendra Modi, who was
appointed after retirement, even if meant bringing a Bill in the Parliament.
If the government had so made up its mind long before this unceremonious
episode as the insider accounts say that she had fallen out of favour and was
not being consulted on important issues like ‘cancelling the India-Pakistan FS
talks’, it could and should have done it much earlier. After all, it was in
August that the talks were called off.
Now, there can be an argument that as Narendra Modi was much
impressed by Mr. Jaishankar after his successful US tour in September 2014, it
was logical that Mr. Jaishankar would remain the Indian envoy to the US till
completion of Barack Obama’s India visit as the chief guest of the Republic Day
Parade, and therefore it continued with Mrs. Sujatha Singh.
But if we take that as a possible reason, it further validates that
the ‘sudden decision’ could have been avoided. She could have been told in the
similar clear terms earlier that forced her to write the resignation letter on
January 29. Or if the government waited for so long for the reasons known only
to it, it could have waited for some more days with the last call made to
Sujatha Singh to make her mind to move. After all, with the government on his
side, no one was going to stop Mr. Jaishankar from being the Indian Ambassador
to the US even after his retirement date.
The ‘Sujatha Singh resignation’ controversy is not expected to
play out longer than tomorrow or the day after tomorrow but it is going to
remain there with her genuine question that she asked in an interview today - “My
reputation is being maligned, my record being trashed. Why was this necessary?”
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
