External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has stated that becoming a Minister came as a surprise to him because he was born into a family of bureaucrats. He also recalled that his father, DK Subramanya, was fired as Secretary Defence Production by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi shortly after she reclaimed power in 1980, was superseded during Rajiv Gandhi period with someone junior to him becoming the Cabinet Secretary.
Jaishankar: Becoming Union Minister came as a bolt in the blue in 2019
Jaishankar also stated that he joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1977 with the goal of becoming the best officer in the service. Jaishankar’s father was India’s foremost national security strategist, and he died in 2011.
Jaishankar was India’s Foreign Secretary from January 2015 to January 2018 and had earlier served in key ambassadorial positions in China and United States.
Jaishankar said,
“I wanted to be the best foreign service officer. And to my mind, the definition of the best that you could do was to end up as a foreign secretary. In our household, there was also, I won’t call it pressure, but we were all conscious of the fact that my father, who was a bureaucrat, had become a Secretary but he was removed from his secretaryship. He became, at that time, probably the youngest Secretary in the Janata government in 1979,”
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Reveals his father D Subramaniya was the first Secretary removed by Indira Gandhi when she stormed back to power
He added,
“In 1980, he was Secretary, Defence Production. In 1980 when Indira Gandhi was re-elected, he was the first Secretary that she removed. And he was the most knowledgeable person everybody would say on defence,” he added.
Jaishankar revealed that his father was an upright person and that may have caused problems for him
Stated Jaishankar
“But the fact was that as a person he saw his own career in bureaucracy, actually kind of stalled. And after that, he never became a Secretary again. He was superseded during the Rajiv Gandhi period for somebody junior to him who became a cabinet secretary. It was something he felt…we rarely spoke about it. So he was very, very proud when my elder brother became secretary,”
On being asked about his transition from a Secretary to a Minister Jaishankar stated,
“He passed away in 2011, at that time, I had got what you would call Grade 1 which is like a secretary ….like an ambassador. I did not become secretary, I became that after he passed away. For us, at that time the goal was to become secretary. As I said I had achieved that goal. In 2018, I was kind of very happy to walk away into the sunset…but, I ended up walking not into the sunset but into Tata Sons! I was contributing my fair bit there. I liked them, I think they liked me. Then completely as a bolt out of the blue, the political opportunity came. Now the political opportunity for me was something I needed to think about because I was simply not prepared for it….So I did reflect on it briefly…,”
Jaishankar also stated that he was surprises when he got phone call from PM Modi to join his cabinet and he was not expecting it,
“It had not crossed my mind, I don’t think it had crossed the mind of anybody else in my circle,”
“Once I entered, I must say in all honesty I myself was very unsure. I had watched politicians all my life. One of the things you get to do in foreign service by the way is you actually perhaps much more than the other services is, you see politicians up close because you see them abroad, you are kind of working with them closely, counselling them. So, it’s one thing to watch but to actually join politics, to become a cabinet member, to stand for Rajya Sabha, you know when I was selected, I was not even a member of Parliament. So each of these things happened one by one. I slid into it, sometimes without knowing it. You learn by watching others,”
Challenges on being a Union Minister from a Career Foreign Service Bureaucrat
Jaishankar also revealed the challenges he has faced in his journey towards becoming a minister from a career bureaucrat
“In a way, it’s like different lives. You got to understand the challenge that it was for me personally because I am from a bureaucrat’s family. My father was a bureaucrat. I have an elder brother who is a bureaucrat, my grandfather was a bureaucrat, and uncles who were there. So our world, if I can put it to you this way, was very very bureaucratic. Our goals, our dreams were bureaucratic.”
Jaishankar also stated that on major issues the politician has sharp grasp and multiple solutions to offer than a bureaucrat,
“It’s a different world, a different responsibility. I put it to people like this. I may have sat 40 years in the Parliament gallery. It’s not the same as being on the Parliament floor. I used to sometimes… Sushma Swaraj was my Minister. As Foreign Secretary, we used to talk a lot. …I had the confidence that I have a minister and a Prime Minister above me who at the end of the day shoulder that political responsibility,”
“Now, come May 2019, that political responsibility is mine. It is a completely different field. As a Minister, you have to look at it not departmentally, there may be something which is, to give you an example, wheat export to some country. As a secretary I would say that a country’s relationship is very important. But as a Minister, I have to say what my own wheat prices look like, what are the domestic concerns out there? Who else do we need to talk to? Every issue, every major issue has some political angle which a Minister will tend to see much faster than a bureaucrat, however good that bureaucrat might be,”
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