IMF Loan to Pakistan: Essay on pakistan economy / CSS 2023 Essay and Current Affairs

IMF Loan to Pakistan: Essay on pakistan economy / CSS 2023 Essay and Current Affairs  

For a long time. There were some trusted advisers of rulers outside the formal set-up of their council of ministers. F.D. Roosevelt had his Harry Hopkins authorized to meet Stalin, and Neville Chamberlain had his heartily detested Horace Wilson.

Jawaharlal Nehru had two baleful and unworthy characters as advisers, V.K. Krishna Menon and G. Parthasarathy.

His advisers have strong points. The official, for all his qualities, is a 'file-wallah.' Precedents, memories limit his horizon, and the outlook he acquired in the office, the files. The outsider has his flaws. He can be a seeker of office from his partner in high office.

In 1964, the Indian government set up a committee on the Indian foreign service. It contained a word of caution regarding 'advisers' from outside. The last 60 years are considered an enormous increase in this tribe, with little ostensible gain to the public interest.

IMF Loan to Pakistan: CSS 2023 Essay and Current Affairs  

None of this suggests that the outsider is of no use. He is provided that he is intellectually well equipped, is of sound judgment, and, above all, has integrity and humility.

Politicians in power are justified in receiving input from outsiders. However, they must never underrate the professionals. As the committee rightly noted: 'No policy can be formulated except based on accurate information. The foreign service's primary duty is to maintain a continuous supply of information to the ministry of external affairs using accurate and perceptive reports on current events and discernible trends over the entire range of our interests.

To be of value, such reports should be objective, with no disagreeable facts suppressed or slurred over.

One sees men admirably equipped in other subjects, but their only qualification to speak on foreign affairs is 'interested' in the subject.

The analogies of domestic politics are irrelevant in world politics. It is a whole world in itself; this world of sovereign states and the understanding of its working comes with the help of a diligent application.

However, the professional may be overborne. Courage may fail him. The ambassador may report just what he thinks the minister would like to know, and the civil servants in the ministry prof for just the advice that will please or, better still, cease to advise altogether.

These lapses are not imaginary. They have occurred often enough. Thus, Mr. Warren F. Ilchman of the University of California, Berkeley observed the tendency for men in the field to write what the prime minister [Nehru] wished to hear, primarily reports confirming non-alignment as a policy.

When Sino-Indian relations deteriorated, a particularly fulminatory Chinese statement (May 1959) cited a former Indian ambassador to Peking, Mr. R.K. Nehru, as a witness to Chinese goodwill. Mr. Nehru's statements deploring the 'rigid' stand towards China show how accurate the Chinese estimate was.

In the halcyon days of Indo-Soviet relations, the late prime minister Nehru's patronage had been enjoyed to an unusual degree. He appreciated the experience so much as to acquire a wholly erroneous conception of his duties as secretary general of India's foreign ministry.

IMF Loan to Pakistan: CSS 2023 Essay and Current Affairs  

As remarked elsewhere: The question arises, How could the civilian head of a foreign office offer frank advice to the political head when he regards the organization as no more than a research bureau? Nehru had scant use for expertise in a field he regarded exclusively as his own.

One singularly tragic instance of his indifference to professional advice may be cited. The late Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai advised him about the time of the Panchsheel Agreement with China to stipulate. In return for India's recognition of China's sovereignty over Tibet, China must recognize the McMahon Line and agree to the reopening of an Indian consulate in Xinjiang.

The advice was rejected. What was so remarkably prescient about it was the condition of the consulate. Recognition of the McMahon Line was prominent, but it needed a fundamental understanding of the country's geopolitical interests to ask for an Indian consulate in Xinjiang. The Chinese could not have built the Aksai Chin road as they did later without New Delhi coming to know of it if it ever existed.

 Until the political chiefs are willing to recognize the need for expertise in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy and a conscious encouragement of the growth of such expertise,  No amount of skillful reorganization of any external affairs ministry will be helpful. Advisers from outside can help only to a limited extent. 

IMF Loan to Pakistan: CSS 2023 Essay and Current Affairs