India Firms Up Its Ties With Dhaka Via Political Envoy

India has sent former Union minister and BJP leader Dinesh Trivedi as its High Commissioner to Bangladesh, marking for the first time in the NDA government’s 12-year tenure that a political leader has been appointed as an envoy. Trivedi has also been given the rank of a Union cabinet minister. Under PM Modi, this is the first time a cabinet rank has been given to a political appointee, though there have been cabinet-rank ambassadors in Congress governments. Dinesh Trivedi is a political appointee, which means someone who is not a career diplomat (an Indian Foreign Service officer) being chosen for the envoy position. There have been a number of political appointee envoys but not all are bestowed cabinet status. The present ambassador to the USA, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, was till recently foreign secretary, but was sent as ambassador to the USA post retirement. He is also considered as a political appointee. There is former Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, who was appointed High Commissioner of India to Seychelles in 2019. Soon after Independence, then PM Jawaharlal Nehru appointed his sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit as an ambassador with cabinet rank. In subsequent years, TN Kaul was given cabinet rank when he went as ambassador to Moscow. Likewise, Dr Karan Singh was given cabinet rank when he went as ambassador to the USA, and so too DP Dhar when he went a second time as ambassador to Moscow. Giving cabinet rank indicates a direct line to the PM; the envoy will not have to go through the hierarchy of the Foreign Secretary or the Foreign Minister. Second, the indication is also to the host country where the ambassador is accredited. In this case, the signal is clearly to Dhaka that this person is held in very high political esteem by PM Modi. All this is bound to help Trivedi to have direct access with Bangladesh top brass.