'IFS was upper caste service, becoming more democratic now,' says Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyar

Senior Congress leader and former diplomat Mani Shankar Aiyar on Tuesday said the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) was an "upper caste" service comprising "Macaulay ki aulad" but was now becoming more democratic now with the flavour of the country getting into it.

Speaking at the launch of the book "Nehru's First Recruit", Aiyar described himself as the "last IFS recruit" of the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and said the country had overcome the "bad features" of its first-generation recruits. 

"The IFS up to my generation and even into the 21st century was an upper caste service. It was a service made up of ‘Macaulay ki aulad’ (children of Lord Macaulay). Now, it is becoming more democratic and it has a lot of Hindi speakers... We are getting the flavour of our country into the foreign service and that I think is a very good thing," he said. 

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay is credited with playing a vital role in introducing English education in India. 

Aiyar, who joined the IFS in 1963 and served as Joint Secretary from 1982 to 1983 in the Ministry of External Affairs, gave the example of an IFS officer that he met during one of his visits to Istanbul, who was initially versed with the Hindi language only, became fluent in multiple languages within one year. 

"I was very impressed on a visit to Istanbul to find a recruit who could only speak to me in Hindi. But by the time I reached Istanbul again the following year, the same gentleman spoke fluent English, and more importantly fluent Turkish. So, we are getting the flavour of our country into the foreign service and that I think is a very good thing," he added. 

Aiyar underscored how the foreign service has now grown beyond the prejudices of its first recruits. For instance, the growing strength of women in the previously male-dominated IFS cadre, which he said makes "half or even more of the total recruits" presently unlike 1948. 

Chonira Belliappa, known as India's first woman diplomat, was the only woman to clear the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examinations in 1948. 

"They are allowed to get married, they are even allowed to marry foreigners... Earlier, in the IFS even a man had to retire if they married someone from abroad. One of my batchmates Sivakumar Das was shunted out to the UNDP because he married a Czech girl. I think all those bad features of the first generation of recruits have now been overcome," he explained. 

Praising Nehru for the "re-invention" of modern-age IFS, Congress leader Karan Singh, who was also among the speakers at the book launch, recalled how he narrowly missed the chance of becoming a full-time career diplomat. According to the 93-year-old, in 1964, the then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri offered him to become the High Commissioner to the UK, which he declined due to his political aspirations. 

"It was a tempting offer but by that time the political bug had already bitten me...I was keen to get into national politics. I have done this ceremonial post for many years. I thought that I cannot get into another post of that nature. So I very gracefully declined," he added. 

(With inputs from PTI)