New Delhi: The people in power at the Centre are generally afraid of having women in top diplomatic positions as they are brutally honest in giving their opinions. This is the opinion of G Parthasarathy, former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan.
Parthasarathy says “politicians are uncomfortable with honest people. They generally don’t appreciate brutal honesty."
The formar diplomat was reacting to the charges of senior diplomat and 1971 batch IFS officer Veena Sikri's allegation of gender bias in the External Affairs Ministry.
Sikri has claimed that there was a gender bias in appointing Shivshankar Menon as India's Foreign Secretary by superceding as many as 16 officers, including her.
She has now move the Chief Information Commissioner, seeking access to files pertaining to the appointment of Menon as Foreign Secretary under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
She claims had the government followed the objective, well-established criteria for the selection of Foreign Secretary, there was no reason why she won't fit the bill.
The issue has triggered an under-current of protest in the MEA with Sikri, who had been posted as India's High Commissioner in Dhaka, returning to Delhi in protest and her husband, Rajiv Sikri, resigning from his post. Another senior diplomat, Shashi Triparthi, secretary (west), has also gone on leave.
People on the side of Sikri in this protest have pointed out that it has been a norm in the MEA not to allocate top ambassadorial positions to women. Washington and Moscow embassies have never been run by women, they point out. Nirupama Rao, who has been posted to Beijing as India’s ambassador, is in fact the first woman to hold such a position.
Even Arundhuti Ghosh, who has handled India’s case brilliantly in Geneva, was not even in the race for the Foreign Secretary post, they say.
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