India’s diplomats once focused largely on politics and protocol. Today, they are expected to secure energy supplies, support overseas investments, open markets, and defend India’s strategic commercial interests abroad. In a world where economics and geopolitics are increasingly inseparable, and where goodwill alone offers little protection, is India prepared for the hard realities of economic diplomacy?

The nation’s business enterprises have a right to diplomatic support for overseas marketing; they are India’s job creators, adding to the national income, and earning vital foreign exchange. Do they receive the requisite support? Yes, in that embassies and consulates do help them; yet no, much more could be done. 

Right up to the late 1960s, “economic diplomacy” did not figure in anyone’s diplomatic lexicon. The First Oil Shock in 1973 pushed foreign ministries to a revaluation; official support for business became integral to national interest. In India, Bimal Sanyal, heading the MEA’s Economic Division, saw the future. India immediately expanded its embassy network, with special attention to the oil producers. With that came an altered work agenda. Example: during the then mandatory “instructions meeting” for outbound ambassadors in August 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told co-author Rana, heading for Algeria: “We enjoy good political understanding with President [Houari] Boumediene …but that is good as far as it goes. Your task should be to work to develop an economic relationship that is commensurate with that.” It became a lodestar.