Understaffed MEA slowing down India’s sprint towards ‘Vishwa Guru’ status, but needle may be moving

With 1,011 officers across 137 countries, India has around the same cadre of diplomats as smaller countries, like New Zealand & Singapore.

Illustration: Manisha Yadav | ThePrint

New Delhi: India’s foreign policy ambitions may be big, but the size of its foreign service is still relatively small, and the Ministry of External Affairs seems finally ready to expand to reflect its growing responsibilities.

According to whispers within Delhi’s diplomatic circles, the only way to get work done is to organise high-level delegation visits, forcing an understaffed MEA to snap into action. There have been times at the United Nations when India simply has not been able to be present in the room for certain meetings because there were not enough people to attend.

Harried consultants hired by the MEA say they are as overworked as the diplomats holding the fort. Foreign diplomats find themselves surprised by inadequate briefs and incomplete reports. At one point, an officer from the stenographer’s cadre was appointed ambassador to North Korea, leapfrogging IFS-B cadre candidates (who typically can be appointed envoys after 15-20 years of service). This undoubtedly caused tensions in the ranks.

It’s no secret that the Ministry of External Affairs has been functioning at a low capacity. It’s an old chestnut among Indian diplomats. What’s changed is India’s foreign policy ambitions: India now wants to be the ‘Vishwa Guru’ and needs the staff to make it happen. According to the latest report from the parliamentary committee on external affairs, the MEA is set for a major expansion.

Sources told ThePrint that Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri has requested the government to increase cadre intake to 56 officers in the coming year—up from last year’s 34. It is unclear whether the request has been granted yet. A Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said it would be “speculative” to comment on staffing changes, and pointed to their latest parliamentary report for most recent figures.

The request reflects India’s growing need to better position itself as an emerging global power.

India’s global scorecard is lacking, especially as India navigates an increasingly hostile neighbourhood with ‘anti-India’ governments coming to power over the last 18 months in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives.

What’s more is that the government has several unfinished goals and newer projects as it switches to a more multilateral approach—whether it’s the Quad, IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor), or all of India’s regional aid commitments. But it’s hard to do when only one diplomat is often tasked at looking at large swathes of the world: whether in Eastern Europe, Central Africa or Latin America—all countries where India is trying to expand its presence.

“Given India’s responsibilities, interests and challenges we face in the global arena, we need much more,” said former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao. “Our foreign policy commitments and involvements have definitely increased in recent years.”

At around 1,011 officers serving the country’s growing interests across 137 countries and 194 cities, India has around the same cadre of diplomats as much smaller countries, like New Zealand and Singapore.

“When I last chaired the Committee, from 2014 to 2019, we had published a report advocating a major expansion of the Indian Foreign Service,” said Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, former diplomat and chair of the parliamentary committee on external affairs.

“Though some welcome progress has been made in this direction, it is our impression that with India’s growing responsibilities across the globe, and the development of multiple new tasks, opportunities, and challenges for Indian diplomacy, that a further expansion is indeed in order.”

 

An old problem

Expanding the MEA’s staff capacity is an ongoing debate. Multiple reports from the parliamentary committee on external affairs are in favour of expanding it. “The Committee notes that India’s Diplomatic Service is perhaps the most short-staffed in comparison to many other countries, whose economy and stature is much leaner than that of ours,” reads the 2023-24 report from the 17th Lok Sabha.

It also mentions the need for building capacity and upskilling, underlining the need for skilled diplomats as India works “towards global leadership as envisaged”, and the MEA is trying, according to former diplomats.

“In all fairness, the MEA has been trying to tackle the whole issue of increasing cadre strength—it is on the table, and it’s being looked at,” said Rao. “We need a fundamental reorientation. This isn’t 1947, and we’re not setting up our foreign service from scratch. We have 80 years of experience, and we need to factor in both our lessons learnt and our growing responsibilities on the global stage.”

In fact, in its latest report released 3 February, 2025, the MEA has said it is trying to fill up vacancies, increasing its indent with the UPSC to 110 vacancies. While 374 have been directly recruited to join the IFS since 2014, the MEA has “placed an indent of 538 vacancies in 2023 and 2024 for direct recruitment of officials through SSC and recruitments are expected to be completed in the coming months”.

As of March 2024, the MEA’s total staff strength in-person is 7,630, distributed across the ministry’s different cadres—including IFS, IFS-Branch B, stenographers cadre, interpreters cadre, etc. There are 2,976 officers posted across India’s missions, with India-based staff manning the ministry in Delhi, which has 57 divisions, according to the latest report from the parliamentary committee on external affairs. The rule of thumb, according to a former diplomat, is to keep headquarters at a third of mission strength.

Many diplomats seem to be circumventing the problem. One diplomat told ThePrint that they began to utilise officers of the attaché rank and above as diplomats, just to cover meetings at the UN. Another recommended that foreign missions based in India should also reduce their reliance on the MEA—calling them the “easy option”—and perhaps try seeking meetings with other stakeholders to get work done.

Nearly every former diplomat ThePrint spoke to referenced one 2009 research paper that dented the impression of the IFS—Developing India’s Foreign Policy “Software” by Daniel Markey, a foreign policy specialist who held the South Asia portfolio on the Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State.

The paper makes several explosive claims. India’s “own foreign policy establishment hinders the country from achieving great-power status”, Markey writes, because the IFS is “small, hobbled by its selection process and inadequate midcareer training”. Markey also goes on to suggest improvements to India’s foreign policy software, including expanding and reforming the foreign service and bringing non-career officers into the MEA.

The paper made quite an impact within India’s foreign policy ecosystem, but the recommendations haven’t yet been incorporated, begging the need for structural reforms.

“It’s true that for a country with our diplomatic outreach and expanding reach, we could do with more, and that’s not a debatable issue,” said one former diplomat. “The challenge is: if you recruit too many, how do you promote them?”

Need for structural change

Not every diplomat believes the MEA should expand. It’s a central thread of tension especially among former diplomats, who have been through the gruelling bureaucratic process to rise through the ranks.

“Allegations that the IFS is minuscule or the MEA is understaffed was a valid argument ten years ago, but not today,” said a former diplomat. “A more sensible approach in my view is for the MEA to remain open to outsourcing to think tanks, universities and consultants.”

Some diplomats say that taking in mid-level officers from other cadres—especially those with expertise in finance, political and security related work—could plug the gap, but it might take some time for them to settle down. Another potential solution could be to introduce an all-India exam, like the IIT JEE, to bring in officers who can then be trained and skilled to work at the MEA.

“The problem goes right down to the core,” said Rao. “Everyone picks on the foreign service, but our entire civil service is understaffed.”

Ronen Sen, former ambassador to the US, said that having a “cylindrical structure” in the civil services makes ascension difficult — the armed forces, on the other hand, is like a pyramid.

The issue lies in the absorptive capacity of the MEA, said one diplomat, and the need for specialisation. What’s more is that the average age of diplomats has gone up, reducing the number of years in service.

“One has to keep in mind the aspirations and morale of this generation, and the requirements of the government and the absorptive capacity of the MEA. It’s a delicate balance,” said a former diplomat.

It’s also about judgement, said Sen. The most critical input for a prime minister or President is to know and trust their interlocutor, and as India has now taken its seat at the international table, it’s necessary to ensure the right people are doing the talking to protect India’s national interests, he added.

What’s more is that there’s a need to expand and diversify expertise to address challenges like artificial intelligence, cyber-security, climate diplomacy, and new and emerging technologies, which the parliamentary report also takes note of.

The discussion is bound to make its way back into Parliament, said Tharoor. “While the committee has not yet taken a formal collective position, the matter of whether the MEA has the adequate resources for the work it needs to do is likely to come up during our discussions on demands for grants.”

Changing global ambitions

The Indian Foreign Service also reflects the changing geopolitical order. Today, it is considered almost impossible to become foreign secretary unless the diplomat has served as ambassador to China.

This wasn’t the case in the past. As China has become more important on the global stage, India’s need to counter it has also grown, making it imperative to be an expert on China.

India’s global footprint is also expanding. New Delhi hosts more diplomatic missions than most cities outside of Europe and the US—ranking just behind Jakarta and ahead of cities like Tokyo, Beijing, Berlin, Moscow, Seoul, Bangkok, and Cairo. India has also opened new diplomatic missions across Africa (with 16 embassies) and Latin America (two embassies), reflecting its commitment to a multipolar world order.

But this growth trajectory is offset by India’s fairly small global presence: The Global Diplomacy Index, by the Lowy Institute, ranks India at 11—after China, the US, Turkey, Japan, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, Italy and Brazil.

Running an embassy or a mission abroad is an expensive affair. One young diplomat said they had to wear many hats, including doing more menial tasks like taking notes and making appointments alongside their actual work.

“Overburdened is a good thing, no?” said one former diplomat, adding, “there are so many people who want to have that on their CV. When I joined the foreign service, I was married to it. I never wanted to leave.”

(Edited by Sudha V)