One of India’s most experienced former ambassadors and now a highly regarded commentator on foreign policy has said that “this is not a happy moment for Indian diplomacy”.He says, “There is a lot of uncertainty, there is no clear direction”. K. C. Singh, a former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs and former Ambassador to Iran and the United Arab Emirates, says: “We are at multiple inflection points and caught between them. In a few months we’ll know if we’re up to the mark or not”. At the moment, however, what prevails is uncertainty and lack of clear direction.In a 33-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, K. C. Singh said that like several foreign ministers before him S. Jaishankar faces a situation where grand policy decisions are made by the Prime Minister and his is a secondary role. He said as a former diplomat, Jaishankar “doesn’t have a grounding in politics”. Asked if this was his Achilles’ heel, K. C. Singh replied, “That is obvious”.K. C. Singh also told The Wire that Jaishankar was probably chosen as external affairs minister because of his earlier expertise at handling China and the United States. However, he added, he hasn’t dealt with the Islamic world.Speaking about widespread reports that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been invited as chief guest for next year’s Republic Day, K. C. Singh said, “Normally you don’t want someone who causes controversy”. He said there’s every likelihood that between COVID-19 and Brexit, Johnson will “probably fall between two stools”.Asked specifically as to whether Johnson, who faces rebellion in his own Tory ranks in the House of Commons and about whom speculation is growing that once the Brexit deal is concluded he might not continue as prime minister for very long, is the wrong sort of person to be invited as chief guest on Republic Day, Singh first said “yes” but then added unless this was a sign of solidarity between heads of government who have been close to President Donald Trump.“Are they holding hands?” he asked. “Is this a nervous holding of hands with the leader of the pack gone?”Singh concurred that if the invitation to Boris Johnson is confirmed it would be the second time that India has invited a chief guest for Republic Day who is widely deemed to be inappropriate. The first was Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro last year. Asked if Bolsonaro’s misogynistic and homophobic views clashed with an occasion when India celebrates the principles and values of its constitution, K. C. Singh said it was “a case of cocking a snook at those values”.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Photo: Twitter/@narendramodiSpeaking to The Wire about the 23 members of the European Parliament, from a collection of European anti-Muslim right wing parties, who were invited to visit Kashmir in October 2019 and thus became the first foreign politicians to visit the Valley after the August 2019 constitutional change, Singh said, “South Block would have had its reservations”.He said the decision to invite the 23 was “driven from outside”, meaning the Prime Minister’s office.Asked if one common strand that connects Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and the 23 European Parliament MPs was that they are all from the right of the political spectrum and whether this meant there was a political comfort level between them and Modi, K. C. Singh said, “There’s no doubt about it”.Speaking about the external affairs minister’s recent visit to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two Arab countries that have broken ranks with the rest of the Arab world and recognised Israel, Singh told The Wire this was a case of “picking up a preference Trump has created”. Whilst the intention could be “to wean these countries away from Pakistan” he is concerned that Iran could view it as “India going even deeper into the American corner”. He said this could make Iran more suspicious and wary in its relations with India.At a time when Joe Biden, the US President-elect, is looking for ways to improve relations with Iran and, if possible, restore the nuclear deal, Singh told The Wire, “We should have waited for Biden to roll out his policy” before Jaishankar visited these countries.US President-elect Joe Biden speaks about the US economy following a briefing with economic advisers in Wilmington, Delaware, US, November 16, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Kevin LamarqueFinally, speaking about India’s China relations, Singh said that the belief that summit level meetings between the two heads of state could contain differences and perhaps even find a way to resolve them has fallen flat. He said summits should be the culmination of the process not the starting point.He suggested that summit level diplomacy with China had been vigorously pursued because of the mistaken belief that the Indian Prime Minister could sway President Xi.Asked how it could be that the Minister of External Affairs, a former foreign secretary and a former ambassador to China who served in Beijing for five years, had not cautioned the prime minister against putting so much emphasis on summit level diplomacy, K. C. Singh said that it is possible his advice was not accepted.Watch the full interview here.