Editorial

Good news for Asia and the Commonwealth

  Weeks before he was formally elected by heads of government meeting in Uganda, Kamalesh Sharma’s friends had started to refer to him as the Commonwealth Secretary General-designate.
   Some of this confidence emerged from the assurances that poured into Delhi from other member states of the Commonwealth who, in the words of a Commonwealth insider, subscribe to the view that ‘India really is the flavour of the month and having someone from India means a lot.’
   It was no secret that after the spectacular failure earlier this year to secure Shashi Tharoor as Secretary General of the United Nations, India was not going to stretch its neck out for yet another favourite son candidate without prior cast-iron assurances of his selection.
   Sharma himself was pleasantly surprised by the private statements of support he received during his three-month canvassing tour of Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.
  ‘We are conservative in offering candidates for such positions’, he explained during an interview in London, where he has been India’s High Commissioner for the past three and a half years. ‘But there has been no Asian candidate as Secretary General and the sentiment had been building for a very long time that Asia should do it.
  ‘That in a way turned out to be the case because after me there was a Malaysian candidate, but in the end Malaysia withdrew and supported India, making for a clean Indian slate.’
   Sharma’s other rivals for the position were Maltese foreign minister Michael Frendo and a freelance Commonwealth bureaucrat of Indian origin, Mohan Kaul, chief executive officer of the Commonwealth Business Council. Frendo posed the greater challenge. At 53 he is more than a decade younger than Sharma and, as foreign minister, he had the advantage of face-to-face contacts with government leaders entrusted with electing the new Secretary General.
   Sharma’s plus points included his considerable experience of working with multilateral institutions such as UNCTAD and the UN, where he was India’s ambassador. After retirement from the Indian Foreign Service he had the additional experience of working as the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative to East Timor, where he was judged to be more than competent.
   Diplomats from some of the smaller Commonwealth states also note how, when he was in New York, he took it upon himself to increase India’s annual contribution to the UN office of the small states of the Commonwealth. The amount involved was only US$100,000 per year, but it was the effort that counted and was remembered with gratitude.
In an interview timed to coincide with his formal selection as Secretary General, Sharma reveals himself as a committed supporter of smaller states, explaining that they ‘have problems of vulnerability because of natural catastrophes; they have issues of investment’, ‘of human resource capacity because of migration of skilled people’. Small island states will be ‘the first to feel the impact’ of climate change and global warming. He adds that India because of its growing economic strength is well equipped to play a bigger Commonwealth role, not least by stepping up funding.
   Sharma’s supporters describe him as a man of consensus and a team player, citing one particular image he draws upon both in conversation and in speeches: ‘If there’s a train wreck in the world, no one’s going to ask, Who was travelling first class?’
   He is also clear about the three strands the Commonwealth stands for. One is the fundamentals of governance, which he breaks down into accountability, transparency of institutions, and transparent participative government. The second is the advancement of prosperity. And the third is the social agenda, which includes advancing literacy and the empowerment of women and bringing down infant and maternal mortality.
   Affable and easygoing, he doffs his hat to his Hindu roots. ‘I was born in Varanasi on a day my mother considers very auspicious, which is Dussehra day. She thought the day and the place were both very auspicious.’
   Individuals heading large multinational institutions, including the Commonwealth Secretariat, sometimes find it difficult to push through fundamental changes. Where they can make a difference is by personal example. Kamalesh Sharma’s own brand of dynamism and genuine self-effacing modesty are qualities that speak for themselves. He is good news for Asia and good news for the Commonwealth.

                          
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