SHARMA AS COMMONWEALTH BOSS: A VOTE FOR INDIA
By Dipankar De Sarkar, London, November 25, 2007 (IANS)

Kamalesh Sharma takes up the job of Commonwealth secretary-general after a successful stint as Indian high commissioner in London, having been particularly in demand on the lecture circuit in tandem with India's growing economic clout. But come April 1, 2008 Sharma, a 66-year-old career diplomat who has espoused India's cause robustly across many continents, will have to stop speaking for New Delhi alone. For that is the day he takes over the reins of the Commonwealth - a grouping of 53 countries that were part of the former British empire - and two billion people cutting across race, religion and culture. He will have to speak for some of the poorest as well as wealthiest people on the planet.

The Times newspaper ran an article on him last year in which Sharma said, "I don't think any High Commissioner has ever been in such demand as I am now. India's increasing prominence stems from the fact that it is making economic and social advances without paying the price for democracy and fundamental freedom."

From having pressed India's cause at the United Nations when the tricky Uruguay Round of trade negations were being hammered out in the mid-1980s - amid heated exchanges between rich and poor nations - he will find himself having to juggle the differing viewpoints of a myriad of nations poised at differing stages of development.

Sharma has already used his first press conference in Kampala to speak out for what the Commonwealth calls "small nations" - 32 countries with a population of less than 1.5 million each that have often found it difficult to keep apace with challenges of globalisation, free trade and natural disasters.

Having sung the praises of Indian business and economy since taking over as high commissioner in 2004, Sharma has already shifted gear. "Globalisation can't just be a story of emerging economies," he said Saturday, soon after being picked for the new job. "Partial globalisation is failed globalisation."

In address to the Royal Commonwealth Society in May, described by observers as a campaign speech, Sharma spoke of the "two legs" of the Commonwealth - democracy and development.

Both are tricky matters.

Sharma takes over at a time when the Commonwealth is struggling to strike a balance between its traditional focus on combating poverty and the new global security challenge presented by terrorism.

While the Commonwealth is perhaps best known for the small things it does quietly and without much fuss - technical cooperation is a good example - it has been forced to tackle larger security issues following the Sep 11, 2001 terror strikes on the United States. The body now has a Commonwealth Committee on Terrorism (CCT), set up six weeks after 9/11 to increase counter-terrorism cooperation, but it has not met too often.

In the arena of development, many observers feel the Commonwealth can contribute more actively toward a resolution of the world trade negotiations that are meant to benefit both developed and developing countries, but are currently stalemated in Geneva, headquarters of the World Trade Organization.

On democracy, Sharma's skills will be sorely and immediately tested by Pakistan.

And here, more than on any other issue, he will have to shed his Indian diplomat's garb. Fortunately, he has the counsel of the so-called wise men's group, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, composed of nine foreign ministers who will advise him on the course of action whenever a member-state flouts the core values of democracy and human rights.

Sharma stint coincides with a reported growing interest in the Commonwealth by both India and Britain - perhaps the two most influential members of the group.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has found a natural home in the Commonwealth for his well-known and widely-respected support for African development, and his campaign to make every child literate.

India has been steadily increasing its contributions to a number of Commonwealth programmes and projects. India's contribution to the important Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC) is expected to increase to a million dollars per year by 2009-1010. It pays $ 100,000 a year for a joint UN office for small states in New York, and leads on efforts to narrow the Digital Divide between rich and poor members.