India's Foreign Service Crisis: Big Dreams, Thin Cast

On May 7 at 1:44 am, when India conducted air strikes against terror bases inside Pakistan, it took Pakistan only a few hours to inform the global press and obscure the narrative. The international media largely did not acknowledge India’s reason for the air strikes—the Pahalgam terror attack in India on April 22. No briefings were held by Indian High Commissions or diplomats for the first 12 hours after the strike.

Understaffed, or Underutilised Staff?

“India could have done much more with the international media through our missions abroad. That coverage and concentration was selective, and if the missions are better staffed, we can, of course, speak and interact with the international media much better,” says Anil Wadhwa, former Secretary (East) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), who has served as the Indian Ambassador to Italy, Poland, Oman and Thailand. He adds that “the Indian narrative was put out in a coordinated manner by the Indian foreign service along with the armed forces.”

In December 2024, India announced it would expand its 850-strong foreign service by 200 employees over the next five years. These plans came with the MEA’s acknowledgement that the country’s diplomatic corps were “short-staffed.” In comparison, as of 2024, China had over 5,000 diplomats and support personnel.

While the addition of 200 employees reflects India’s global ambitions of becoming one of the largest economic powers in the world, several experts who study international affairs point out that diplomatic corps are not just about quantity but also quality—the calibre of staff members and their ability to navigate an ever-evolving geopolitical landscape also matter.

According to Talmiz Ahmad, former Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE, the right question to ask is not whether the IFS has the proper number of officers but whether “the service is being utilised properly.” He adds that the answer is: “No.”

“In every foreign service, when you are posted abroad, you must have complete clarity about what you are required to do. Then you should be assessed on the basis of the quality of work you deliver,” he explains, adding that in his vast experience with the IFS, officers “don’t know what they are supposed to be doing. They are not very often told what the yardstick is for evaluation.”

The real issue with the IFS, according to Ahmad, is that of quality and leadership in missions abroad.

The 2023–24 Demand for Grants report has called India’s diplomatic service “perhaps the most short-staffed” among all the major global powers. According to the report, only 22.5 per cent of the MEA’s 4,888-strong workforce are IFS ‘A’ officers, meaning many of the country’s missions are running on skeleton staff, with a severe lack of top leadership.

In March 2025, a Lok Sabha reply confirmed that 6,277 personnel were deployed against sanctioned slots. While this is smaller than other countries, it marks an improvement for India from previous years. The report further noted that uneven staff distribution poses major challenges, especially in remote postings and conflict zones.

Ahmad recalls his time in the IFS and says: “It is a matter of embarrassment for me that even 50 years after I joined service, even today, I hear my young colleagues are very keen to go to European stations and Western stations.”

He adds that there is a “reluctance” among officers to be posted “in the neighbouring countries, in Southeast Asia, in the Gulf, Central Asia, Africa.” These are seen as “punishment postings, he says.

While the MEA has announced plans to add to the number of foreign postings, there is no public data available on which specific postings remain vacant in other countries. Wadhwa also notes that while India is continuously increasing its IFS recruitment and the MEA “must sanction additional posts to man our headquarters,” India has also had to open a number of missions in Africa and Latin America and faces a shortage of personnel.

New Delhi’s decision to restructure its foreign service comes at a time when India is grappling with several diplomatic challenges, including the most recent escalation with Pakistan following the deadly April 22 Pahalgam terror attack. India is also facing increasingly strained relations with its subcontinental neighbours, including those it has historically shared cooperative ties with, such as Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The decision to restructure came on the heels of last year’s controversy with Canada involving the death of a Khalistani movement leader in Quebec, and the death penalty imposed on eight Indian nationals by Qatar.

While the Indian government has not made any public statements about the reason for the expansion or the long-standing issue of the Indian foreign services being chronically short-staffed, the overhaul was initiated after recommendations from a parliamentary committee in March last year.

Prime Minister Modi has consistently stated that India aspires to be one of the leaders of the global order. This is reflected in the term Vishwaguru, coined by the PM’s advisors to indicate that he aims for India to be a global guiding force. However, a severe shortage of manpower in diplomatic resources—both staff and overseas missions—often undermines this goal.

India is not just the most populous country in the world, it also has the largest diaspora. However, in terms of diplomatic missions, the country does not rank among the top 10 nations.

The United States Department of State has 271 diplomatic posts globally, supported by 14,399 Foreign Service employees, 12,831 Civil Service staff and 50,703 locally employed personnel. The United Kingdom employs 17,532 people worldwide as of 2023–24, with around 47 per cent UK-based and 53 per cent country-based, across a network of 281 offices. China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ policy is reflected in numbers as well: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing has the world’s largest diplomatic network of 274 foreign posts—173 embassies, 91 consulates and 10 missions to international organisations—as of 2024, staffed by over 5,000 diplomats and support personnel.

This means the US has ten times as many foreign postings as India; the UK’s budget of £12.1 billion dwarfs India’s 0.5 per cent share in the Union budget; and China’s diplomatic reach is in a different league altogether.

Of the 1,177 sanctioned slots for India’s IFS ‘A’ officers, only 667 are posted overseas and 334 remain at headquarters. In addition, there is a complementary staff of 3,499 IFS ‘B’ officers from feeder services, including interpreters, legal experts and locally engaged staff, bringing the total to 6,277 personnel abroad. This leaves many missions with a severe lack of IFS ‘A’ officers. Overall, India has 850 officers across 193 diplomatic posts worldwide, and only 35 recruits join the IFS each year. The foreign ministry is among the least-funded ministries in India.

A Dilettante Service That Lacks Specialisation

As most IFS postings are not long-term, missions often lack personnel who are specialists in important countries or subjects, says Ahmed. He adds that this is very different from other global powers such as China, which prioritises specialist knowledge over multiple postings. Besides MEA policy, this also stems from officers’ ambitions to obtain postings in developed nations, which are considered premium, he says.

“The British service, the American service, Russian, Chinese, French, German... I know firsthand—all of them are specialists. So, why is there no specialisation in our country? Because our people are desperate to go to developed countries, where we are not really needed,” he says.

Wadhwa also points out that “the ministry needs to beef up its multilateral as well as bilateral divisions, its external publicity division and the policy planning division. It needs to post more IFS personnel to the ministries of defence, commerce, petroleum and science and technology to ensure the required diplomatic interface. The disarmament and new technologies divisions, as well as the cyber security division, need more specialised manpower.”

Demoralised Staff and Internal Politics

Recalling his own service, Ahmed says he came under fire for expressing the desire to specialise in the UAE and remain in Riyadh after 9/11.

Speaking about his tenure as Indian ambassador to Riyadh during the 9/11 attacks, he says: “As I watched the towers come down, I realised this event is going to reverberate for several decades to come. And it will impinge on India’s interests. I took a considered view not to leave the region.”

Ahmed told ministry officials and the foreign secretary that he wanted to remain in the region because of his interest, knowledge and expertise, and that his services should be properly utilised so he could further develop them.

Then he adds: “The first thing they did, the first thing—as soon as I finished Riyadh in 2003—I was posted to Zimbabwe. This is exactly what happened.”

He says the attitude in the ministry is not conducive to developing in-depth knowledge of countries or specialist IFS officers. “The thing is, it’s because you asked. ‘Oh, so you want specialisation, do you? How dare he want to do this specialisation with us?’ This is the attitude,” says Ahmed.

Operation Sindoor and the Global Backlash

While domestically Operation Sindoor is considered a tactical success, on the world stage it has been severely undermined by India’s limited diplomatic strength. New Delhi struggled to shape the narrative globally. Briefings on the operation reached only 70 countries and were late to begin with.

Meanwhile, outlets such as China Global Times and Pakistan’s diplomatic channels solidified the anti-India narrative through loud condemnation of the airstrikes that followed the Pahalgam terror attack. The silence of India’s formerly friendly neighbours such as Bangladesh and allies such as Russia also spoke volumes.

Canada, Qatar, Afghanistan

In 2024, India and Canada were at loggerheads over the June 2023 murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a pro-Khalistan leader, in Surrey, British Columbia. Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that India was involved in the murder, a claim vehemently denied by India. Canadian authorities arrested four Indian nationals in connection with the case but later released them pending trial, which is moving at a snail’s pace.

During the face-off, Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats, leaving India with only two consulates and one high commission in Canada. This shone a spotlight on how understaffed Indian missions abroad were, as it left New Delhi with no recourse or means to retaliate.

When Qatar sentenced eight former Indian naval officers to death, India’s High Commission in Doha could barely sustain legal advocacy or manage media briefings. This was unsurprising, as the mission had only one additional officer per 100,000 members of the Indian diaspora.

On November 29, days after the Afghan embassy in Delhi announced it had shut down for good, the Taliban administration declared that the diplomatic mission would soon reopen. Reports from Afghanistan stated that the country’s diplomatic staff in India, loyal to the previous administration, had resigned from their posts.

Avantika Mehta is a senior associate editor based in New Delhi

This article is part of Outlook’s 1 June 2025 issue, 'Gated Neighbourhood', which examines the state of diplomacy, media, and democracy in the wake of the ceasefire. It appeared in print as 'Big Dream, Thin Cast.'