New Indian foreign minister Salman Khurshid is the latest
member of India's most illustrious Muslim family to be entrusted with
one of the highest offices in the world's largest Hindu-populated
country.
The 59-year-old Khurshid, who is 21 years younger than
his predecessor S.M. Krishna, was the most eye-catching appointment in a
cabinet revamp designed to reinvigorate a government which has shown
distinct signs of fatigue.
His appointment comes at a time when he
is battling accusations that funds intended for an NGO run by his
family have been misappropriated.
As he moved into his new office
in New Delhi, Khurshid made clear that he would get straight to work and
said that he had been briefed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 80, to
bring fresh thinking to his post.
"I have a lot of home work to do
... as I want to take India's foreign policy ahead," he told reporters
shortly after he was officially elevated from his post law minister.
"In the last few years, foreign policy has vastly changed ... We have to do out of box thinking and go beyond theology.
"We
have to think of the great opportunities the world offers today," added
Khurshid who is India's first Muslim foreign minister in 16 years.
While
Muslims -- who numbered 138 million in last year's census -- have held
some of India's most senior positions including the post of president,
they are one of its most marginalised communities.
The percentage
of Muslims to hold jobs and the level of literacy lag well behind those
of other major religions such as Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, the
census found.
As for any foreign minister in New Delhi, Khurshid's
most delicate diplomatic dossier will be relations with India's
troubled Muslim rival Pakistan.
One of the most embarrassing
episodes of Krishna's tenure came in 2010 at talks in Islamabad with his
Pakistan counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi who accused him during a
press conference of having to take his orders by phone from New Delhi.
The
gaffe-prone Krishna also came in for ridicule in the same year when he
read out parts of the Portuguese foreign minister's speech at a meeting
of the United Nations Security Council in New York.
Analysts said
Khurshid, who served as junior foreign minister in the 1990s, was likely
to demonstrate a surer footing than his predecessor.
"One thing
is clear, the man knows his job," said S.K. Jha, a professor of
international relations at the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New
Delhi.
"He has a grip on diplomacy and will not be a cause of embarrassment like Krishna," Jha told AFP.
Labelled
"Mr. Confident" by the media, Khurshid hails from a family which has
been at the heart of Indian politics ever since independence.
His
father, Khurshid Alam was the first Muslim to serve as a minister in the
foreign office and his great-father, Zakir Hussain, was the president
of India.
Khurshid junior studied at Oxford University in England
before becoming a lawyer in the Supreme Court. He also worked as a
teacher.
Khurshid has been in the headlines more recently over
accusations that he and his wife Louise had siphoned off funds for a
charity for the disabled.
The accusations were first aired in a
television documentary and taken up by anti-corruption campaigner Arvind
Kejriwal whom Khurshid has accused of wanting to destroy mainstream
parties after launching his own political career.