Diplomats are the last to leave Indian missions in war zones

War is the failure of diplomacy, said British MP and activist Tony Benn. However, in a world where diplomacy is increasingly not being given a chance to succeed, it is important to remember the diplomats who keep working, despite the war raging outside their mission windows.

“If there’s a horde of people fleeing a burning building, apart from the firefighters, the only people crazy enough to be going in are journalists,” my professor would say, stressing the need for safety guidelines for journalists covering conflict areas. However, few think about the diplomats, based in India’s missions around the world who choose to stay inside the ‘burning building’ even as the situation gets more heated. As the world saw the U.S. President’s words threatening a “civilization will die” if Iran did not comply with his demands this week, and feared the worst would follow, Indian diplomats based in Tehran and other towns outside the capital were working around the clock inside the embassy, with a basement parking area to run for as a bunker in case of airstrikes. Some are sending dispatches on the situation there, and some on setting up meetings and calls with officials; some are organising stocks of food, water, medicines, and some are working on authenticating documents, issuing passports and making arrangements for Indian citizens still in the country to leave through land boundaries to Azerbaijan and Armenia. Similar scenes must be playing out across West Asia over the past month, from Indian missions in Tel Aviv, Beirut, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and other cities.