A diplomatic mixed bag

Author Image: 

Cauthor2.JPG [1]

Indian diplomacy, now more than 60 years old, can hold a candle to any in the world. But like in any service, the wheat is often mixed with chaff, and the practice of a so-called B service, to give foreign service roots to a junior level of bureaucrats, has often led to unhappy results.

The demands of diplomacy are so many and often so nuanced that a largely clerical establishment does not measure up, as and when confronted with deputising for an absent boss, as I discovered during the first days of the first Iraq War in Baghdad.
The editor of this volume, Krishna Rajan (dispensing with the American style of writing his name), has accurately described his endeavour as a “potpourri of ambassadorial reminiscences”. The trouble with such a meal is that it is often of uneven quality and lacks a unity of theme.
Reminiscences of ambassadors are valuable and even interesting if they relate to a unique period in the history of a country of posting or they display high levels of literary flair or signify the unique nature of an Indian ambassador’s privileged position. This, alas, is true only of a few of the recollections. The pitfall is only highlighted by such accounts as of ambassador A. Madhavan, a witness to a great event in post-war European history, the coming down of the Berlin Wall. He recites the well-known event without adding any new Indian, or other, perspective to it.
In contrast, we have a first-hand account of the Simla Summit between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, but ambassador B.N. Bakshi does not answer the specific question that has been bugging Indians ever since: How did the Pakistani Prime Minister with a precarious and weak hand get the better of Indira Gandhi? Years later, I asked this question of one of the participants, P.N. Haksar; his answer was not entirely satisfactory. He said it was a generous gesture of magnanimity to a neighbour to surmount a difficult and conflict-ridden relationship.
B.S. Das gives us glimpses of the last days of the Chogyal of Sikkim as he seeks to fend off the inevitable, and ambassador Rajan has a few confidences to share on India’s tricky relationship with Nepal, melodramatically titled, “Darkness at Noon”. Ambassador Niranjan Desai had a bumpier ride in Idi Amin’s Uganda as he tried to cope with the sudden summary expulsion of Asians, many of whom had spent their lives in that country. Ultimately, he himself was declared persona non grata.
Desai makes the wise comment, “India’s diaspora policy had not evolved then; it was a strange mixture of distant paternalism and a snobbish disdain for Indians overseas…”
Ambassador L.L. Malhotra had a ringside seat in witnessing the unravelling of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force in Sri Lanka in a situation where there was no peace to keep. He relates an interesting conversation with President Premadasa, who was vociferously seeking the expeditious withdrawal of Indian troops. The ambassador told him that he was “forgetting the distinction between friend and foe”. His answer was: “I know what you mean. There will be a time when I will pay my tribute to IPKF”. He did.
Even more bizarre were the experiences of ambassador T.P. Srinivasan who landed in Fiji in the tempestuous period of the rise of the non-indigenous Indian-origin leaders to a brief period of political power through democratic elections in a traditional society dominated by indigenous tribal chiefs. The outcome was never in doubt but India did some muscular diplomacy in having Fiji thrown out of the Commonwealth, however symbolic the gesture. Ambassador Srinivasan described himself as head of mission with instructions not to deal with the new ministers of the Fijian-dominated government. He was, of course, ultimately asked to leave.
Srinivasan suggests, “Fiji marks the turning point in India’s policy on overseas Indians as the developments there took place at the time when the government was in the process of rediscovering the potential of the Indian diaspora”.
One of the most interesting revelations is of ambassador G.J. Malik’s stint in Chile coinciding with the last days of Salvador Allende. He recalls the last conversation he had with the doomed President who lost his life in a CIA-inspired military coup. “Ah! ambassador, there is one element in our country whose loyalty lies outside our borders.” “How can that be, Mr President? And which is this element?” “The armed forces. They are all trained in the United States and those people buy their loyalty.”
Not long after, the telephone rang one morning in the ambassador’s residence. His wife Kirat picked up the phone. It was Allende on the line. He said, “I am calling you on the most difficult day of my life. We shall fight all day”. And he put down the phone.
The editor of The Ambassadors’ Club: The Indian Diplomat at Large has set an enigma for the reader. Why leave out two of India’s most distinguished former ambassadors, Ronen Sen and K. Shanjar Bajpai, from this
compendium?