Maharajakrishna Rasgotra - A Life in Diplomacy-Penguin Books LTD (2016) PDF
Maharajakrishna Rasgotra - A Life in Diplomacy-Penguin Books LTD (2016) PDF
A LIFE in DIPLOMACY
PENGUIN BOOKS
CONTENTS
Preface
Illustrations
Notes
Appendix
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
To Kadambari, my life’s companion and counsellor, and co-sharer of the
burdens of my tasks
Now the last day of many days
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead:
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up—to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,
For now the Earth has changed its face
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
New Delhi
1 December 2015
chapter one
FOREIGN POLICY IN INDEPENDENT INDIA
Elaborations would follow, but in these 170 words Nehru had described the
foreign policy of newly independent India, given it a name—Non-
alignment—which meant, as he had outlined in the radio address, ‘keep
away from power groups aligned against one another’, and defining its
practical agenda for the immediate future. To its threefold programme of
Liberation of Colonies, One World United for Peace and Cooperation, and
Opposition to Racism, would soon be added a fourth: General and
Complete Disarmament, a Ban on Nuclear Tests and the Elimination of
Nuclear Weapons, which was an extension of India’s commitment to non-
violence.
That Nehru’s concept of Non-alignment did not envisage an inflexible
posture of equidistance between the two power blocks, led by the USA and
the USSR, is implied in the phrase ‘as far as possible’ in the very first line
of this first authoritative statement of his foreign policy. What Non-
alignment essentially meant was independence of the judgement of events
and issues and of doing the right thing, not only for India, but also for world
peace. The limited concept of keeping ‘away from the power politics of
groups, aligned against one another’ arose directly from the Cold War
division of the world into two hostile blocks at the time of India’s
Independence. The rest—the unchanging emphasis on peace, the belief in
the relevance of a non-violent approach in international relations,
cooperation for peace and progress and tolerance and coexistence—are all
reflexes of India’s age-old cultural tradition going back to Vedic revelations
and Vedanta philosophy, which informed the politics and governance in the
great ages of Indian history—the centuries of the rule of the Mauryas, the
Guptas and the Mughals (especially the period of Emperor Akbar’s rule).
This cultural tradition is the inheritance not only of the intellectual ruling
elites; it is embedded also in the consciousness of our common people. A
hymn in the Rig Veda (8.58.2) draws the reader’s attention to ‘unity in
diversity’. Upanishads in hyperbole speak of freedom as the ‘creator and
sustainer of the universe’. ‘The world is a family’
(vasudhaivakudumbakam) is another basic concept of Vedanta thought. The
Mahabharata, the great Indian epic which has many lessons on the science
of polity, puts the same thought into more majestic words with scientific
undertones: ‘The whole world of mortals is an inter-dependent organism’.
Peace (Shantih in Sanskrit) is frequently invoked in an Indian’s daily life).
A Hindu’s prayers for various occasions are not for his own happiness but
for the well-being of all humanity; the prayer most commonly cited on
auspicious occasions simply says: ‘May all the people be well, comfortable
and happy.’2
A prayer from the Kath Upanishad, which Indira Gandhi often invoked at
the end of her speeches to foreign audiences, runs as follows:
The most powerful element in our struggle for freedom was non-violence,
as interpreted and practised by Mahatma Gandhi. And this too was a part of
the Indian tradition since the Buddha. It was his teachings that the emperor
Ashoka had applied in the governance of a vast empire covering the entire
subcontinent and stretching from Burma in the east to central Asia in the
west. Nehru was trying, I have often thought, to formulate and practice a
non-violent foreign policy, Ashoka style. The attempt failed because of the
circumstances surrounding India’s birth, for example a hostile Pakistan and
uncertainties attendant on the rise of a powerful and revolutionary
communist China. An independent policy of peace works best when it is
backed by a deterring military force held in reserve. Emperor Ashoka’s
non-violent policy succeeded because he maintained a huge army—perhaps
the largest in the world.
Nehru was familiar with the teachings of Kautilya and Shankaracharya
on the fundamental importance of safeguarding the security of the state. In
Discovery of India, there are long sections on Kautilya’s Arthashastra
(fourth century BC) and on Shankaracharya’s Nitisar (tenth century), which
show that Nehru had studied these works on the science of polity with great
care. They both emphasize the importance of security in the formulation of
policy. A weak state, Kautilya says, invites attack.
The only explanation for Nehru’s comparative neglect of India’s military
security, especially on the northern border with China, is that he did not
expect an attack from China. Also, because of his overriding concern about
the crushing poverty that blighted the lives of the great masses of Indian
people, he did not want too much of the meagre resources available for
development diverted to military purposes.
In the declaration of September 1946, Nehru had indicated his intention
to work for a ‘close association of free countries’ of Asia; for, as he put it,
‘we are of Asia and the peoples of Asia are nearer and closer to us than
others’. And in his Asian policy he accorded particular importance to
China, ‘that mighty country with a mighty past, our neighbour . . .
throughout the ages’. Nehru believed that friendship with China ‘will
endure and grow’. This belief apparently arose from his inadequate
knowledge of imperial China’s history and of revolutionary China’s
ambitions and policies about which he was not well-served by his
ambassadors to China. Ambassador K.M. Panikkar, for example, described
China’s revolutionary leaders as harmless agrarian reformers of friendly
disposition towards India.
Nehru’s long search for a united Asian identity and his emphasis on
cooperation among Asian nations found early expression in the Asian
Relations Conference in New Delhi in March–April 1947, and in the
conference he convened in New Delhi in January 1949 to condemn the
Dutch military’s attack to recapture recently liberated Indonesia. Eighteen
independent countries of South Asia, west Asia and the Far East (including
Australia) attended the latter conference, a historic first gathering of Asian
and Arab powers. The only invited country which failed to send a
representative was Turkey. Africa, whose liberation was still ten to fifteen
years into the future, was represented by Ethiopia. Such as it was, this was
the first manifestation of the so-called Third World.
Six years later, at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in April 1955,
Afro-Asian solidarity was reasserted, and Non-alignment and Panchsheel,
or the Five Principles of Co-existence, were given a global profile. But
some Asian countries had already joined—and more would soon join—one
or the other military alliances of the Cold War period. Rifts among Asian
countries had surfaced during the Bandung Conference, which also saw the
coming together of China and Pakistan in an informal pact against India.
The Panchsheel, or the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence,6 had
been formulated in the Agreement between India and China on Trade and
Intercourse between the Tibet Region of China and India, signed in Peking
on 29 April 1954. Nehru apparently had a hand in defining the Five
Principles which rule out the use of force. It is noteworthy, though, that
seven years after Nehru’s death, Zhou En-Lai, in his talks with Henry
Kissinger, claimed that the principles were formulated by China. Beijing’s
massive, carefully planned invasion of India in 1962 casts serious doubt on
China’s sincerity in agreeing to them in the first place. China had no use for
the Five Principles after it had consolidated its hold on Tibet.
Nehru’s concern for Tibet was long-standing. He had invited a separate
delegation from Tibet to the Asian Relations Conference in March–April
1947, and took care of their board and lodging and other expenses to
establish the delegation’s separate, autonomous identity in an international
gathering. The Chinese delegation at the conference made several attempts
to take the Tibetan delegation under its wing but with Nehru’s support the
latter successfully resisted their blandishments.
In another informal and personal initiative on Tibet, soon after India’s
Independence Nehru sent a confidant of his—a Bengali gentleman—to the
Tibetan capital to explain to members of the Kashag, the Dalai Lama’s
cabinet, the importance of the recently established United Nations, and how
countries were seeking to become members. The emissary was to ask
whether Lhasa wanted to apply for membership. But though he stayed in
Lhasa for several days, the Tibetans showed little interest. A year later,
Nehru sent another emissary to Lhasa with the same message; but he, too,
failed to elicit any response from the Tibetan government. Implicit in these
gestures was the suggestion that if the Tibetans themselves sought UN
membership, friendly countries could perhaps render some help in
obtaining it. These moves were not without some historical justification.
For, after the Manchu dynasty’s demise in 1911, Tibet was effectively an
independent country; it had stopped sending the annual tribute-bearing
mission to Peking.
At the time of the two visits of Nehru’s emissaries to Tibet, the post of
India’s representative in Lhasa was still held by an Englishman because a
suitable Indian was not available. There is no evidence that Nehru took him
or the Indian Foreign Office or any of his cabinet colleagues into his
confidence about the matter. The Tibetans woke up to the significance of
Nehru’s initiatives too late, after the Chinese army marched into their
country in January 1950. Lhasa then requested Nehru to sponsor Tibet’s
case for membership of the UN. But it was too late, and Nehru refused to
take any action on their appeals.
Against Nehru’s advice, an attempt was made to raise the issue at the
Dalai Lama’s initiative, by the delegation of El Salvador in the UN General
Assembly. The question was discussed in the assembly’s political
committee and the matter was allowed to die without further action. In
1960, Ireland’s highly respected permanent representative to the UN,
Ambassador Boland, tried, without success, to mobilize some support for
the issue. I was at the UN then and I remember Ambassador Boland trying
to convince me of the importance of safeguarding Tibet’s autonomy and its
distinct religion and culture. But Tibet had missed its chance. Already in
1950 the realist in Nehru had recognized the reality of China’s effective
reoccupation of Tibet, and his further efforts were focused on negotiating a
dignified withdrawal from Tibet of India’s extraterritorial privileges—a
representative at Lhasa with a small military escort and Indian trading posts
at Yatung and Gyantse inherited from the British. The new situation was
finally formalized in the 1954 India–China Agreement on Tibet.
If all of Nehru’s initiatives were known to Secretary General Sir Girija
Shankar Bajpai7 or to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, perhaps the latter’s famous
letter of 7 November 19508 (see appendix pp. 397–403) to Nehru about the
new threat on India’s northern horizon because of China’s reoccupation of
Tibet might never have been written. Nehru wrote back to Patel saying that
he would discuss the matter with him after the latter’s return from an
internal tour, on which he was to proceed the following day. The meeting
could not take place as Patel never returned to Delhi from his tour and died
within a few days of the exchange of letters between him and Prime
Minister Nehru.
There has been some speculation about the authorship of or the
inspiration behind the letter. I personally am convinced that the letter was
drafted by Bajpai. The mastery of the detail of China’s policy, the
comments on Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim and the suggestion about entering
into a defence pact with Burma—which the Burmese leader U. Aung San
had proposed, and India’s representative in Burma Gundevia9 had strongly
supported, but Nehru had rejected—all point to the drafting of the letter by
an expert of the highest calibre. Moreover, the letter’s phrasing and diction
have a close resemblance to Bajpai’s writing style.
In the top echelons of the MEA bureaucracy there was a feeling that
Ambassador K.M. Panikkar was too ready to take China’s professions of
friendship for India at face value, and was misleading Nehru in his China
policy. There was a good deal of antipathy between Secretary General
Bajpai and Ambassador Panikkar, not only because of their differing
assessments of Chinese policies and diplomacy, but also because of the gap
between Bajpai’s wider experience of world affairs and his habitual dislike
of communism, and Panikkar’s somewhat narrower focus on the importance
of India–China relations. There is little doubt in my mind that the letter was
actually drafted by Bajpai in the hope that Patel’s intervention might help
introduce a measure of circumspection in India’s China policy. Bajpai was
liked and respected by senior members of Nehru’s cabinet and had easy
access, notably, to Rajagopalachari and Vallabhbhai Patel. Panikkar,
meanwhile, was acting in accord with Nehru’s instructions and had his full
support in cultivating China’s revolutionary leaders. The task was not easy
and he went about it energetically, in full awareness of the notorious
egocentrism of the Chinese leaders.
Understandably in those early years Nehru depended a great deal on
these two intellectual giants among his collaborators in the foreign policy
arena, but there was no love lost between them. In 1955, Panikkar was
Ambassador Bhagwan Sahay’s guest in Kathmandu for several days and I
(second secretary in the embassy then) spent a lot of time with him
escorting him to meetings and on sightseeing trips. In private conversations
he would often deride Bajpai as ‘that little man with little understanding of
China’.
Bajpai’s assessments of China’s policies and objectives and his warnings
of future portents were borne by later events. Though Nehru often disagreed
with Bajpai and sometimes overruled him, Bajpai had his full confidence
and he (Nehru) appreciated Sir Girija’s candour, his unmatched ability to
analyse critical issues with cool objectivity and his boundless capacity for
hard work despite his indifferent health. On ten or eleven occasions, when
Bajpai wanted to quit the Foreign Office because of differences with Nehru
on issues of importance, the prime minister would go out of his way to
persuade him to stay on the job. Bajpai alone, among the MEA’s senior
officials, could stand up to Nehru, and occasionally even made the prime
minister change a decision made on impulse.
I should like to begin with the early days of the creation of the requisite
wherewithal of independent India’s foreign policy—an adequately manned
Foreign Office and a corps of trained diplomats to man India’s diplomatic
missions abroad. For decades, imperial New Delhi had both a Foreign
Office and a Foreign and Political Service, but in both cases Indians mostly
had access to them only at the clerical levels. All senior officers of the
service were British.
The origins of an Indian Foreign Office of sorts go far back to 1784; the
British government of India had set up a Secret and Political Department to
deal with independent power centres, which had, thus far, escaped the grasp
of Calcutta’s expanding empire, and to manage the affairs of tribal
populations in northeast and northwest India. This nucleus of a Foreign
Office went through several changes of nomenclature and in the nature and
scope of its responsibilities. In 1842, the department was renamed the
Foreign Department without any significant change in its functioning. In
1914, in response to the growing need to deal systematically with
subjugated Indian princes, a ‘political’ wing was added and the merged
entity was designated the Foreign and Political Department. The foreign
wing continued to be responsible for the affairs of India’s tribal areas,
Sikkim, Bhutan, the Indian possessions of France and Portugal, the
neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, Nepal and Tibet, as well as the
territories under British rule or influence in the Gulf region.
Even as the range of its activities expanded, the senior ranks of the
foreign wing of the department continued to be manned exclusively by
British personnel. Its policies and actions continued to be dictated from
Whitehall in London and implemented under the governor general’s
direction without consultation with, or knowledge of, any Indian member of
his executive council. All this would change with Nehru joining the
Governor General’s Executive Council as vice chairman and member in
charge of external affairs in 1946.
A further change in the department’s nomenclature occurred with the
adoption, by the British Parliament, of the Government of India Act, 1935.
In order to keep the affairs of the princely states out of the purview of
Indian members of the Governor General’s Executive Council, the political
wing was separated from the department and placed directly under the
viceroy as the crown representative. The Indian government, also headed by
the governor general, had no authority to pry into the relations between the
imperial power and its Indian satrapies. In August 1947 this political wing
became the ‘States Department’ under the first home minister of
independent India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
In a parallel development in 1941, a Department of Indians Overseas was
set up to deal with the work which, till then, was handled within the Indian
government’s Department of Education, Lands and Development. In 1946,
when Nehru took charge of it along with the External Affairs Department,
he gave it a new name—the Department of Commonwealth Relations.
As Independence approached, British officers who occupied all senior
positions in the External Affairs Department were preparing to return to
Britain or to go over to Pakistan.10 Nehru’s first foreign secretary, an
English gentleman named Creighton, who was a member of the old Foreign
and Political Service, had also indicated his desire to return to Britain, and
he actually left for home in August 1947. Clearly, a thorough overhaul of
the outdated External Affairs Department was needed. As a first step Nehru
merged the two departments of Commonwealth Relations and External
Affairs into the new ministry of external affairs, and entrusted the tasks of
its reorganization to Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, whom he had summoned
from Washington to head the new ministry as secretary general.
chapter two
THE CREATION OF THE INDIAN FOREIGN
SERVICE
It fell to Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai to begin the process of creating an Indian
Foreign Service from scratch and to man the Foreign Office with competent
personnel. His experience as India’s agent general in Washington DC would
have been useful even though it was not a diplomatic post in the
conventional sense. The main purpose for its creation was to have a senior
and respected Indian member of the ICS in the American capital to aid the
British government’s war propaganda, disparage the Indian Independence
movement and its leaders, and justify or explain away the brutal repression
unleashed by the government on the Indian National Congress and its
supporters after Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement on 15
August 1942; in short, to tell a lot of lies about India to unsuspecting
Americans on behalf of his wily British masters.
It is hard to say that Bajpai’s heart and soul were in his unsavoury anti-
national mandate. In any case, his success in the particular task of
maligning the Independence movement and leaders of the Indian National
Congress did not seem to have made a dent in the reputation Gandhi and
Nehru enjoyed in the United States, or in the admiration mixed with
curiosity with which Americans viewed the non-violent character of the
movement for Independence led by Gandhi.
Nehru’s sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit made countrywide lecture tours of
the United States to tell the truth about India, while Bajpai was still in
occupation of the post of agent general, and this had a far greater effect in
generating sympathy and support for India’s Independence in America’s
official and non-official circles. As war approached India from the East and
American soldiers and other Americans started arriving in India in large
numbers, criticism grew in America of London’s folly in alienating the
most popular political force in India—the Indian National Congress.
Did Bajpai know that Pandit was evacuated from India without a passport
in an American military plane with President Roosevelt’s approval, and that
she had several meetings with senior State Department officials in
Washington during her long lecture tour? In any case, there was nothing he
could do except take Pandit’s campaign in his stride. For him those five
years were also an opportunity to observe from his high perch in the US
capital—which would soon overtake London, Paris, Bonn and Moscow in
importance, the changing facets of national and international policies of
great powers at a critical time in world affairs. Quite unintentionally, the
British had opened the portals of the world’s best school for observing and
absorbing the intricacies of international relations and diplomacy to a man
who was going to be Nehru’s most valued and unerring adviser on foreign
policy during the first five years of Independence.
If Nehru had any misgivings about Bajpai’s loyalty, he never showed it.
That Nehru recognized the worth of Bajpai’s experience, his knowledge of
world affairs and of the routine and detail of day-to-day diplomatic
functioning, and his qualities as an upright and reliable civil servant, is
obvious. Whether there was some special or secret reason which made
Nehru repose total confidence and trust in Bajpai to reshape or create the
two institutions, which he was to use directly for the execution of his
foreign policy, remains in the realm of speculation. The two tasks Bajpai
took in hand were rebuilding the Indian Foreign Office and creating the
Indian Foreign Service in July 1947.
Bajpai was a thoroughly disciplined and organized person with a polished
and formal deportment. His speech and writing were characterized by
directness and clarity, precision and economy in the use of words. The
buildings and furnishings he acquired for our embassies in Washington DC
and Paris are evidence of his highly refined taste in matters of architecture
and the arts. I was fortunate to sit in, as a note taker, on a couple of Bajpai’s
meetings with Dr Frank Graham, the UN Good Office’s man on the
Kashmir issue. Graham was a bit long-winded about the virtues of peace
and the importance of settling the problem with Pakistan for the overall
good, progress and prosperity of both countries. Graham was soon reduced
to taking notes of the points Bajpai made. The secretary general concluded
the tutorial on Kashmir by saying that ‘without uttering a threat’, he wanted
to advise Graham to warn the authorities in Pakistan that there are limits to
India’s patience and they should facilitate a peaceful settlement by being
reasonable.
The relationship that developed between Nehru and Bajpai in the next
five years is unique in the annals of relations between a top civil servant
and his minister (who in this case also happened to be a powerful prime
minister). Nehru and Bajpai differed often on issues big and small, such as
Nehru’s China policy, Krishna Menon’s insulting behaviour towards senior
MEA officials or Radhakrishnan’s lofty but unauthorized initiatives for
world peace in Moscow, or on routine administrative matters like the
training of Foreign Service officers etc. Sometimes disagreements came to
such a pass that Bajpai felt compelled to send his letter of resignation to
Nehru, giving reasons for his actions. In five years as secretary general,
Bajpai tendered his resignation on ten or eleven occasions. But Nehru
would not let him go. More often than not Nehru went along with Bajpai’s
view, but even when he stuck to his own position, he would go out of his
way to persuade Bajpai to stay on the job.
One such occasion arose in the early weeks of their association. On
Bajpai’s suggestion, Nehru agreed that thirty Indian officers of the ICS,
with some experience of overseas service, should constitute the nucleus of
the new Indian Foreign Service; but in agreeing to this, and also to the
recruitment of another eighty to hundred overage professionals through
interviews by the Union Public Service Commission, Nehru had also told
Bajpai that entrants to the service should be informed beforehand that
ambassadorial posts would be beyond their reach, as all such posts would
be filled by eminent persons chosen by the government from public life.
Bajpai protested against that stipulation. He recognized, he said, the foreign
minister’s prerogative to select some heads of mission from public life, but
a general embargo denying top posts to career officers, as a rule, would
dissuade persons with ability from joining the new service. He told the
prime minister that he would not accept responsibility for implementing his
decision and the task should be entrusted to someone else—a politely
worded threat of resignation. Nehru saw the point and did not press his idea
further.1
A more serious disagreement arose in 1950 on Krishna Menon’s alleged
ill treatment of MEA officials and on some other issues on which Nehru
had simply ignored Bajpai’s advice. Bajpai felt he had outlived his use in
the ministry and wrote a long letter of resignation explaining his reasons for
the action. Nehru reassured Bajpai of his deep appreciation of the great
value of his work and persuaded him to withdraw his resignation. This, and
other such incidents say a lot about Bajpai’s administrative foresight and his
firmness when convinced that a point of principle that he had raised was
sound . . . They also do credit to Nehru’s generosity of spirit and his
readiness to acknowledge an error of judgement. Their close working
relationship was based on mutual regard and respect, which, however, did
not prevent serious disagreements and occasional confrontations on issues
about which either felt strongly.
On China policy, for example, where Nehru had overruled Bajpai and
persisted in a course recommended, allegedly, by Ambassador K.M.
Panikkar and which Bajpai considered flawed, he did not push matters to
breaking point. For in such matters Bajpai ungrudgingly acknowledged the
prime minister’s prerogative as the final authority in making policy. Nehru,
on his part, saw no reason why the secretary general should agree to any
basic policy to which he was opposed. When the time came finally for
Bajpai to retire for reasons of health in 1952, Nehru, in consideration of his
services and healthcare needs, rewarded him with the coveted governorship
of Maharashtra.
Soon after taking over as secretary general, Bajpai recalled Subimal Dutt
from Bengal where he was secretary, Agricultural Department, to take over
as commonwealth relations secretary in the department. Dutt had earlier
worked under Bajpai in a Central government department and had also
served as agent of the Government of India in Malaya. K.P.S. Menon, who
was India’s agent general at Chungking, was brought back to take over as
foreign secretary. This core team then assembled another twenty-seven ICS
officers to fill posts at headquarters and abroad. Eight of this constellation
of stars—R.K. Nehru, S. Dutt, M.J. Desai, Y.D. Gundevia, C.S. Jha,
Rajeshwar Dayal, T.N. Kaul and Kewal Singh, became foreign secretaries
one after another. Their reign in the MEA ended when Jagat Mehta—a war
service recruit from the Royal Indian Navy, took over as foreign secretary
on Kewal Singh’s retirement in 1976. Mehta was followed in that post three
years later by R.D. Sathe, who had been transferred from the Indian army to
the External Affairs Department in 1945, and posted in the agent general’s
office in Chunking as second secretary.
Bajpai and K.P.S. Menon did not join the new service, but the other
twenty-seven were seconded into different grades of it, in accordance with
their seniority in their old cadre. Even among those who did not reach the
top posts of foreign secretary and secretary general, there were men of great
ability, like Azim Hussain for example, who missed becoming foreign
secretary because the considerations of seniority worked against him. All of
them were men of good calibre, with extensive knowledge of Indian
conditions. They combined some experience of overseas service, a high
degree of self-assurance and a suave demeanour. At headquarters or abroad,
they went about their tasks with a spring and swagger in their gait and dealt
with complex, unanticipated problems with ease and impressive efficiency.
The only problem with the induction of such a large number of
comparatively young ICS officers was that they blocked the promotion
prospects of the next lot of eighty overaged members of the IFS for many
years, causing much frustration down the ranks.
In addition, another ten or twelve ICS officers, who did not join the IFS,
were also given senior assignments at headquarters and in missions abroad.
Notable among them were N.R. Pillai, who followed Bajpai as secretary
general, H.S. Malik (ambassador in Paris), C.C. Desai (high commissioner
in Colombo), C.S. Venkatachari (high commissioner in Canada), B.R. Sen
(CDA/ambassador in Washington DC, from where he went to the FAO as
its head for many years), L.K. Jha (ambassador in Washington), B.K. Nehru
(minister economic) and later ambassador in Washington and high
commissioner in London). B.K. Gokhale and Bhagwan Sahay distinguished
themselves as ambassadors in Kathmandu, in some respects the most
important and prestigious but trying post for an Indian ambassador. B.K.
Nehru’s long and most successful tenures in the US and Britain put him in a
special category of his own.
In my early years of service I was privileged to work under Nehru, Sen,
Gokhale and Sahay and learnt much from them about the form and
substance of diplomacy. They were men of great wisdom and outstanding
God-given diplomatic skills. They met and dealt with presidents and prime
ministers, kings and queens on equal footing and won their respect. It was
my great good luck to enjoy their affection, paternal guidance, trust and
confidence. What I learnt working under their watchful and sympathetic
gaze in those formative early years stood me in good stead later in my
career. The best part of a young IFS officer’s training lies in his assignments
in the first four or five years under caring, interested and sympathetic
ambassadors in active missions abroad.
Clearly, there was immediate need for at least eighty to hundred or more
persons with good educational backgrounds and professional competence in
suitable vocations to fill posts at home and abroad. For this purpose the
Union Public Service Commission of India prescribed educational and other
qualifications, including experience of work in existing central and
provincial services, the academia and other fields, and invited applications.
On the basis of the results of interviews, the commission recommended
three or four hundred candidates for entry into the Foreign Service, but the
secretary general was not satisfied with the commission’s selections, out of
which he accepted only sixty or sixty-five for the new Indian Foreign
Service.
Bajpai then set up a small committee of secretaries headed by himself, to
select a score or more candidates through interviews, without advertising
the posts or the qualifications required for them. To give the committee a
public face, a well-known industrialist, Lala Shri Ram, was included in it as
a member. There was criticism of this irregular procedure in Parliament and
the press, and complaints also reached the prime minister. Clearly some
favouritism and wrongdoing was involved. Some of those candidates
selected by the Bajpai Committee were as young, some even younger than,
the candidates who joined the service through the Commission’s
competitive examination for All India Services in 1948–49: they should
have taken the exams route.
The prime minister did not take too serious a note of the complaints and
only asked Bajpai to include in the committee’s selections a few persons
from the minority community and some officers of the disbanded Indian
National Army whose personnel, even educated and qualified ones, were
finding it difficult to get suitable employment. The Bajpai Committee
complied with this request of the prime minister, but grudgingly. It selected
only four former INA officers for the service: Abid Hasan Safrani, K.M.
Kannam Pillay, M.M. Khurana and Mahboob Ahmad. The seniority allotted
to these patriotic gentlemen was not commensurate either with their age or
the national service they had rendered, and this worked against their rise to
the high positions they merited in their careers. For us, junior members who
entered the service through competitive examinations, they were heroes.
Of this entire lot of entrants into the IFS, eighteen came from the armed
forces, four from the former Indian National Army, six from the old Indian
Foreign and Political Service and other central and provincial services, half
a dozen were princes from the former ruling houses, a handful came from
the media and the remaining from academic and legal professions. There
was no time to impart any kind of training to this heterogeneous group with
wide differences in age, educational background and professional
experience. They were straightaway deployed in a wide variety of tasks at
headquarters and in missions abroad, with which they had no prior
acquaintance. Among them there were some very able men, for example,
R.G. Rajwade, I.J. Bahadur Singh, K.V. Padmanabhan, J.C. Kakar, B. Rajan
(a former Cambridge don who left the service after a few years) and Rikhi
Jaipal—but ambassadorial posts were long in coming to them. In particular,
important embassies remained beyond their reach because ICS incumbents
outstayed them in the service and in the posts of that category.
An exception was K.R. Narayanan, who not only rose to be India’s
ambassador in China and the United States but, post-retirement,
successfully fought an election, won a seat in the Lok Sabha and, in course
of time, became India’s vice president, and later, President. Another
exception was P.N. Haksar, an intellectual giant who replaced a non-IFS
officer of the ICS, L.K. Jha as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s principal
secretary and filled that post with distinction during the critical years of the
Bangladesh War and the Emergency. Later, he was deputy chairman of the
Planning Commission, a post carrying cabinet rank. However, overall they
were all highly competent men, and unfamiliar as they were with the
manner and substance of diplomatic functioning, they brought much credit
to Indian diplomacy in a tension-filled and Cold War-stricken world. What
is more, they, rather than the elite ICS group, gave the nascent service its
esprit de corps.
chapter three
NEHRU’S AMBASSADORS OF TRUTH AND
GOODWILL: THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS AND
FAILURES
Many foreign countries had expressed the desire to open their embassies in
Delhi, and Nehru himself had also decided to send resident ambassadors to
forty countries. With the limited induction of about 100 persons in the
Foreign Service, independent India’s Foreign Office had become a
functional entity and Nehru proceeded to select ambassadors who would
head the new embassies and high commissions. The target of forty Indian
diplomatic missions abroad was reached in 1950.
Because of the paucity of career officers of sufficient seniority at least in
the first round of appointments to ambassadorial posts, the prime minister
had no choice except to select eminent persons from public life. He sent
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Moscow followed by Dr S. Radhakrishnan; Asaf
Ali to Washington; Krishna Menon to London; K.M. Panikkar to Peking
followed by N. Raghavan of the INA;1 Sri Prakasa to Karachi; B.N. Rao as
permanent representative to the UN; Abdur Rauf to Rangoon; C.P.N. Singh
to Kathmandu; Diwan Chaman Lall to Ankara; Minoo Masani to Brazil; Ali
Zaheer to Tehran; Apa Pant to Kenya; Ali Yawar Jung to Argentina;
Niranjan Singh Gill, an INA hero, successively to Ethiopia, Thailand and
Mexico. Kesava Menon, an activist in the Independence movement and the
founder and chief editor of Mathrubhumi, was sent to Colombo where he
was succeeded by V.V. Giri as high commissioner in Colombo in 1951–52.
Dr Tara Chand, a historian, was sent to Tehran, following Ali Zaheer’s
retirement. A few more important public figures were given ambassadorial
appointments especially in London and Washington, as and when these
posts fell vacant: Benegal Rama Rau, G.L. Mehta and M.C. Chagla went to
Washington; B.G. Kher and Dr J.N. Mehta became high commissioners in
London after Krishna Menon.
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and all the others were members of the Indian
National Congress or supporters and sympathizers of its non-violent
struggle for freedom. They were not given any training in diplomatic
functioning or formal instruction except, as I learnt later from some of
them, that in informal conversations Nehru told them that he was not
sending them abroad to lie for their country; that the world knew little about
India and its problems and there was curiosity about it and its policies. ‘So,
explain our problems and policies truthfully and offer India’s friendship to
the countries to which you are accredited, and win their goodwill and
friendship.’
Two of those eminent public figures, V.V. Giri and S. Radhakrishnan,
later filled the highest position as India’s presidents. Krishna Menon joined
the cabinet as defence minister and was also the designated permanent
leader of Indian delegations to the UN. M.C. Chagla rose to be India’s
foreign minister. Of the rest, only Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, K.M. Panikkar,
C.P.N. Singh, Apa Pant and Ali Yavar Jung were honoured with repeat
appointments as heads of mission.
G.L. Mehta, who followed Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit as ambassador in
Washington and held that post for a period of six years (1952–58), deserves
a special mention for keeping India–US relations on an even keel at a time
of many differences and difficulties between the two countries.
C.P.N. Singh will be long remembered for his bold and imaginative
decision to give asylum to King Tribhuvan and his family when they drove
into his residence in Kathmandu. He later helped to fly them out to India,
defying threats of the Rana prime minister—the de facto ruler of Nepal.
This put an end to a 104-year long rule of the Ranas and changed Nepal’s
history. Apa Pant and Ali Yawar Jung were known in India and foreign
diplomatic circles for their youthful enthusiasm, sophistication, personal
elegance and the ability to make friends.
Another notable, though a later appointee from public life, was
Gopalaswami Parthasarathy, who distinguished himself as India’s
ambassador in a number of difficult assignments, notably in China from
1958 to 1961, when India–China relations were on a downward slide, and
in Pakistan from 1962 onwards, a tough period for Indian diplomacy
between the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and the Pakistan–India war of 1965.
He also filled with distinction the post of India’s permanent representative
to the UN. With his imperturbable temperament, Parthasarathy combined
extraordinary negotiating skills, tact and patience which he used to help
resolve international problems as well as long-pending contentious
domestic issues. For many years he was a close and trusted adviser of prime
ministers Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
All these were persons of eminence in India’s public life as politicians,
freedom fighters, lawyers, writers and thinkers, who had made a mark in
their respective fields of activity. Four of them, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit,
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, V.K. Krishna Menon and K.M. Panikkar were
already internationally known figures. Much has been written about them,
in praise and in criticism of their achievements and failures—and they had
some failures too—as India’s representatives abroad. I was fortunate to
know them fairly well, had opportunities to work under them or observe
them in action in the world’s most important capitals. Their pioneering
work in the unfamiliar domain of diplomacy was truly remarkable and it
influenced my own life in diplomacy a good deal.
I have very fond memories of my association with them and if I recall
some of them here I do so not in judgement, but as tributes of a disciple to
his gurus:
Madam Mayor, when they were out there in India we learnt some
things from them, Englishmen; and we also tried to teach them
something of our millennial lore, one part of which says that, in or out
of office, a woman remains a woman, that she should be respected and
admired as such and that there are many ways of showing her your
adoration and love without imagining her as a man, or worse, making a
man out of her!
Amid much merriment a connoisseur from the back rows shouted: ‘Kama
Sutra!’
Finally, I said, ‘Madam Mayor, I hope and pray that the effects of the
transmogrification practised on you are not irreversible.’
The laughter seemed unending and I could not even touch on the
afternoon’s political theme—something about the relevance or importance
of democracy. Madam Mayor herself was in splits. She got up, gave me a
hug and led me, hand in hand, to the tea table. During the next day or two
of the conference, the good lady was my friendly guide to the intricacies of
the Conservative Party politics, and through her I met a large number of
constituency party leaders.
The English love a joke: more so a joke on themselves. Had we known
this, we might have laughed them out of India long before 1947! Or, maybe
not; for in India they ceased to be British or English. They were imperialists
—the rulers of a conquered race without even the right colour of skin!
Mrs Pandit had great capacity to laugh and make others laugh. I had first
met her at Prime Minister Nehru’s residence in 1951 at a family gathering
through the courtesy of her son-in-law, Gautam Sehgal, a good friend of
mine. The room resounded with laughter as she regaled us with the foibles,
eccentricities and vanities of the high and mighty she had met at the UN
and elsewhere. I was privileged to meet her often during the following years
in Delhi and abroad. In 1954, I accompanied her on her week-long official
visit to Sri Lanka as UNGA president, and observed her dealings with men
and matters at several public gatherings and in a few tête-à-têtes. She was
quick to discern a hidden contretemps or some lurking contrariness in an
opponent’s argument and conjure up an anecdote with an infectious touch
of humour to diffuse the awkwardness of the moment.
Her ability to deal with complex and difficult problems and situations
with natural ease and sympathetic understanding always left a favourable
impact on situations and people she dealt with.
Mrs Pandit was a natural master of the art of diplomacy. Though she
failed to achieve much in Moscow or Washington, she was a great success
at the UN and during her seven-year tenure as high commissioner in
London.
DR SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN
Mrs Pandit’s successor as India’s ambassador in Moscow, the eminent
scholar and philosopher, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was Nehru’s most
imaginative choice for the post at that particular time. Stalin had to be
convinced of the genuineness of India’s Independence, of the depth of
India’s concern over Cold War tensions and its desire for peace and for
Russia’s friendship and cooperation. The usual diplomatic approach would
be of no avail, and Radhakrishnan was just the man for the complex task.
On the eve of his departure for Moscow, Nehru had said in a speech in
Delhi on 24 August 1949 that Radhakrishnan would go to Russia as the
symbol of India, that he had the capacity to understand the Soviet Union
and world developments and also to make the world understand what India
stood for.3
A contemporary of Bertrand Russell’s, Radhakrishnan was already a
towering figure in the world’s philosophical circles. A humanist thinker and
an eloquent public speaker, he was known internationally for his forceful
advocacy of human brotherhood and a world of harmony, peace and
cooperation. In 1936, he became the Spalding professor of Eastern
Religions and a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford. He wrote several
books on Hindu religion and Vedanta philosophy and was regarded as their
most authoritative interpreter. His knowledge of other religions—Judaism,
Christianity, Buddhism and Islam—and their scriptures, was equally
impressive. His lean, tall figure and austere appearance made him look like
a modern messiah. When he spoke, his audiences were mesmerized. In
private conversation he was an absolute charmer and could make even the
stolid Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko laugh.
He took to diplomacy with effortless ease because he chose to remain
what he was, and introduced in diplomacy’s stilted narrative a touch of
informality, candour and humour, mixed with moral fervour. Stalin was
intrigued by this uncommon ambassador’s reputation as a philosopher of
the urgings of the soul of man, and by the reports he had received of his
austere appearance and ascetic way of life.
Before Radhakrishnan arrived in Moscow, the Russians had conducted a
nuclear test challenging the United States’ nuclear monopoly. It was a time
of growing tensions and the lengthening shadow of conflict between the
two power blocks. There were also new uncertainties in Asia caused by the
victory of communists led by Mao in China, and the conflicts in the Korean
peninsula and Vietnam. In those circumstances Radhakrishnan felt impelled
to enlarge his own role way beyond the normal remit of an ambassador, to
nudge the US and the USSR towards better understanding of each other and
a possible detente.
According to Dr S. Gopal,4 Radhakrishnan’s son and biographer, the
ambassador believed that accommodation between the Soviet and Western
ways of life was not impossible; nor was the blame for tensions wholly on
one side, and that intolerance was not peculiar to Russian communism. He
felt it was wrong on the part of Western powers to summarily reject Stalin’s
repeated statements about the possibility of peaceful coexistence. He then
went on, without Nehru’s approval or instructions, to emphasize the
urgency and importance of a meeting of six heads of government—two
from Asia (including India) and two from Europe, to join those of the
United States and the Soviet Union—‘to dissipate the blinding mist of
misunderstanding and break through the mounting wall of prejudice’. He
declared his support also for the idea of a four-power summit, which had
been floated by Moscow earlier.
All this was embarrassing for the government, and it did not cut ice with
the Western powers. Neither the US, nor the European powers were in
favour of such a meeting. Its public support by the Indian ambassador in
Moscow only caused annoyance in Washington. But Moscow was delighted
with Radhakrishnan’s enthusiastic support and the fact that he was
disseminating Stalin’s ideas and proposals not only in Russia but also
globally from the platform of the UNESCO General Conference. Again,
without authorization or instruction from Delhi, the ambassador had
engaged in negotiations with the American ambassador in Moscow
concerning the proposed summit meeting. Also he had meetings with
British Prime Minister Attlee to convince the latter of Stalin’s sincerity.
Stalin was curious and asked him over to the Kremlin for a meeting at
9:30 p.m. on 15 January 1950. Radhakrishnan opened the conversation by
saying that India’s independent foreign policy of Non-alignment sought
peace and friendship with all nations, and that India attached special
importance to the Soviet Union’s understanding and friendship. Stalin asked
whether the Indian army was still commanded by British officers and
whether India had a navy. Two more intriguing questions followed: Why
was Ceylon not a part of India? And did Maldives belong to India? To all
these queries, the ambassador gave appropriate answers. Finally, after
deploring the Cold War, the ambassador suggested that the Soviet Union
should take the initiative to end it. When Stalin said that there was also
another side responsible for it and it takes two to clap, the ambassador’s
solution to the problem left him without an answer: ‘As a peace-loving
country the Soviet Union should withdraw its own hand as it takes two
hands to clap.’5
The two austere men, both direct and blunt in speech, had apparently hit
it off. Stalin’s satisfaction with the meeting was made known to the Indian
embassy, and new warmth began to characterize the Indian embassy’s
dealings with the Russian Foreign Office. These were the first results of the
impact of Radhakrishnan’s personality, his sincerity and candour, his
transparent goodwill, his humanist thinking and love of peace.
Radhakrishnan’s informality and directness, accompanied by
unpredictable touches of teasing humour, served him well in the months
that followed. In a meeting with Foreign Minister Andrey Yanuarevich
Vyshinsky, the ambassador suddenly asked him why Russia was not
supporting India on the Kashmir issue in the Security Council. Taken by
surprise by this unanticipated query on an important foreign policy issue,
Vyshinsky mumbled something about India never having asked for Soviet
help in the matter. ‘But that’s what I am doing now, am I not?’
It was that simple; but the results were far-reaching. In the next meeting
of the Security Council in 1951 in Paris, the Soviet Union’s representative
blasted the UK and the USA for meddling in Kashmir’s internal affairs. The
inevitable next step followed in due course: From then on all Western
resolutions in the Security Council, not acceptable to India, were vetoed by
the Russian representative. All this took place on the ambassador’s own
initiative, without consultation with anyone in India. Even Nehru was
surprised how it had happened. He was apprehensive that the Soviet
Union’s support would make Kashmir a Cold War issue. But that fear was
misplaced as Britain and America had already made Kashmir a Cold War
issue by committing their support to Pakistan in utter disregard of the facts
of the case.
When Radhakrishnan was to return to Delhi to take up the post of vice
president, Stalin received him for the second time. At this meeting
Radhakrishnan, while referring to some common ideals shared by India and
the Soviet Union, emphasized India’s commitment to democracy.
This was in response to Stalin’s remarks about India’s soft treatment of
the princes and landlords. Stalin was skeptical of any peaceful advance to
socialism in such easy ways: ‘When a Russian peasant sees a wolf, he
knows how to deal with it. Liquidate, Mr Ambassador.’ Radhakrishnan
asserted that India’s peaceful methods to get rid of exploiters would show a
new way for other nations. The discussion concluded with an unexpected
assurance from Stalin: ‘Both you and Nehru are persons we do not consider
as our enemies. This will continue to be our policy and you can count on
our help.’6 Radhakrishnan had not only achieved a breakthrough in India–
USSR relations, he had pioneered a new course in Indian diplomacy.
On the other hand, the ambassador’s unauthorized public drumming up
of Stalin’s sincerity, and the genuineness of his desire for peace from
Moscow and from UNESCO’s platform, was raising new doubts about
India’s Non-alignment. Radhakrishnan personally was losing credibility in
the West where people were asking whether he was India’s ambassador to
Russia or Stalin’s ambassador to the world. His unauthorized initiatives to
enter into negotiations with the American ambassador in Moscow and the
British prime minister produced no result. An excess of zeal never does any
good in diplomacy.
The philosopher-ambassador got so carried away by his own success in
Moscow that he proposed to Nehru that India and the USSR should enter
into a Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Nehru promptly and categorically
rejected the idea to stop the ambassador from further floating ideas, which
at that time were not in accord with his policy of Non-alignment.
Menon, of course, had something of an actor in him. But his mastery of the
English language was well known, and he had the uncommon ability to
draw out and convincingly put across the implied or hidden meanings of
words. In fact, these attributes had made him such a successful negotiator of
seemingly insoluble problems, like the ones faced by the Geneva
Conference on Vietnam.
I saw a totally different side of Menon’s persona in a meeting with
another noted political personage of the time, Lord Beaverbrook who was a
conservative politician and a close friend of Winston Churchill’s. In March
or April 1962, Beaverbrook had invited Menon to Canada to deliver a
lecture in Montreal, to be followed by a private meeting and tea at his
residence. I was commanded by Menon to accompany him to Montreal and
also be with him for tea with Beaverbrook. The lecture, which took place in
a huge hall, packed to capacity, was a great success. During tea,
Beaverbrook heaped much praise on Menon for saving the Commonwealth
and the good work he was doing in New York as leader of India’s
delegation. Among other things, he said Americans were fools: Top
officials in Washington, instead of listening to Menon’s advice, were
jealous of him etc. Menon, whom Eisenhower considered a menace, was
like a docile and devoted disciple in Beaverbrook’s presence, listening and
reverentially asking questions. With tea, a domestic brought a plateful of
small cupcakes, and Beaverbrook told him he had the cakes especially
baked for him. Wonder of wonders, the abstemious Menon ate four without
a fuss!
K.M. PANIKKAR
K.M. Panikkar was a scholar and a poet, a historian and a university
teacher. He had translated several Greek plays into Malayalam verse. In the
mid-1920s, he joined service in Indian princely states, some of which
pretentiously maintained foreign offices for their dealings, presumably, with
other native states and the viceroy’s representatives— called residents—
positioned in their capital cities to watch over the conduct of the ruling
princes. Panikkar had served as foreign minister of two large Indian states
—Patiala and Bikaner—when he was appointed secretary to the chancellor
of the Chamber of Princes. Nehru had appreciated Panikkar’s work in the
Indian princely states, his moderating influence on the princes and his quiet
sympathy with the activities of the States’ Peoples’ Congress, led by Nehru,
to introduce democratic reforms in those remnants of feudal India.
The publication, in 1945, of his book India and the Indian Ocean had
established Panikkar’s reputation as a strategic thinker. It is a seminal work
which highlights the critical importance of the Indian Ocean to India’s
security and to its relations with South East Asian neighbours and other
littoral regions. The book gave rise to more studies of the subject after
Independence. His Survey of Indian History, published in August 1947,
captures in a short volume of some 300 pages the millennial panorama of
the romance and tragedy of India, the rise and fall of its dynasties and its
revival and resurgence as a civilization and a state. Asia and Western
Dominance, published in 1953, is a unique volume, written from an Asian
perspective, on European relations with Asia.
China was in turmoil, and with the prospect of an uncertain and difficult
transition from the collapsing Kuomintang regime to communist rule; and
to forge India’s relations with the new government, Nehru saw in this
versatile scholar-statesman just the man for the ambassador’s post in
revolutionary China. The ambassador’s task in China was bound to be of
more than usual complexity because the leadership of China’s communist
revolution were an unknown quantity, and cultivating Mao and his senior
colleagues was going to require uncommon political savvy and an
abundance of virtues, which according to nineteenth century American
political theorist Benjamin Franklin, are indispensable in diplomacy
—‘sleepless tact, immovable calmness and a patience that no folly, no
provocations, no blunders can shake’. Panikkar had all that and more.
After China’s invasion of Tibet in 1950, Panikkar was wrongly accused
in India of having misled Nehru about China’s communist rulers, or that he
failed to understand the motives underlying China’s policy towards India. In
fact, the ambassador had foreseen China’s action in Tibet and had been
advising Chinese leaders to avoid use of force and resolve the problem
peacefully through negotiations with the Dalai Lama. Delhi was fully in the
picture about the developing situation, but was in no position to effectively
intervene to prevent China’s reoccupation of Tibet. Those who criticized
Nehru and Panikkar for India’s China policy had exaggerated notions of
India’s economic and military strength to confront and make revolutionary
China reverse its Tibet policy.
Revolutionary China, even in victory, was an angry country. Its leaders
were scornful of India’s non-violent revolution and spoke contemptuously
of Indian leaders, including Nehru, as ‘running dogs of imperialism’. In
New Delhi, Nehru, foreseeing future difficulties over Tibet in particular,
had rightly decided to persevere in a conciliatory approach towards China.
His advice to Panikkar was to do his best to cultivate the friendship of
China’s new leaders, and Panikkar worked with exemplary patience and
diligence to eliminate misunderstandings, suspicions and rivalry, and
succeeded in bringing about a change in the attitude of China’s leaders
towards India. He had no illusions about the nature of his task in Peking. He
knew there were serious issues on which disagreements were bound to arise
between India and China and as he himself notes, ‘with a communist China
cordial and intimate relations were out of the question, but I was fairly
optimistic about working out an area of cooperation by eliminating causes
of misunderstandings, rivalry etc. The only area where our interests
overlapped was in Tibet.’9
In regards to Tibet, his knowledge of China and Chinese history had
convinced him that the British policy of maintaining with force India’s
special political interests could not be sustained. Nehru was in general
agreement with that view. It would have been a foolhardy act for India to
seek to continue with outdated British policy in Tibet. Tibet had come up in
one of the ambassador’s meetings with Zhou En-Lai, and he had expressed
the hope that China would sort out differences with the Tibetans through
peaceful negotiations. Zhou En-Lai’s response was that while they
themselves preferred negotiations to military action, ‘to liberate Tibet was
China’s sacred duty’. In the circumstances, as a realist and far-sighted
diplomatist, all Panikkar could do was to prepare the ground for peaceful
removal, through patient negotiations, of the meaningless relics left behind
by a retreating imperial power. That goal was achieved by the 1954 India–
China agreement on Tibet.
The border problem had not acquired prominence during Panikkar’s
assignment in Peking, which ended in 1952. For various reasons border
negotiations had not even begun then. The souring of India–China relations
occurred in the late 1950s primarily for two reasons: grant of asylum to the
Dalai Lama in 1959, and the opposition in Parliament egged on by the
empty theatrics of inflexible leaders like Acharya Kripalani, to Nehru
taking any pragmatic initiative to find a mutually accommodative solution
to the complex border issue through friendly negotiations with Zhou En-
Lai. Panikkar had no role in those events.
So, by and large, in the course of the early years of Independence these
great ambassadors had not only established friendly relations with
important countries, they had also elaborated and explained India’s
distinctive foreign policy of Non-alignment, and defined the areas of
practical action at the global level to achieve its goals of liberation of
colonial peoples, cooperation for world peace, disarmament and
development, poverty alleviation and halting the nuclear arms race. These
humanitarian concerns of India soon became the most pressing agenda of
the United Nations and its specialized agencies. The quality of the
performance of these representatives of a newly independent country, and
the scale of their achievements in the unfamiliar area of international
relations and diplomacy, were truly praiseworthy—a few setbacks and false
steps due to an excess of zeal notwithstanding.
To the younger IFS officers in the MEA and in missions abroad, this star-
quartet—Mrs Pandit, S. Radhakrishnan, Krishna Menon and K.M. Panikkar
—of Nehru’s ambassadors from public life, were larger-than-life heroes
without any blemish or error. Those of us who were lucky to have the
opportunity to work under one or more of them found them all most kind
and considerate towards us. They were good teachers, and we learnt much
from them and from the way they dealt with people, problems and issues of
policy.
However, the top bureaucracy in the MEA from Secretary General Bajpai
down was openly critical, and often scornful of at least three of them. They
criticized Panikkar for his zealous approbation of Mao and his communist
cohorts; Krishna Menon for his abrasiveness and radical leftism; and
Radhakrishnan for his ‘flights of fancy’,‘ woolliness and naivety’! Towards
Mrs Pandit they were understandably deferential, not only because she was
the prime minister’s sister, but because of her undoubted diplomatic skills—
even the stern Sir Girija was appreciative of her sterling performance at the
UN. The real reason for the top bureaucracy’s resentment was that for
instructions and advice, these four ambassadors dealt directly with Nehru
who was appreciative of their pioneering work in high-level diplomacy and
the fact that despite many difficulties inherent in their tasks they had helped
raise India’s image in the world. That riled the ICS bureaucrats in New
Delhi all the more. But the ambassadors did not care, and Nehru was deaf to
the grumbling and whining of their critics.
It wasn’t that Nehru was unaware of the flaws in their diplomatic
functioning. He had noted, for example, Panikkar’s ‘habit of seeing further
than perhaps facts warrant’. There was a large element of deception in
China’s India policy which Panikkar had failed to detect. He thought Zhou
En-Lai’s cordiality and friendship and his silence on the border issue meant
his acceptance of India’s position. Occasionally he even overstepped his
role as a transmitter of messages to second-guess China’s policy or motives.
In 1950, Panikkar was instructed by Nehru to convey a message from the
United States to China saying that US forces would not cross the 38th
parallel without specific authorization from the UN, and therefore China
should not react sharply to the success of the ongoing American military
campaign in South Korea. Instead of conveying the message to the Chinese
he sent back to Nehru his own view that there was no possibility of China
entering the war unless Russia did so and a world war resulted! Clearly he
had not fully grasped the significance of the American message.
Both Radhakrishnan and Panikkar were unduly alarmed over the
likelihood of the Korean War or the Cold War tensions deteriorating into a
world war. Bluster apart, neither China nor Soviet Russia was really
prepared for a big war; nor were the American people, their hatred of
communism notwithstanding. President Truman wanted to bring the Korean
War to an end, but he had a problem with General MacArthur and it took
him some time to get rid of him. The scare spread by Radhakrishnan,
Panikkar, and Nehru himself about an impending world war because of the
intensity of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race had no real basis, and
even for peace in northeast Asia we need not have indulged China to use us.
There were no worthwhile rewards for India’s peace zealotry. Moscow did
not like our meddling in the Korean issue which was of much closer and
deeper concern to them, and it did no good to the already difficult India–US
relationship.
However, those were early days in the making and implementing of the
foreign policy of a huge new and complex country on the world stage, and
Nehru was not very particular about disciplining his senior ambassadors.
His bemused tolerance of their unauthorized, out-of-line initiatives or faux
pas is best summed up in Gopal’s biography of Nehru:10
The war hysteria and the drift to a world conflict gathered pace, and at
this moment Nehru found his cluster of powerful ambassadors almost
an embarrassment, for they began to display the disadvantages of their
eminence. Each pursued an almost independent foreign policy. Vijaya
Lakshmi [Pandit] was eager to talk to President Truman, Krishna
Menon met Attlee repeatedly, Panikkar saw himself as China’s line of
communication to the world, Radhakrishnan, with his formidable
personal prestige, conducted his own private negotiations for peace
with the Soviet Foreign Office and the American ambassador in
Moscow.
Overall, Nehru was not satisfied with the performance of most of his non-
career ambassadors. S. Dutt, Nehru’s trusted foreign secretary— who was
with him at the Foreign Office for twelve years—records Nehru’s
disappointment with his non-career ambassadors in the following words:
There was a short pause and a booming voice came out with the shocker of
my viva voce:
In my first encounter with them, the United States of America seemed quite
different from the rest of the world and the American people a race apart.
The unique character of the city of New York, where I disembarked one
early morning in late April 1952 after a week’s voyage from Southampton
in Britain, also accentuated the country’s uniqueness. The bustle and energy
of that city was an unforgettable experience. Throughout the day, and
during the better part of the night, I spent in New York before boarding a
train for Washington the following morning—the city hummed with
activity. A break for rest or sleep seemed alien to New Yorkers.
The brash informality of the New York cabbie I had hired for the day for
sightseeing was another new experience. While remaining glued to his seat,
he stretched an arm to unlock the door to the taxi’s passenger seats and
beckoned me to get in and shut the door. The London cabbie, even on a cold
winter morning, would get out of the cab, open the door for you, spread a
blanket on your knees and talk, if at all, about the weather. But my New
York cabbie was more engaging, wanted to know who I was, what my
business was in the US etc. When I told him I was an Indian diplomat on
my way to the Indian embassy in Washington, he exclaimed: ‘Oh, one of
those cookie-pushers! That’s what diplomats do here, push cookies around
at cocktail parties. I guess they do the same down there in Washington.’ We
had a little laugh over that remark, and then, he had more to say: ‘You
Indians are religious people, the hindoos, you know; everybody says India
is a democracy and Nehru is a good man. Then, why do you fellahs love the
Russians so much, those godless communists? They are bad people; no
freedom in that country. We are the good guys, you know. Why don’t you
love us?’
Dave, the cabbie, was a good-natured fellow and in what he had said
there was no anger or unfriendliness, only disappointment tinged with
indignation about India’s lack of love for liberty-loving America and
Americans. So, I felt obliged to respond to his comments. ‘Our religion and
philosophy teach us,’ I said, ‘to regard all humanity as one family and be
tolerant of diversity. As for politics, India, like America, is a democracy and
that is a strong bond between our two countries, and we have learnt much
from American history and its Constitution. India has many problems:
poverty and unemployment, poor agriculture and lack of industry and the
crippling inadequacy of educational and healthcare facilities for our large
population. India needs peace to devote all its resources, energy and
attention to those great tasks facing it. Therefore it must avoid getting
dragged into the fights of the Big Boys. That’s what you Americans did in
the early years of Independence,’ I added. ‘It was good policy; it gave
young America time to develop and become a rich and powerful country.’ ‘I
guess you are right, friend,’ said Dave. There was no more political talk
during the remainder of the day while he was taking me around all the
various sights of his city. Dave turned out to be a pleasant tourist guide.
During a sandwich lunch in a small restaurant, where he was my guest,
he filled me in with lot of information about New York, about life and
politics in America and his own family. At the day’s end we were almost
chums. As I settled the fare and we shook hands, he asked whether I would
let him take me to the railway station the following morning, to which I
readily agreed. He turned up at the hotel on time and drove me to the
railway station. He would not accept payment for the trip or a tip. As we got
out of the taxi and I took out a cigarette, he lit it for me, advised me to
smoke cigars instead, and gave me one for my rail journey to Washington.
That was America, its foreign policy and diplomacy for me on my first
day in the New World!
In 1952, in contrast with New York, Washington was a placid little town
totally without the ceaseless activity and hubbub of New York. There
wasn’t much vehicular traffic in the streets—old-fashioned trams still ran in
the middle of Columbia Street and one or two other main arteries of the
town. It was a good, clean and green city for walking, and many office-
goers preferred to walk to work. The city is located in a depression on the
banks of the Potomac River. The State Department had recently moved into
its new premises close to the river and the wags had appropriately
nicknamed it Foggy Bottom. There were no skyscrapers, no great shopping
malls, only a few hotels and restaurants and little else by way of places of
evening entertainment. The high-domed congressional complex on the
‘hill’, housing the Senate and the House of Representatives, the
Congressional library and the numerous supporting offices and lobbies, was
the only truly imposing edifice of architectural interest. The White House,
or what of that famed residence of the American President is above ground,
had the appearance of a fair-sized colonial bungalow.
The city’s two monuments commemorating presidents Thomas Jefferson
and Abraham Lincoln are among its major attractions. The austere beauty
of the huge statues of the two former presidents and the simplicity and
elegance of the buildings in which they are placed are enhanced by the large
open spaces and water bodies nearby. The Basin at one end of which stands
the Jefferson Memorial is bordered with cherry trees, gifted to the US by
Japan before World War I. In early spring, when for a couple of weeks the
trees are covered with blossoms of shaded hues of pink, tourists flock to
Washington to catch a glimpse of that evanescent vision of beauty from
some other world. The trees decked out in their floral glory and the
blossom-petals gently floating down to unite with their reflections in the
water below are an enchanting sight.
The seemingly easy pace at which life moved in that calm, idyllic
environment was deceptive. In the two years I spent in the American
capital, the Cold War tensions were high and the city was adjusting itself to
its new role as the capital of the leading world power. The conduct of
government officials displayed awareness of their nation’s economic and
military might. To an independent and not unfriendly observer, the
government’s contemporary policies seemed to move in contrary directions
abroad and at home. Washington was generously helping to revive and
rebuild Europe from the ashes of the world’s most destructive war, but in
Asia it appeared determined to blunder into new armed conflicts. It
preached the virtues of democracy to the world but supported military
dictators and autocratic rulers in Asia. Despite its love of liberty and human
freedoms, the nation passively watched the worst ever witch-hunt of decent
citizens of liberal orientation launched by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his
bunch of political bigots.
My post in the embassy carried the designation of third secretary/vice
consul and my responsibilities included attending to all kinds of work
relating to passports and visas, canvassing for increase in the annual
immigration quota of 100 for Indians, looking after the welfare of Indian
citizens of whom there were no more than 2000 or 3000 at that time in the
entire country, taking visiting Indian VIPs on sightseeing tours and to
meetings etc. And, more interestingly, preparing the first draft of the
embassy’s monthly report and giving talks in faraway towns, schools and
colleges to inquisitive audiences about Indian politics, economy, religions
and culture. In addition, any cases from the Indian consulate general in New
York and San Francisco requiring to be taken up with the State Department
or immigration authorities would be handled by me. The workload was
heavy but to dispose of it I had enough staff support and a good measure of
autonomy.
My consular work put me in touch with a wide variety of American
officials, journalists, businessmen and writers intending to visit India. India
was still popular in the country at large, but in the sophisticated, elitist
circles of Washington, it was common to hear Indians being denounced as
‘communist-loving neutrals’, ‘mugwump’s’(roughly, one who didn’t want
to conform), ‘fence-sitting bastards’, or worse. But among the common
citizens of the country there was a great deal of inquisitiveness and hunger
for information about India. There was also a disarming childlike
simplicity, freshness and candour in their desire for being liked, even loved,
which many voiced freely. All this made it easy to like them and be friends
with them.
The embassy used to receive a lot of requests for speakers from a variety
of groups from different parts of the country, and often the ambassador
would ask me to go there and do the talking. On one such occasion I was
the guest speaker at the annual evening function of an all-white women’s
group. The audience consisted of about 200 or so elegantly turned out, good
looking women of different ages. It was an attentive and disciplined
audience and everything was prim and proper and well perfumed in the
small hall of a school. After I had spoken for about thirty or thirty-five
minutes about India’s political system, economic situation, present plans
and aspirations for the future, there followed an hour or so of questions (and
answers) in which I was grilled about Indian spirituality, Hinduism, Yoga,
Hindu gods and goddesses, the caste system, Gandhi and how he managed
to throw the British out of India without war and violence. I dealt with all
that suitably and the meeting ended with warm words of thanks from the
presiding lady and much clapping from the audience.
We were about to move into another room for refreshments, when a well-
groomed, elderly lady approached me, held my hands in both of hers, and
said: ‘Young man I wish you were a Christian!’ There wasn’t the least hint
of intolerance or bigotry in her remark; those words were spoken gently and
with a smile. She meant no offence. Perhaps, this was her way of
complimenting me on the way I had spoken and the content of my talk.
So, I said to her: ‘Ma’am I have studied the gospels and I have profound
respect for your religion; all religions are paths to the same one God. What
matters is that a Christian should be a good Christian and a Hindu a good
Hindu.’ I do not know whether this satisfied her, but there was no more talk
of religion while we sat together at the same table for refreshments.
American society in those days was deeply religious with profound
attachment to family ethics and moral values. Marriage was regarded a
sacrosanct bond, and one rarely heard or read in the papers of breakups.
Family bonds were strong and teenagers—boys and girls—behaved
responsibly and there was seldom a case of rape or teenage pregnancy.
There was an appealing simplicity and innocence, warmth and instinctive
generosity of spirit in the common American citizen. The sex revolution
and the cult of free love, which erupted in full fury in the wake of the
Kinsey Report on female sexuality, the pill, drug use, the Beatles’ New
York visit followed by the explosion of new music and the Woodstock
Youth Festival were still a decade or two in the future.
The ruling elite of Washington were a sophisticated lot determined to
retain world dominance through the use of the country’s military and
economic might. They fully expected the world to fall in line with their
goals and their ways to achieve them. And yet, among the two score or
more foreign offices in the world I must have personally interacted with in
my long career in the Indian Foreign Service, I found the State Department
the easiest to deal with regardless of serious differences of policy and
objectives between the governments of India and the US. As a rule, the
department officials were informal, personally friendly, forthright, and even
bluntly frank without being offensive in expressing their personal
viewpoints or in communicating their government’s policies or decisions on
specific issues.
During my very first call on the State Department’s India-desk team, we
got on to first-name terms—their preferred style. Williams L.S. Williams,
the India-desk team leader, took the initiative to set the tone: addressing me
as Mr Maharajakrishna Rasgotra, he said, ‘I am Bill, your name is too long;
I am told you are known as Krishna to your friends. Even that is a bit long;
we are going to call you Krish. Is that okay?’ So from then on it was Bill
and Krish. Williams and his beautiful Argentinian wife, Arlita, became
good friends and through them I soon met several others, in the State
Department and in other wings of government, whom I needed to contact
from time to time for consular matters.
In one of my meetings with him a few weeks later, Williams said to me,
‘Krish, strictly between you and me, New Delhi’s preaching peace to us is
pushing my seniors closer to Pakistan.’ I said there was no preaching; New
Delhi’s concern and worry should be appreciated. China, and conflicts and
tensions in Korea and Vietnam, are not far from the subcontinent. He
acknowledged all that and added that he thought, nevertheless, that as a
friend he should share with me the thinking of American policymakers on a
personal basis. My seniors in the embassy rejected this early warning as
‘typical bragging by a junior State Department official’! Bill wasn’t all that
junior either; he was the senior-most official on the India desk.
At the personal level it was all courtesy and bonhomie between us in the
embassy and the American officials, but US–India relations were moving
from differences and disagreements to serious trouble. Prime Minister
Nehru had paid his first visit to the US on President Truman’s invitation in
1949, and though he had been received with great cordiality and warmth in
Washington and in every other place he visited in the country, his
substantive talks with the President, and especially with Secretary of State
Dean Acheson had not gone well.
Nehru’s advocacy of early recognition of Mao’s government and its
admission into the UN, and his frequent assertion that communism as a
doctrine was alien to the Chinese mind had caused much dismay and
irritation to Dean Acheson. Nor did Nehru’s forthright condemnation of
Dutch and French actions to suppress freedom movements in Indonesia and
Indo-china go down well with the Europe-oriented secretary of state.
Acheson thought Nehru’s stance on Kashmir unreasonably rigid and
uncompromising. Nehru, on the other hand, felt that Washington and
London had deliberately diverted the UN Security Council’s attention away
from the basic issue of Pakistan’s aggression to appease Pakistan, a country
they looked to as the most important future link in the Islamic security
crescent they were priming up against the USSR in the north and against
China in the east.
While Acheson’s knowledge of Asia and Asian problems was rather
limited, Nehru’s narrative was suffused with expressions of the Asian
continent’s suspicions, grievances and aspirations. So, there was no meeting
of minds and little effort to find some common ground and explore areas of
joint action on big issues of the day—the lessening of Cold War tensions,
possible American cooperation in India’s agricultural and industrial
development or even a common approach to resolving the Kashmir problem
bilaterally on the basis of the actual situation on the ground.
It is not that Acheson was not keen to befriend Nehru; only the chemistry
between the two strong personalities was all wrong. After a formal dinner
Acheson had hosted for him, he took Nehru to his residence for a private
talk in the hope of establishing a rapport with him. Acheson sums up the
results of that meeting as follows:
Having talked from 10:30 (p.m.) till past one ’o clock in the morning
after a strenuous day, my guest had clearly earned a rest. For my part, I
was becoming a bit confused. We therefore adjourned this interesting
talk. It made a deep impression on me. I was convinced that Nehru and
I were not destined to have a pleasant personal relationship. He was so
important to India and India’s survival so important to all of us, that if
he did not exist—as Voltaire said of God—he would have to be
invented. Nevertheless, he was one of the most difficult men with
whom I have ever had to deal.2
The official part of Nehru’s visit was clearly not a success in initiating a
positive trend in relations between the two great democracies, but on the
American public Nehru had left a positive impact. The public acclaim for
him was reflected in the large crowds that gathered to see and hear him
wherever he went, and in the numerous personal tributes paid to him as an
outstanding democratic leader and a towering world figure. The Christian
Science Monitor described him as a ‘World Titan’. At the public meeting in
Chicago on 26 October 1949 to welcome Nehru, Adlai Stevenson described
him ‘as one of those tiny handful of men who have influenced the
impeccable forces of our time . . . He belongs to the even smaller company
of figures who wore a halo in their own lifetimes’. But all the public
adoration showered on Nehru by Americans was of little help in arresting
the drift in official relations between Washington and New Delhi.
Deep differences had arisen between the two countries on the Japanese
peace treaty, and on China, Korea and Vietnam. With the passage of time
other issues would arise to deepen the divide between them: Nuclear Non-
proliferation Treaty (NPT) for example. The relations between the two
countries worsened after John Foster Dulles succeeded Acheson as
secretary of state. The Middle Eastern Defense Organization (MEDO), the
Baghdad Pact, and South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) were all
created by Dulles, with Pakistan at the centre of all those military pacts. To
enable the Pakistan army to play its new role, the US undertook to increase
its strength and equip it with modern American weapons. The irony of
ironies: Dulles, who had condemned Non-alignment as evil, on a visit to
New Delhi in 1956 had the temerity to tell Nehru to join SEATO and
change it from within!
The changeover from Acheson to Dulles had occurred while I was still in
Washington. The new secretary of state was intolerant of dissent and utterly
ignorant about Asian sensitivities. Nor was he strong on his facts. He was
driven by the zeal to destroy communism. When Walter Lippmann3 asked
him why he was boosting Pakistan so much, Dulles answered he was doing
that because Pakistan had the best fighters in the world—the Gurkhas! Such
was his knowledge of South Asia.
Dean Acheson was far more sophisticated and cultivated, with a kinder,
gentler side to his personality. In the first few weeks of my stay in
Washington, I was without a car and I used to walk from a hotel on 16th
Street to the Indian Chancery at 2107 Massachusetts Avenue. One morning,
to my surprise, I saw Dean Acheson walking to his office from the opposite
direction. As we drew nearer, I wished him good morning and he graciously
wished me back. On the second or third such chance encounter when I
wished him ‘good morning’, he stopped for a moment and asked who I was
and whether I knew him. I said: ‘Sir, the whole world knows the secretary
of state. I am an Indian diplomat; third secretary in the Indian embassy.’ He
said he was glad to meet me. We shook hands and moved on.
On 4 July 1952, the US’s National Day, every single diplomatic officer,
right down to third secretary in all of the fifty or so embassies, was invited
to the midday reception at the White House, where President Truman and
Mrs Truman stood at the receiving line to personally greet the guests. While
standing in the queue awaiting my turn to greet the President, I saw Dean
Acheson talking to some guests nearby. I was quite sure the great man had
not noticed me. But a few minutes later, as my turn came to approach the
President, Acheson appeared on the spot, caught me by the hand and
presented me to him saying: ‘Mr President, this young friend of mine is a
secretary in the Indian embassy.’ The President greeted me with a smile and
a warm handshake. The reception room was crowded and I did not think
anyone could have noticed this act of extraordinary kindness on Acheson’s
part, but one of my senior colleagues in the embassy and someone from the
India desk had observed the event.
There was quite a buzz about it in the embassy for weeks, and it made
my dealings with the India desk in the State Department even easier and
more pleasant.
But the relations between India and the United States continued to
decline, not only because of Dulles’ condemnation of India’s Non-
alignment policy as evil, but because he considered Indian policies
concerning China and other Asian issues—the Korean truce negotiations,
the Japanese peace treaty etc.—as anti-American, pro-communist and pro-
Soviet Russia. Vice President Richard Nixon, who entertained similar views
had visited India (and Pakistan) in late 1952. He was lionized in Pakistan
but in India he was given VIP treatment appropriate, protocol wise, to his
status. On return he complained that his meetings with Nehru were a long
lecture by the prime minister on world affairs, as if he (Nixon) was an
ignorant novice. Consequently he nursed a lifelong grudge against India,
Nehru, and his daughter Indira. He did his worst to spread prejudice against
India in Washington’s political circles.
However, all the blame for the downward drift in relations does not lie
with the American side. Some of our own policies and actions of that early
period were questionable. Why did India have to pitch in so firmly against
the US, at considerable risk to US–India relations, on issues like the
Japanese peace treaty’s failure to include the return of Formosa to China
and of South Sakhalin and the Kurile islands to Russia? India also objected
to the continuing presence of American troops in Japan and American
trusteeship over the small Japanese islands of Ryukyu and Bonin. Those
were issues to be resolved between the US, China, Russia and Japan. No
vital Indian national interest was involved in any of those issues, and we
should not have allowed differences over them to become a fundamental
problem between India and the United States.
America is an inheritor of the European political and diplomatic tradition.
Dean Acheson and other power-wielders in Washington were statesmen in
the European mould. Newly independent India had awoken to its own
inheritance of a millennial tradition, which regarded the world as one
family and valued human dignity, tolerance, peace and cooperation above
all else. China was the inheritor of its own tradition, very different from
India’s, and at least in its reliance on power as the arbiter in international
policies, it was closer to the Euro-US tradition. In the circumstances, while
Non-alignment was the right policy, Nehru’s championship of Asia and
Asian causes was premature. He rightly regarded Asian cooperation and
solidarity in India’s national interest, but these were not existing realities,
but distant goals to be worked for not only by India but China and others as
well. Was the policy of Non-alignment intended to have relevance only to
the US–USSR power struggle? It might have served Indian interests better
if Nehru had decided to remain non-aligned in the ensuing contest between
the USA and communist China also.
By giving asylum to King Tribhuvan and his family in the Indian embassy
in November 1950, and by arranging for them to fly out to India in defiance
of Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shamsher’s protests and threats, Indian
ambassador to Nepal, C.P.N. Singh had changed Nepal’s history. On his
triumphant return to Kathmandu in February 1951, the king, for a while,
needed and relied on C.P.N. Singh’s advice and support in several critical
decisions he had to make on issues of political importance, such as cabinet
formation and the creation of a new administrative framework for the
country. The remnants of the Rana regime and their henchmen, and even
some disgruntled elements in the democratic political parties, resented it
and kicked up a shindy about India’s interference in Nepal’s domestic
affairs. C.P.N. Singh had served Nepal and India well, and at the end of his
normal tenure as ambassador, Nehru summoned him to a series of equally
important other assignments. His successor, B.K. Gokhale, a highly
respected member of the former ICS, was ambassador in Kathmandu when
I reported for duty as second secretary in April 1954.
Nepal was passing through a difficult transition from autocratic rule to
democratic governance and it needed all kinds of help from India.
Managing that change in the nature and scope of India–Nepal relations was
not going to be easy. For while Nepal was in dire need of reviving and
reorganizing its military, economy and administration, which were
destroyed by the widespread armed insurrection triggered by King
Tribhuvan’s voluntary exile, India ran the risk of getting too deeply
involved in the process and attracting criticism and accusations of
interfering in Nepal.
What India had not anticipated or suspected was that anti-India criticism
would be inspired and encouraged by a weak Nepal government to divert
the blame for its failures to alleged Indian interference and intervention.
That made the Indian embassy’s task of forging a new relationship between
Nepal and India even more complicated. Ambassador Gokhale had all the
wisdom, tact, patience and tolerance for dealing with the situation, but he
needed additional experienced personnel to spread the word among the
Nepalese people that India’s sole interest in Nepal was its stability, the
steady progress of its democratic process and its rapid economic
development. For that role, the embassy was grossly understaffed. Against
the ambassador’s demand for three or four Foreign Service officers, the
MEA sanctioned just one post of second secretary, to fill which I was
transferred from Washington. The MEA just did not have more officers to
spare for Nepal.
On arrival in Kathmandu, I was lodged in the Nepal government’s small
guest house at the end of the city’s only short, metalled road, running from
the Indian embassy to the end of Tundikhel—a huge open ground in the
heart of the city. The following morning I was getting ready to leave for the
embassy when I saw a gentleman alight from a small hill pony and walk up
to greet me. He introduced himself. ‘I am Prakat Man Singh, chief of
protocol,’ he said after we had exchanged our ‘namastes’. We sat down for
a cup of tea in the guest house, where I was actually the Nepal
government’s guest. I said to Mr Singh that it was really for me to call on
him and whether I could, at least, return the call. That would not be right, he
said, and that was that. Sardar Prakat Man Singh’s courtesy call on me —a
humble second secretary in the Indian embassy—was indicative of India’s
political prestige in Nepal. It was symbolic also of the old-world courtesy
and cultural values that the Nepalese cherished.
In a detailed, personal briefing to me a day or two later, Ambassador
Gokhale said that the embassy had no information at all about what was
happening in the country beyond the valley of Kathmandu, and because of
acute shortage of personnel we knew little even about the goings-on in the
valley’s political circles, whose numbers and activities had multiplied
manifold after the end of Rana rule. Access to those circles would pose no
problems but it required a degree of finesse and sophistication in enhancing
routine contacts into friendship for India. In particular, we needed to
develop contacts with outstation members of the newly created Advisory
Assembly, which would be convened shortly. The valley’s cultural,
academic and social circles also needed to be cultivated on a sustained
basis. Clearly, it was going to be a new learning experience for me in
neighbourhood diplomacy.
The ambassador wanted the intelligence wing also strengthened and on
his urgings, the government had posted an experienced officer from Uttar
Pradesh, R.N. Shukul to join the embassy as additional first secretary.
Shukul’s predecessor, a middle-level police officer from Bihar—he will
remain nameless—was a good soul, with informal, homely ways and
disarming simplicity of manners, bearing and behaviour. He went about his
tasks with an unusual degree of naivety. As my contacts in Kathmandu’s
political circles expanded, my frequent, open meetings with leaders and
workers of different political parties to discuss politics and aid projects
seemed to cause him some discomfiture, and he innocently asked some of
his earlier collocutors: ‘Why do you talk to Rasgotra so much? I am the guy
from the police, you know!’ When the gaffe reached the embassy, there was
much merriment, but all of us took it in our stride. And the ambassador, in
his good-natured way, explained to him the difference between his
functions and mine. His normal term of duty ended a few months later, and
his post was upgraded to accommodate Shukul.
I had mentioned to Ambassador Gokhale that I had liaised with King
Tribhuvan’s entourage during His Majesty’s stay at the Hyderabad House in
New Delhi, and after the king’s triumphant return to Kathmandu in 1951 I
was attached to the two queens, as their protocol assistant, during their six-
week stay in India, and that I also had got to know the Crown Prince
Mahendra and his two brothers, Himalaya and Basundhara, during their
stay in Delhi. So, would it be in order for me to renew contacts with them?
He advised that in such matters it were best to leave the initiative to the
royalty; that in a few days my presence in Kathmandu would become
known, and I might await developments. Sure enough, I received an
invitation to a restricted social occasion organized by one of the princes,
where I met the other two as well. And soon enough an opportunity arose
for me to make a quiet visit to the royal palace to pay my respects to Their
Majesties, the two queens!
One of the highlights of my early months in Kathmandu was the tiger
shoots in the Terai forests, to which the crown prince, Mahendra Bir Bikram
Shah had invited me to accompany him. His Royal Highness was a good
poet in the Gurkhali language, and after the days’ shoot, we would all sit
together in the common room of the hunting lodge or under a tent and he
would recite his poems, someone would sing, while another member of the
party would play the tabla or the harmonium; all good, clean fun and much
needed relaxation for the next day’s shoot.
In the course of Ambassador Gokhale’s instructions to me mentioned
earlier, I had asked whether he would permit me to travel to other parts of
the country. He welcomed the idea; for, he said, the embassy did not know
whether Indian aid was needed in the countryside. Thus far all our aid
activity was confined to the Kathmandu valley. But he cautioned, ‘There are
no roads, nor any regular means of transport. And what about your security
and your meals in those remote places?’ I assured him trekking was my
hobby and I would take with me a couple of Nepalese porters, who would
carry the necessary supplies for a week or two of the trip. He asked me to
plan out something and we would discuss the matter further. I did not have
to wait long.
In June and July 1954, there were heavy rains and floods in several
districts of Nepal Terai, followed by the occurrence of malaria, cholera and
other infectious diseases in several districts and there was the added threat
of epidemics spreading to neighbouring hill areas. At the Nepal
government’s request, India had decided to send several medical teams to
treat the affected population and immunize others who might be at risk. But
the administration in Kathmandu could not tell us where to deploy the
medical teams to provide the much-needed medical help. Ambassador
Gokhale asked whether I would like to go down to the Terai and pinpoint
areas and population centres that needed urgent medical attention. So, I
went down to the Terai, and in about two weeks walked the entire length of
the densely forested region except for some short stretches where a pony,
bullock cart, or elephant became available to provide relief for my legs.
Leaders of medical teams accompanied me on some of my travels in the
Terai and the areas for their work were defined in consultation with local
authorities and political party workers. One team was to cover the
Nepalganj area in western Nepal, two would cover central Terai (Birgunj
and neighbouring districts) and the remaining two teams would spread out
in eastern Terai, from Janakpur to Nepal’s eastern border with India.
The teams had worked well, with much public appreciation and support,
for some weeks, when we started receiving complaints from them that
district authorities were not cooperating and they were not getting the
necessary support that Kathmandu had promised by way of transport,
needed for their movement from place to place. The teams deployed in the
Birgunj area were the worst sufferers in this regard.
I had joined the two teams in Biratnagar in the eastern Nepal Terai in
mid-October and travelled with them in badly affected districts east and
west of the Kosi River, and then turned westwards, after crossing the
Bagmati River, to Birgunj. Villagers in both areas were very friendly and
supportive. They wanted the medical teams to provide medical relief in
their villages and would go out of their way to help them. Often they
walked miles with me from one village to the next. After mobilizing the
people’s support and district officials’ cooperation with the teams in both
areas, I flew to Pokhara in central Nepal and trekked down to Bhairahawa
and Nepalganj to join the team at work in the western Terai. I was able to
contact members of the Advisory Assembly and some political party
workers of the area and obtain their cooperation. They walked with me to a
few affected villages, and having seen the team’s good work they chastised
the officials and urged them to extend all possible cooperation and help to
the teams.
Most bada hakims (district governors) were happy to have the teams and
wanted to help them, but did not have the funds to incur expenditure on
hiring porters, or elephants for movement in flood-affected areas. The cost
of hiring such help was a pittance and I gave some money to the teams, and
advised them to pay liberally for the services received by them. In some
districts, the bada hakims or rich landlords were pleased to lend their own
jeeps and elephants free of charge, which went a long way in facilitating the
teams’ and my movement in affected areas. As information spread about the
good work our medical teams were doing, requests were received from
district governors, zamindars and delegations of common people from areas
which were not on the teams’ original schedules for the teams’ visits to
their respective areas. I criss-crossed virtually the entire Terai three times in
1954 and 1955. The east-west highway and some roads were built years
later, more or less along the dense jungle tracks I had walked on in those
two years.
But there was mischief afoot, especially in areas where members of
Prime Minister Matrika Prasad Koirala’s party, the Rashtriya Praja
Parishad, had preponderance in numbers and influence. In the Biratnagar-
Janakpur area, for example, friendly people said they had been told that the
two medical teams had been sent to Nepal by the Americans, and medical
supplies had also been given by the US government. Or, that the teams had
only a few useless medicines and poorly trained doctors to dispense them!
A more serious allegation in circulation in Biratnagar was that the Indian
government had sent the teams to alienate the Terai from Nepal. I was told
that the false information was being spread by workers of Prime Minister
Koirala’s party ‘under instructions from above’. Simple, credulous village
folk, who had nothing but goodwill for India, were being misled by a
government that Nehru had gone out of his way to help.
The false propaganda ceased after my visit; our medical teams completed
their allotted tasks and went back to India. A spreading epidemic had been
controlled and eliminated, and the Terai remained as firmly a part of Nepal
as ever.
The Terai was governed then, as it is now, by the ruling elite of
Kathmandu as a colony. Throughout my travels I never met a Teraian high
administrative or police officer or even a petty official —they all came from
Kathmandu. In due course the development of roads facilitated other
economic development activity and the spread of education and the
awareness among the Teraians of their citizenship rights. The present
struggle in the Terai is the result of the denial of those rights to the
inhabitants who account for nearly half the country’s population. Now that
democracy is deepening its roots in the country, the Terai population is not
likely to tolerate its subservient second-class citizenship status. The attempt
in the new Constitution, to gerrymander the Terai’s parliamentary
constituencies to keep the Terai’s representatives in a minority in the
national Parliament, has given rise to a widespread rights movement in the
entire Terai region, with secessionist undertones in some sections of the
population. It is to be hoped that Kathmandu’s ruling elite will resolve this
problem with wisdom and expedition.
But what could all this avail? For in the same letter Nehru also, quite
unnecessarily, went on to write:
I know that your government is not responsible for this and has
expressed its regret. I know that it is the Nepali Congress and the
Gurka Parishad, may be helped by foreign money.
That virtually absolved Koirala and his government of all guilt for
unfriendly behaviour. Apparently this implausible tale of involvement of
the Nepali Congress, Gurkha Parishad and foreign money had been sold by
M.P. Koirala directly to Nehru in Delhi. In his reply, on 24 June 1954, to
Nehru’s letter, Koirala spun the same yarn again in different words:
You know Kathmandu has been the seat of the Ranas for the last
century and their money and their hangers-on do try to exploit the
situation. This has been manifest on many previous occasions . . . The
recent demonstration against the visiting parliamentarians was also one
of them. We had thought primarily to put a ban on processions and
meetings before the arrival of these visitors, but in our later
consideration we thought that would have produced even worse
propaganda and reaction. Hence we had to defer that.
Two miles outside of Syangja, I was met by two armed sentries who
asked to know whether I was ‘Rasgotra Sahib Bahadur’. As soon as I
confirmed my identity, they stood to attention, saluted me, raised their
303 rifles and fired two shots in the air. The gun salute, they said,
would also inform the townspeople of the approach of their august
guest.
Then, one sentry fell in line ahead of me, and the other behind me to
cover the rear, in our march to the town. A mile or so down the path,
two flute players sprang up in front of us and led the procession while
playing folk tunes to soothe my fatigued senses. After another mile or
so, my hosts, the assistant bada hakim and gentry of the town, along
with my two friends, met me in the dry bed of the Andhi stream. Then,
as we approached the main street, I saw about a thousand men, women
and children lined up in their colourful costumes on both sides of the
street, whispering to one another in hushed excitement.
How did I feel? Elated, moved, thankful for the affection and
respect of those simple people. How did I look? Flushed with
embarrassment at the quaintness of my apparel and the utter
inadequacy of my appearance for this grand welcome—the brim of my
jungle cloth-hat drooping right over my ears and eyes, shirt sleeves
and the bottoms of my trousers rolled up in cavalier fashion, walking
stick in hand, and a bit out of breath not so much from fatigue of the
journey but the excitement of the occasion. Our pace was dictated by
the slow steps of the flautists, and as the procession moved up the
street women sprinkled rice grains and flower petals on me, men
garlanded me, a lovely little girl did aarti while others sang sweet
songs of love and blessings for their guest. The sentiment behind and
significance of such a welcome to a visitor can be understood and
appreciated only in Hindu society. Syangja had adopted me as its son!
The children of the Syangja school staged a thoroughly enjoyable song and
dance show for me. My hosts had also summoned a couple of bards of the
area to entertain me. Their ballads were about the lives of Nepal’s heroes—
Prithvi Narayan Shah who had founded modern Nepal and the Shah
dynasty, one or two of the Rana prime ministers, and their living hero, Dr
K.I. Singh. Equally entertaining were their snippety biting compositions on
present-day social and political issues. One of these ditties ran as follows:
Dr K.I. Singh was a popular revolutionary leader of this region and a good
deal of folklore had grown around his name. He had fallen out with Matrika
Prasad Koirala, the Nepali Congress president during the uprising against
the Ranas. He staged a coup against the Koirala government which failed
and he fled to Tibet. He was a stubborn and wayward man and, on occasion,
indecisive. But he was a man of courage and determination, honest,
incorruptible and straightforward to the point of folly. Undoubtedly, he was
the single-most popular man in Nepal at the time. In western Nepal,
especially, his was a name to conjure with.
Rumour in Nepal had it that during his exile in Tibet, K.I. Singh had
turned bitterly anti-India. He suddenly turned up in Kathmandu one day in
the early summer of 1955 to a hugely enthusiastic reception by the people
of the valley. India baiters were disappointed when he rang up the embassy
two or three days later to ask for an appointment to pay his respects to the
ambassador of India. Ambassador Bhagwan Sahay invited him to lunch at
the residence the following day, at which First Secretary N.B. Menon and I
were also present. He said his very first visit outside his home to pay his
respects to the ambassador would show to everybody that he was pro, not
anti-India. He spent three hours in the embassy, discussing politics, his exile
and narrated some hilarious tales about the Chinese trying to indoctrinate
him against India.
To return to my trek in the hills of western Nepal; after a couple of happy
and restful days in Syangja, after a half day’s brisk walking over hill and
dale, I crossed the Krishna (or Kali) Gandaki at midday in Ramdighat, a
place of pilgrimage for the Hindus of both India and Nepal. We bathed in
the sacred river before proceeding to Palpa. This whole region is the habitat
of the gallant warrior tribes—Gurungs, Magars and Thakalis—whose sons
form the backbone of Gurkha units of the Indian army. Fine particles of
gold could be seen in the sands of the river almost all along its banks, but
gold-sifting was being done only at three or four places; the process was
difficult and slow and the yield was small. But apparently worthwhile
quantities of gold were being retrieved from the river’s sands; for I saw
women everywhere wearing large nose rings, earrings, pendants and a
round, sunflower-shaped flat ornament called a phool. The phool is worn
only by married women on their foreheads. The custom of the land, I was
told, was that the father of the girl would hand her over to the bridegroom
only after she had been presented with the auspicious phool by her chosen
one.
Nepal’s hill regions are a land of captivating natural beauty and guileless
human simplicity and romance. On several occasions I saw separate groups
of young men and young women, while at work on opposite hillsides
singing away to each other in competition and courtship. Nepal awaits a
Wordsworth to celebrate the ethereal beauty of the hill and dale of western
Nepal and the good, simple and honest men and women that blend so
artlessly with their environment. The lyrics of Madhav Prasad Ghimire,
Nepal’s poet laureate, and one of my dearest friends in Nepal, captures
some of the fabulous beauty and grandeur of western Nepal’s mountains
rivers and valleys.
PILGRIMAGE TO LUMBINI
This tour was of about 120 miles in six days excluding the two days of rest
in Syangja, and at the end, tired though I was, the promise of Lumbini, the
birthplace of Lord Buddha, so near at hand, drew me away from the rest
and comfort at the palatial residence of the friendly governor of
Bhairawaha. On the afternoon of 3 or 4 November, I hired a pony and
proceeded to Lumbini, thirteen miles west of Bhairawaha. My progress on
this path even on pony-back was extremely slow. It took me four or five
hours to reach my destination. There are three rivers on the way and a
multitude of shallow seasonal streams. The culverts and bridges were all
broken and one had to wade through the rivers which in places were waist-
deep. The owner of the pony helped the little beast negotiate these
successfully, with me perched precariously on its back. It would soon take
revenge for my uncivil behaviour. The Lumbini compound was surrounded
by a moat filled with water, which to my untrained eye looked shallow. So,
without waiting for its master, who had fallen some distance behind us, I
goaded my mount into the murky water. Midway in the moat, the four-foot
dwarf started swimming, obliging me to dismount and wade my way
through waist-deep water to the other end.
The local zamindar, chairman of the Lumbini Managing Committee, gave
me a room in the Nepal government’s guest house in the compound.
Perhaps because of the stagnant water in the moat surrounding the sacred
site or the marshy areas nearby, the place had become the breeding ground
of South Asia’s finest mosquitoes. The battle began as soon as I snuffed the
two candles that lit my room. Those night fighters of Lumbini came in
swarms, and they drew blood. The sting of Lumbini’s mosquitoes was as
sharp as the prick of a khukri’s sharp point. It was an unequal fight, and that
night was one long spell of misery for me, relieved to a point by my efforts
to meditate on the Lord and his teachings. In 1951, I had encountered a near
similar breed of mosquitoes of more or less the same sting-power in Bodh
Gaya. Between the two, though, the night fighters of Nepal had an edge
over their Indian incarnates. No wonder then, that at the end of it all, Lord
Buddha, born in Lumbini and enlightened in Gaya, found life to be all
‘Dukkha’—endless suffering.
Be that as it may, Lumbini, such as it was, had something in its air, its
earth and water that awakened a long-dormant layer in my inner self, and I
became a devout follower, albeit an unconventional one, of the Lord.
Of what was once the beautiful Lumbini gardens, and of the dense sal
forest surrounding the area, there was no trace left. The Ashoka Pillar still
stood outside the entrance to the temple of Maya Devi, with its capital of
three lion heads laid low at its base, reminding the visitor of Emperor
Ashoka’s pilgrimage to his spiritual master’s birthplace.
A lot of history lies buried in that holy ground, which was now a forlorn
ruin. Some excavations haphazardly carried out in the time of Prime
Minister Juddha Shumsher Jang Bahadur Rana had yielded a few exquisite
stone carvings and coins belonging possibly to the Gupta period of Indian
history. I was also shown a wealth of beads, signet rings and statuettes and a
large number of terracotta heads with Greek faces and hairstyles. Some of
the finer, small pieces were kept in biscuit tins. Repeated requests from the
managing committee to the Government of Nepal, for a lockable showcase
in which these treasures could be displayed safely, had been met with no
response! A dozen or more terracotta figures lay in a heap in a dingy old
room near the cookhouse, where some damage had occurred owing to
leakages in the roof in rainy seasons and careless handling by the keepers.
Visitors from China, Taiwan, Japan, Burma, Ceylon and India had
recorded, year after year, their dismay at the sad state of Lumbini and urged
the Nepal government to restore the dignity and sanctity of the sacred site.
Buddhist societies of Burma and Ceylon had offered to restore and maintain
the place, but their generous offers were not accepted by Kathmandu.
Indian visitors were content with criticizing the Nepal government for not
doing this, that or the other, without ever making any positive offer or
taking some concrete action themselves.
Lumbini, when I saw it, was a disgrace to both Nepal and India, and
nothing much seems to have been done since to improve the site and its
surroundings. The Nepal government could not be blamed; it had inherited
an empty treasury from the Rana regime, and understandably, it had other,
far more pressing priorities for the meagre financial and other resources at
its disposal. But what explains the apathy of the Government of India
towards the sacred site of the birth of the most illustrious son of India and
Nepal? What keeps it from offering all necessary financial and technical
assistance to develop Lumbini into a most attractive place of pilgrimage in
South Asia?
The offer by a Chinese organization recently to restore, develop and
maintain Lumbini at a cost of several million US dollars caused some panic
in India for no good reason. There are many devout followers of Lord
Buddha in China, though it is no longer the Buddhist country it once was.
Other countries, including India, are also interested in seeing Lumbini
developed as one of the Indian subcontinent’s most important and attractive
centres of international pilgrimage. Perhaps the best way to recreate a
Lumbini worthy of the memory of the founder of one of the world’s great
religions might be for Nepal to constitute an international consortium for
the purpose.
My exploration of the country had to be suspended for some time
because the new ambassador, Bhagwan Sahay wanted me to be with him on
his calls on ministers, and other meetings with eminent political, social and
cultural figures of the country. Really only one region remained to be
surveyed—hill districts of northwestern Nepal. My senior colleague, First
Secretary N.B. Menon, covered that region in his long trek of ten days to
Muktinath and Mustang. He brought the same kind of reports from this
region as I had from others, of poverty and poor governance, absence of
development activity, and the common people’s respect, friendship and
goodwill for India, despite the absence of any Indian presence there.
In 1958, the United Nations was still predominantly a club of white nations
of Europe and the Americas, and at a pinch they could conjure up enough
support to defeat any proposal which affected their interests. Apart from a
few Asian members, the organization’s strength of sixty or so members
included only four African states—Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia and Sudan.
Guinea, whose representatives had been kept waiting at the UN gates, was
admitted to membership at the end of 1958. Numerous African countries
were still ruled by small European countries like Belgium and Portugal. The
UN was not yet fully representative of the world as a whole. The Fourth
Committee’s work would, therefore, acquire special importance.
On my joining duty in the permanent mission of India to the UN, all
work relating to the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee—which dealt
with decolonization of colonies in Africa and elsewhere ruled by alien
powers, and to oversee the work of the Trusteeship Council—was allotted
to me. The Trusteeship Council’s task was to scrutinize the policies of the
colonial powers in their respective territories with the object of hastening
the territories’ advance towards independence. The examination of the
council’s reports to the General Assembly formed an important item on the
Fourth Committee’s agenda.
The council’s membership, though equally divided between the countries
ruling the Trust Territories and the non-administering members, was
somewhat weighted in favour of the former. But it was an open forum with
impressive public attendance in the galleries and we, delegates of countries
opposed to colonial rule, had ample opportunities of shaming and
encouraging colonial powers to do a better job of their responsibilities
towards the people they ruled as a sacred trust. The latter’s annual reports
on their respective Trust Territories were often self-congratulatory and
evasive on unpleasant ground realities. The two devices of petitions and the
periodic UN visiting missions gave council members a closer view of the
actual conditions prevailing in the territories and were helpful in our calling
their governments to account. Among the petitioners were some very
eminent people, future rulers of their countries—the most impressive and
statesmanlike figure among them was Julius Nyerere from Tanganyika.
A large number of islands in the Pacific Ocean captured by American
forces from the Japanese in the Second World War had been constituted into
a Strategic Trust Territory under the United States’ administration. I visited
that territory as a member of the UN’s visiting mission in 1960. The islands
were well governed, the people were prosperous and happy and enjoyed a
fair measure of freedom and self-rule. American officials and other US
citizens seemed popular and mixed freely with the local inhabitants.
American rule of the islands was benign, educational facilities were good
and in several places young, local inhabitants formed part of the island’s
official hierarchy. The general expectation was that in due course these
islands would opt for some form of a closer relationship with the United
States. Nevertheless, we spoke to them of independence as a goal for a
Trust Territory. In the event, the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated
States of Micronesia all chose independence and were admitted to UN
membership in the 1990s. The Trusteeship Council was working with fair
speed towards its own demise.
In several islands of Micronesia, when I was introduced to groups of
inhabitants as the Indian member of the mission, they wanted me to tell
them stories from the Indian epic Ramayana, which I did, at times to the
impatience and annoyance of the two British and Belgium members of the
visiting mission. The inhabitants I talked with seemed familiar with the
names of the epic’s heroes and episodes, but the mention of the
Mahabharata or of the heroes in that epic evoked no response. I wondered
whether their ancestors had ventured into those islands in a post-Ramayana
and pre-Mahabharata period. They themselves could not say when, why,
how or from where from their remote ancestors came to the islands; perhaps
they came directly from India or from Bali, Java or some other Indonesian
islands where even today stories from the Ramayana are part of the
folklore.
In May 1958, when I took over from my predecessor, Rikhi Jaipal, the
Trusteeship Council was already discussing modalities for Somalia’s
independence, and in the next four years another eight or nine Trust
Territories would attain independence and become members of the World
Organization. Therefore, it was now time for the Fourth Committee to focus
on the liberation of the other dependent territories. The information that the
colonial powers sent to the UN secretary general on those territories was
scant. The secretary general did not do anything with it, nor did the
Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGTs)
do more than take note of it.
Was a UN committee needed just to note that information? Thus far the
Fourth Committee had not raised that question, nor invested adequate and
sustained effort in delving into the full meaning of the charter provisions on
the status and likely future of these colonies. Therefore, the Fourth
Committee would have to probe deeply into that information, ask for more
and push for the territories’ early independence. In my understanding
certain words and phrases in Chapter XI of the UN Charter, such as ‘sacred
trust’, ‘self-government’, ‘political aspiration of the peoples’, and
‘progressive development of their free political institutions’ meant that the
goal for these territories was the same as for the Trust Territories, namely
independence. And clearly, ‘sacred trust’ implied answerability of the
trustees to the UN.
I sought permission from Krishna Menon and our permanent
representative to the UN, Ambassador Arthur Lall to begin a vigorous
campaign in the Fourth Committee for the independence of African
colonies. They both thought it was a good idea. Menon advised me to put
together a group of like-minded delegates to join me in the campaign,
which I had already taken care of by consulting a few of my colleagues in
the Fourth Committee. The initial group, comprising Adnan Pachachi of
Iraq, Angie Brooks of Liberia, Yao Turkson of Ghana, Imam Abhikushnu of
Indonesia, Najmuddin Al-Rifai of UAR, Rehnama of Iran, Neville
Kanakaratne of Sri Lanka, U Tin Maung of Burma, Sidi Baba of Morocco
and myself, was joined by another eight or ten young delegates in the
Fourth Committee as our campaign began to get noticed. Soon, we were
dubbed the Fourth Committee’s warriors for Africa’s liberation.
The UN’s procedure for granting admission to new members is quite
simple. The proposal or application for membership has to be considered
and approved first by the Security Council. The council’s recommendation
then goes to the UN General Assembly where a simple majority is sufficient
for grant of membership. Guinea had declared its independence from
France in early 1958 and applied for UN membership. Fairly early in the
UNGA’s 13th session, the Security Council had recommended Guinea’s
admission but the General Committee, which arranges the General
Assembly’s agenda, had put it down as the last item on the General
Assembly’s agenda for the session. This meant that Guinea’s
representatives would not be able to take part in the ongoing session and
give the Fourth Committee first-hand information on the situation
prevailing in the colonies in Africa. For the UN to disallow Guinea from
participating in its ongoing session was incomprehensible to us in the
Fourth Committee: We wanted a Guinean delegation to expose the brutal
reality of colonial oppression and exploitation in Africa. Therefore we
decided to make an issue of the delay, which seemed calculated to
accommodate France.
I discussed the matter with my friend Yao Turkson, Ghana’s young
delegate on the Fourth Committee, and it was decided that at the
committee’s next meeting he would spring a surprise by proposing, orally
or in writing, immediate action by the General Assembly to approve
Guinea’s UN membership to enable its delegation to take part in the Fourth
Committee’s ongoing discussion of conditions in African colonies. This
was unusual action for a committee, but no rules barred it. I told Yao that if
his move led to a procedural wrangle, as indeed it did, I would take over
from that point and mobilize the necessary voting support for any
procedural move required for the achievement of our objective. The
manoeuvre succeeded and the Fourth Committee’s assertion in support of a
newly independent African country, followed by the appearance of Guinea’s
representatives in the Fourth Committee on 11 December 1958, created
quite a stir in African circles and, of course, also in the UN.
A new era had begun in the Fourth Committee’s drive for the elimination
of colonial empires in Africa. In welcoming Guinean diplomat Diallo Telli
(he went on to become one of the founders of the Organization of African
Unity) to the Fourth Committee, many delegations joined me in asserting
that the differentiation the founders of the UN had made between the two
groups of colonial possessions—the Trust Territories and the Non-Self-
Governing Territories—was not justified, that all colonial dependencies
were latently sovereign and equally deserving of independence and UN
membership. Soon decisions were made by the committee to invite
petitioners from and send visiting missions to the NSGTs.
This unavoidably put us at odds with the colonial powers who claimed
that they alone were competent to say whether an NSGT should or should
not be considered fit for independence. In other words, colonial powers
were free to integrate their colonial possessions in their metropolitan
territories. In the second half of the twentieth century such views could only
be described as stale emanations of a frozen nineteenth-century mindset.
Portugal was the most inexorable proponent of this obscurantist idea. But
Australia and, occasionally, even France seemed to subscribe to this kind of
thinking.
Efforts never ceased on the part of the colonial powers to propose or
initiate steps to retain some kind of control on, or preferential links with,
their colonies. The Fourth Committee was watchful and prevented or fought
off all such moves. Belgium and France, for example, proposed to associate
their colonies with the European Economic Community. The measure
would bring the territories’ trade policies under the overall direction of the
community and the latter’s tariff barriers would deny the territories the right
to decide on their own trade links with other countries. Their resources
would also remain under the exclusive control of their erstwhile masters.
The move was rejected by the Fourth Committee and by the concerned
territories. France’s attempt to rope its dependencies into a union with it
was frustrated by Guinea’s unilateral declaration of independence from
France. Senegal, Mali and other territories followed Guinea’s example a
year later.
All over Africa, change was swift and its sweep wide and throughout the
UN’s 13th session, the Fourth Committee remained intensely occupied with
devising ways to hasten independence of colonies to avoid the spread of
incipient violence. Congo, ruled by Belgium, had already exploded in
violence, which could spread to other areas of the continent, posing serious
threat of a general upheaval and further polarization of international
politics. When Belgium could no longer maintain its control on Congo, its
retreat from that huge colony precipitated the independence of the
neighbouring Trust Territory of Ruanda–Urundi, also ruled by Belgium. On
the eve of Congo’s independence, Brussels proposed the Trust Territory’s
merger in Congo’s troubled, pro-Belgium province of Katanga, which had
declared its independence from Congo! The move was promptly rejected by
the Fourth Committee. Ruanda and Urundi were admitted to UN
membership as two separate, independent states in 1962. Belgium had done
little to prepare its colonies for self-government by educating the people,
creating civil service cadres and legislative bodies etc. The independence of
the three countries was followed by varying periods of violence and
instability.
The question of the mandated territory of South West Africa,
administered by the Union of South Africa, was an important item on the
Fourth Committee’s agenda. A Good Offices Committee (GOC),
established by the Fourth Committee to engage in talks with the South
African government had, quite unwisely, been drawn into consideration of a
proposal floated by the Union government to partition the mandated
territory. The Good Offices Committee had clearly exceeded its terms of
reference as partition was against the terms of the mandate. To deter the
South African government and the Good Offices Committee from any
further consideration of the idea, warning notes were sounded in the Fourth
Committee about the matter being taken to the International Court of Justice
to enforce the terms of the mandate, or to convert South West Africa into a
Trust Territory under direct UN administration. Clearly, the struggle for
South West Africa’s independence was going to be a long and trying one.
The territory achieved independence and Namibia became a member of the
UN in 1990.
An even worse case was that of Southern Rhodesia, a British colony. Its
colonial government had proposed to relocate several black reserves from
the richer, southern part of the territory in the northern part to make the
former a white majority area, which would be absorbed in the Union of
South Africa or become another racist white country in Africa. The poor
northern part with its African majority could then decide its own separate
future after ascertaining the wishes of its inhabitants in a referendum or by
some other mode of consultation. Regrettably, the British government had
lent support to the plan, which was rejected by the Fourth Committee.
It is not that there was a clear-cut division in the Fourth Committee
between the colonial powers and their supporters on one side of the aisle
and the supporters of decolonization on the other. The US and Canada and
several European and Latin American delegations voted with those
advocating rapid decolonization. My colleagues and I were continually in
touch with the other side in a determined search for consensus and
compromise on resolutions of fundamental importance. As a result, towards
the end of the 13th session, we noticed a change in the attitudes of the
colonial powers’ delegations from unbending self-righteousness to
thoughtful tolerance of constructive criticism and even a willingness to
cooperate in the search for consensus.
For us who had spearheaded the Fourth Committee’s thrust for
independence of all colonies, the most important issue now was the future
of the remaining colonies in the continent of Africa which were thirsting for
liberty and seething with unrest. In consultation with my Asian and African
colleagues I drafted and co-sponsored with them several resolutions, the
effect of which was to put pressure on colonial rulers for better performance
and to spread the message in Africa of the UN’s keen and active interest in
their early independence and in the well-being of their people. The most
important of those resolutions was on the Attainment of Independence by
NSGTs. While the draft resolution emphasized that there would be no
compromise on the independence of colonies, its tone and wording were
moderate. The resolution was adopted by the Fourth Committee and later
by the assembly plenary unanimously.
That landmark achievement of the Fourth Committee triggered an even
more important event, namely, the issue, on 14 December 1960, of the UN
Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and
Peoples, sponsored by the delegation of the Soviet Union. It was followed
by the creation of the Decolonization Committee of seventeen members,
under Indian chairmanship, to monitor implementation of the declaration on
the colonies. An immediate and most gratifying result of these moves was
the independence of sixteen African countries and their admission to UN
membership during the 15th GA session in 1960.
The Fourth Committee’s role in unleashing these developments is best
described by one of the UN’s most experienced and respected statesmen,
Ambassador Frederick H. Boland, permanent representative of Ireland to
the UN, who was chairman of the Fourth Committee throughout the 13th
session in 1958. At the end of the committee’s last meeting in December
1958, Ambassador Boland delivered a most moving closing address, which
is summarized in the Fourth Committee’s summary records as follows:
The year 1960 was truly Africa’s year in the UN and as such, it is deserving
of a special chapter in the world organization’s history. However, two other
events of the UNGA’s 15th session are equally noteworthy—the tragedy of
the Congo, and the failed summit of world leaders at the UN.
Belgium had ruled Congo with the help of Belgian civil servants and an
army of Congolese troops commanded by Belgian officers. Belgian officials
and commercial establishments had methodically robbed the country of its
abundant wealth of diamonds, precious gems and other rare metals and
minerals. When violence erupted in several provinces of Congo, which
Brussels could not control, it entered into negotiations with Joseph
Kasavubu and Patrice Lumumba who had led the political agitation for
independence. Brussels agreed to grant Congo what in fact turned out to be
no more than a form of independence. For, even as under the Loi
Fondamentale (Constitution), a parliamentary government, comprising an
assembly, the Senate, an elected constitutional President (Joseph Kasavubu)
and an elected prime minister (Patrice Lumumba) was installed, Belgian
civil and military officers retained control of the administration and the
Congolese National Army and the country’s immense resources.
Since independence brought no improvement in the pay scales and
service conditions of the common soldier, mutiny broke out in the army
against its Belgian officers, resulting in the breakdown of law and order in
the country. Shocked by this unexpected threat to its interests, Brussels
dispatched Belgian troops to reoccupy its former colony. Fearing loss of the
country’s independence, President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Lumumba
jointly appealed to the UN for military and economic assistance to
safeguard Congo’s sovereignty and to stabilize its economy. The Security
Council called upon Belgian troops to leave the country immediately; it also
agreed to provide military help and economic and technical assistance to
restore normality in the country.
The UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld then rapidly put together
a 20,000-strong multinational force from twenty different countries,
including a brigade from Pakistan. In addition, some 1100 international
personnel were sent to Congo to implement the civil assistance programme.
Meanwhile, taking advantage of the prevailing confusion, Moise Tshombe,
with Belgian support, declared independence of his province, Katanga,
which contained 70 or 80 per cent of Congo’s diamond and mineral wealth.
In order to prevent Katanga’s secession and establish UN presence in that
province, Hammarskjöld himself flew into the province on 12 August 1960
with four planeloads of Swedish troops under the UN flag to be stationed in
Elizabethville, capital of the Katanga province. This should have led to the
withdrawal of Belgian military units from Katanga, but it did not. Besides,
the secretary general’s action angered Prime Minister Lumumba who felt
that he had been bypassed. And it incensed Britain and the United States,
who had openly supported Tshombe and his action to declare his province’s
independence, to protect their own commercial interests in Katanga. The
Soviet Union, on the other hand, was in favour of firm action against
Katanga’s secession. So, the already complex problem of Congo got
dragged into the vortex of the Cold War.
While Moscow favoured Lumumba, who enjoyed countrywide
popularity, Britain and the US backed President Kasavubu with whatever
support he needed, widening the breach between him and Lumumba. The
American intelligence agency, the CIA, had already, quite unjustly,
condemned Patrice Lumumba ‘a dangerous communist’, for whose
elimination plans were hatched.
With Belgian, British and American political and military support,
Kasavubu divested Lumumba of prime ministership. He also demanded the
withdrawal of all foreign forces under UN command, and Indonesia,
Morocco and UAR promptly agreed to recall their contingents.
Joseph Iléo, whom Kasavubu appointed prime minister in Lumumba’s
place, was so ineffective that he could not even put together his cabinet.
Colonel Joseph Désiré Mobutu, a former petty clerk, whom Lumumba had
appointed commander of the Leopold Garrison, staged a coup and in
connivance with President Kasavubu ousted the dummy Prime Minister
Iléo. Mobutu’s forces captured Lumumba and transferred him to Katanga,
where Moise Tshombe had that charismatic African nationalist leader
brutally murdered in February 1961, leading to further deterioration of the
law and order situation in the country. The Indian combatant brigade that
Nehru reluctantly sent to Congo on Hammarskjöld’s pressing appeals
succeeded in restoring law and order, and Tshombe moved over to the
neighbouring, white-ruled Southern Rhodesia from where he continued his
war against the UN with Western support.
Britain and the USA had suffered a setback and they started putting
pressure on Hammarskjöld to resolve the Katanga problem not by force but
politically through talks with Moise Tshombe. Under British pressure,
Hammarskjöld, who had arrived in Leopoldville in September 1961,
decided to go to Southern Rhodesia to meet with Tshombe but his plane
crashed en route, ending the life of a strong and dedicated international civil
servant who had wanted to save Congo from an impending civil war, and
keep the newly independent country out of the Cold War.
Prime Minister Nehru moved the draft resolution at the end of a short
speech in the General Assembly on 3 October. The speech, which I thought
was the most constructive of all in that whole session in content and spirit,
was received well because it was in tune with the sombre mood of the
session following Macmillan’s performance. Apart from highlighting the
world’s concern over the Cold War and its desire for peace, he emphasized
the special responsibility of the two great powers and their leaders to halt
the drift towards confrontation and conflict. On the question of
disarmament, to which he attached great importance, he uttered a prophetic
warning; in the event of the leaders’ failure, he said, to take effective
measures in the next three or four years, all hope for disarmament would be
lost, with grave consequences.
On 5 October, when the debate began on the five-power resolution, Prime
Minister Menzies of Australia moved an amendment to the operative
paragraph that would substitute for the US–USSR summit, a meeting of the
heads of government of France, Britain, US and USSR. It was a trivial
attempt to sabotage the five-power resolution—Mr Nehru condemned it as
such—and the amendment was rejected by the assembly.
Meanwhile American lobbyists were busy arm-twisting delegates and
their governments in their respective capital cities. As a result, the
Argentine delegation tabled another amendment which would have the two
governments of the USA and the USSR, instead of the President of the
USA and chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, resume
contact. This was supported from the speaker’s rostrum by the US Secretary
of State Christian Herter, and was approved by the assembly. The sponsors
saw little merit in the amended resolution, for the two governments, through
their embassies, were in contact any way. The amended resolution was put
to vote and was lost for want of the requisite two-thirds majority of
members present and voting.
This was all Macmillan’s work. A few days later, a friend from the
British mission said to me: ‘How could you guys leave out our prime
minister from a summit meeting with the Russian leaders? You may not
think so, but he believes he is at the very top of world leadership!’ A day or
two before the voting session of the assembly, Macmillan and Menzies had
gone to Washington to dissuade President Eisenhower from responding
positively to the non-aligned nations’ appeals and pressures.
The 15th session had assembled quite a few orators, such as Sékou Touré
of Mali (in French), Macmillan (in English) and Castro of Cuba (in
Spanish). In a four-hour-long oration Castro used every possible
combination of words to castigate the United States as a dangerous,
colonial-imperialist, aggressive power. President Soekarno mounted the
rostrum in a field marshall’s uniform with two ADCs covering his right and
left flanks. The one on his right would hand him a sheet of paper from
which he would read his prepared speech, and then pass the same to the
ADC on his left. The burden of his oration, which he repeated several
times, was: ‘Colonialism is a wounded tiger, more dangerous now than
before; the world should be on guard.’ He had little to say on the present
and real danger which had brought thirty heads of state government to the
UN General Assembly.
The prime minister of recently independent Nigeria, Sir Abubakar
Tafawa Balewa gave one of the four or five best speeches in that session
with a lot of information about the conditions prevailing in his country—
little education, great poverty and a stagnant economy. He laid no blame on
the administering power—Britain—but highlighted the myriad tasks
confronting him for which Nigeria, like other newly independent countries,
needed peace. He highlighted, in particular, a countrywide programme he
had launched, involving the use of television, to promote universal primary
education.
ORATORY AT THE UN
In 1958, India’s future prime minister was not much impressed by the
speeches he had heard in the UN. He thought the speeches in the assembly
plenary mostly were argumentative without being persuasive, and read from
texts in dull monotones, they bored the listener. In some cases there were
flashes of bitterness, even anger and fire, but there was no humour, he had
observed.
Actors on the UN stage do often treat it as an arena for rhetorical
flourishes to hide the truth at the core of an issue. A combination of lung-
power, logorrhoea and logomachy are the tools used to create an effect and
befog straightforward issues. Sir Muhammed Zafarullah Khan of Pakistan
commanded a rare mastery of this particular genre of verbal diarrhoea.
Although he had a bad case to defend on Pakistan’s aggression on Kashmir,
he took the offensive and spun out an oration of six or seven hours,
suppressing true facts and inventing new ones. It was not a convincing
performance. He lacked the light touch and habitually shunned brevity even
when economy of words might better serve his purpose. But his committed
supporters in the Security Council, delegations of the US and Britain,
lapped up his tale about an ‘injured and defrauded Pakistan’.
KRISHNA MENON
Krishna Menon’s oratorical inventory was superior to Khan’s, and he also
had wit of the biting, sardonic kind, which would make his audience laugh
at his opponent and make him run for cover. Also Menon could be
disarmingly brief when brevity served him better. To the force of his words
he could add the artistry of changing facial expressions, a dramatic pause
accompanied by a roaming, inquiring glance on his audience to drive home
a point. And, if need be, he could convincingly feign exhaustion, or even
throw a fit to win the sympathy of his admirers back home, if not of his
present audience. Menon was always strong on facts and impeccable in his
choice of words. His coruscating asides could be devastating.
On an earlier occasion in the Security Council, the British delegate had
the temerity to pick holes in some of the words Menon had used in his
speech in the council. Menon interrupted him, ‘Sir, I can understand your
difficulty in understanding what I have said; you picked up your English on
the streets of London, I devoted several years of my life to learn it with the
care and respect it deserves!’ Derisive laughter silenced the man, Sir
Pearson Dixon, for the rest of the session. At the same meeting when Sir
Muhammed Zafarullah Khan had repeatedly emphasized the urgent
necessity of a plebiscite in Kashmir, Menon turned to the chair and
exclaimed, ‘Plebiscite, Plebiscite, Plebiscite! Sir, ask this gentleman
whether his country has ever seen a ballot box!’
In 1961, after a term as a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ),
Sir Muhammed Zafarullah Khan had returned to New York as Pakistan’s
permanent representative to the UN. One of his very first acts was to launch
a campaign for another discussion of the Kashmir question in the Security
Council. He must have thought that his having been on the ICJ would lend
greater credence to his old tale of concealments, half-truths and plain
falsehoods. Under US pressure on Pakistan’s behalf, a meeting of the
Security Council was scheduled for May–June 1962, which would see
another confrontation between Khan and Krishna Menon. In Khan’s long
and rambling harangue there was just one new element. He had said that in
the event of an armed conflict between India and Pakistan in the prevailing
situation of unrest and uncertainty in and around Kashmir, a great power
(China presumably) might be drawn into the ‘vortex’.
Menon was fully prepared for a long rebuttal of all that Khan might say. I
was sitting behind him with the papers he might ask for. He turned to me
and asked whether Khan had said anything new. ‘Not a word Sir, except the
vortex thing,’ I said. B.L. Sharma, the MEA’s expert on Kashmir who had
come from Delhi for the meeting and was sitting by my side, gave him the
same answer. ‘He has uttered a threat, hasn’t he?’ asked Menon. ‘What
exactly did he say about a big power being dragged into the vortex?’ I gave
him the sentence in which Khan had used that word.
Khan had exposed himself to a tongue-lashing because of the threat he
had uttered. In his reply, to begin with, Menon made three important points,
namely: That Kashmir was an integral part of India and India’s sovereignty
in J & K was non-negotiable; that the UN resolutions envisaging a
plebiscite had become inoperative because of Pakistan’s failure to withdraw
its forces from Kashmir, a condition stipulated in the UNCIP Resolution of
1949; and, finally, because of the lapse of time and changed circumstances
surrounding Kashmir, the UN’s resolutions of an ad hoc nature had become
un-implementable. He asserted that no matter how many meetings the
council might hold, there was no question of a plebiscite in Kashmir any
more.
Then, Menon picked on the word ‘vortex’ and Khan’s improper use of it,
and what followed was an attack on Khan for uttering a threat of war in the
Security Council, a forum for peaceful resolution of disputes! Then he
chided him for threatening involvement of some third country, a great
power, in a bilateral India–Pakistan issue. ‘Which great power?’ he asked,
and left the question hanging in the air. For that impropriety, he quietly said,
it was for the Security Council to chastise Khan.
Menon said he was deeply disappointed, for he thought that after having
been a judge on the World Court for several years and having been the
court’s vice president for three years, Khan had chosen to return to the
council to express regret for all the lies, untruths and half-truths he had
uttered in earlier debates, and to apologize—not to India—but to the august
council for those misdeeds. It hurt to think, he said, that Khan should have
learnt nothing of fairness, justice and probity in all those years at the ICJ!
What, he asked council members, was there for him to say about Khan’s
same old web of lies that had not been said before the council earlier? ‘Is
the council really ready and willing to hear me in detail for a few hours?’
Silence followed, and on a member’s request the vote was called on a
Western resolution not acceptable to India. It was vetoed by the Russian
representative, Ambassador Valerian Alexandrovich Zorin. Three or four
more meetings were called in later years, but they all ended without the
Security Council taking any specific action.
Working in the UN had given me an overview of the world of the 1950s and
the 1960s. It had also made me aware of the problems and concerns of
different countries, the impact of the Cold War on international relations
and the possibilities and limits of India’s role on the world stage. On issues
like General and Complete Disarmament and Nuclear Arms Control, our
legitimate concerns and constructive ideas exerted only marginal influence.
I personally had the satisfaction of actively witnessing the implementation
of an important plank of India’s foreign policy; namely, the Liberation of
Colonies in Africa and other parts of the world ruthlessly suppressed and
exploited by small European countries. Decolonization was a heartening
development in a world dominated by the USA and the European colonial
powers who enjoyed its support—Britain, Belgium, France, Portugal and
Spain. It would change the lives of people and international relations in
unpredictable ways.
Nuclear weapons had already rendered obsolete the old concepts of
warfare, victory and defeat. Russia’s sputnik, circumambulating in outer
space, marked a huge leap in science and technology. A few years later, the
world witnessed an even more daring leap into the future with US astronaut
Neil Armstrong taking his first tentative steps on the moon’s surface! India
too was making progress in consolidating its democracy, in spreading
education among millions of its illiterates, in expanding its base of science
and technology, in improving its agriculture and in laying the industrial
infrastructure for its future growth. Though the country was still dependent
on imported food grains, the economy was growing steadily at around 4 per
cent of GDP per annum. This so-called Hindu rate of growth was not
something to be jeered at considering that the Indian economy had been
regressing for decades before Independence. China’s economy was not
doing as well and the GDP growth rate in Britain, still one of the world’s
leading powers, was around 2 per cent.
With Nehru’s declining health and the slow erosion of his hold on
Parliament, parliamentary debates had become noisier and more
contentious, revealing increasingly a growing deficiency in calm and
constructive reasoning. There was little awareness in our political circles of
the war clouds gathering on the country’s northern horizon. It passes
understanding that the fairly large and costly intelligence apparatus we
maintained should have failed so miserably to detect China’s war
preparations, spread over a period of a year or two, before it launched a
massive attack on India in October 1962.
REACTIONS IN NEPAL
As the old saying goes, victory finds a 100 fathers but defeat is an orphan.
Of all our neighbours, I found the behaviour of the Royal Nepal
government of the greatest interest. Soon after the end of the 1965 war, the
King Mahendra sent his Prime Minister Giri to Delhi to tell Prime Minister
Shastri how much he had admired his courage and leadership to take
Pakistan head-on in such a decisive manner. This was in sharp contrast to
Nepal’s behaviour in the wake of the debacle of October–November 1962.
In February or March 1963, Prime Minister Nehru had sent Lal Bahadur
Shastri, minister of state in his office, to pay a goodwill visit to Nepal. I had
accompanied Shastriji to Kathmandu and was present at all his meetings
with Nepalese leaders; they couldn’t be colder!
On the first evening of our three-day stay in Kathmandu, there was a
low-level official dinner in the minister’s honour, followed by a cultural
show the central feature of which was a dance by a group of a dozen or so
Nepalese young men. As they danced, they waved their unsheathed khukris
and sang a song, the refrain of which was: ‘We’ll wash our blood-stained
khukris in the Ganga!’
It was an uncouth show of malice and provocation, and Shastriji said to
me, ‘Rasgotraji, we have got the message. Should we leave now?’ I advised
against a walkout and we sat through the programme. At the end, while we
were leaving the hall some friendly gentlemen expressed their unhappiness,
but the Nepalese minister who was our host said nothing when Shastriji
politely took leave of him. The affront, I was sure, could not have been
staged without approval of the highest authority of the country.
The pro-China tilt in Nepal’s foreign policy that had begun in 1960 now
became more pronounced and its overtures to Pakistan more open. Nepal’s
demands for all manner of concessions in its trade with India, the number of
transit points for its trade with third countries and its propaganda as a
country, disadvantaged because of being ‘India-locked’, became
provocatively strident. The only positive or friendly feature in Nepal–India
relations, in the wake of the 1962 war, was the huge number of Nepalese
Gurkhas rushing down from their hamlets in the hills to the recruiting
depots in India ‘to join the Indian army to defend brother India against
China’. It must be said to Nehru’s credit that, in the face of crude
provocation, he maintained his poised interest in and friendly attitude
towards Nepal.
Sometime in the third or fourth week of April 1964, Foreign Secretary
Gundevia showed me a short minute by the Prime Minister Nehru in his
own neat handwriting, saying that he had ‘made a date with the king of
Nepal’ for the latter to lay the foundation stone of the Gandak barrage at
Bhainselotan in his (Nehru’s) presence, which had been delayed by his
recent illness. He instructed that the date for the function should now be
fixed to suit the king’s convenience, and the necessary arrangements taken
in hand for his own travel to the barrage site. The prime minister was still in
a very delicate state of health and Gundevia tried to dissuade him, without
success, from undertaking an arduous air journey of about three hours in the
hot summer month of May in a small aircraft. There was no gainsaying the
prime minster, who was determined to fulfill the commitment he had made
to King Mahendra of Nepal.
The king and the prime minister met for tea and light conversation before
proceeding to the barrage site on the Gandak River’s west bank, where a
huge raised platform had been erected for the king and the prime minister to
address a gathering of some 3,00,000 men and women, who had walked
miles to see and hear their beloved leader, Jawaharlal Nehru. That journey
had taken its toll; the prime minister was an exhausted man when we left
for the public function, but the sight of that massed humanity seemed to
energize him. After King Mahendra had laid the foundation stone and read
out his written speech, the prime minister delivered a long and lively speech
in a strong, well-modulated voice. All of us who had accompanied him
were relieved to see our ailing prime minster back home safely. India lost
its hero exactly twenty-two days later.
Before leaving Bhainselotan, King Mahendra left a letter for the prime
minister, allegedly a record of their conversation over tea. In fact it was a
narration of Nepal’s perennial grievances, none of which had any validity—
the shortcomings in the Kosi project which the king’s father had approved,
inadequacies in the Gandak project agreement which he himself had
approved and, indeed, everything else India had done to help Nepal. He had
not mentioned any of this in his hour-long talk with the prime minister.
Mahendra now made a practice of this—after very friendly talks with an
Indian prime minister or President, he would leave a letter, before leaving
the venue, allegedly a record of the talks but in fact a list of unfounded
grievances about India’s injustices etc. against poor, helpless Nepal!
SIKKIM
Sikkim and Bhutan were also part of my charge in the ministry of external
affairs. The maharaja of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal, started showing
unwelcome ambitions in the wake of India’s debacle in 1962. During
British rule in India, the ruler of Sikkim was a member, like other rulers of
Indian states, of the Chamber of Princes. Namgyal was not pro-China, but
he had married an ambitious American young woman, Hope Cooke, who
soon developed a passion for her state’s independence and UN membership.
Unfortunately for them, the Namgyals were not a popular couple because
the ruling family belonged to the Bhutia–Lepcha ethnic group, which
accounted for no more than 8 or 10 per cent of Sikkim’s population, the rest
being of Nepalese and Indian origin. The people wanted democracy and
absorption of the princely state into the Indian Union. But for the Indian
government’s protection, the maharaja would have been ousted from power
long ago.
New Delhi had retained this feudal relic as a semi-autonomous entity in
the hope that it might be of some use in dealing with a genuinely
autonomous Tibet. But that hope was dashed after China’s occupation of
Tibet. However, the exposure of New Delhi’s weakness in the war had
spurred Thondup Namgyal’s ambition. He now did not wish to be called
maharaja or addressed as ‘His Highness’. He took the title Chogyal
(meaning ‘king’ in the Bhutia language). During Maharani Hope’s visits to
New York and Washington, her friends and gullible American journalists
and officials guilelessly pandered to her vanity and regal ambition by
addressing her as Her Majesty. In Sikkim, she wanted to be called Gialimo
(queen). All this went to the heads of the young couple and they began to
indulge in intrigues to make Sikkim independent of India and a member of
the United Nations! Meanwhile, the couple’s alienation from the people of
Sikkim had been growing. Political parties revolted against the ruler and
appealed to New Delhi to integrate the state fully into the Indian Union.
BHUTAN
Bhutan was different from both Nepal and Sikkim. The King Jigme Dorji
Wangchuck, who ruled the country from 1952 to 1975, was apprehensive
about China’s expansionism and wanted India to strengthen its defences by
reorganizing, rearming and training its small army. On the king’s request, a
programme of building a network of roads and of strengthening the
administration was undertaken on an emergency basis soon after the China–
India war of October–November 1962. A decision had been taken in New
Delhi in the late 1950s to help develop Bhutan’s international personality
and, at a mutually agreed time, to sponsor Bhutan’s application for UN
membership.
One episode stands out in my memory of my dealings with Bhutan in
those days. While the Wangchucks were the reigning monarchs, the Dorji
clan held the prime ministership of the country. Jigme Dorji, an able and
affable man, who apparently commanded considerable influence in the
country was the prime minister. He and his younger brother Lhendup Dorji,
who also held a high position under his brother, were frequent visitors to
Delhi for a variety of negotiations and I saw a good deal of both during
their talks with our authorities and also socially. Lhendup Dorji, who was
more or less my age, became a good friend of mine. Because of the power
Jigme Dorji wielded as prime minister, he had made enemies in the country.
On 6 April 1964, he was shot dead by an assassin who made good his
escape after committing the crime.
Lhendup Dorji, who immediately took over as Bhutan’s prime minister,
suspected, quite unjustly I believe, that in some indirect way the king was
responsible for his brother’s assassination. So, one day without prior
intimation, one of Lhendup’s confidants showed up at my residence to say,
in a roundabout way, that Lhendup wanted to avenge his family’s loss by
ousting the Wangchucks, ‘one way or another’, and that he was hoping for
my support! I was shocked by the message, and bluntly told Lhendup’s
friend that the Government of India, or I personally, were not in that kind of
business. And I advised him to leave Delhi at once and tell Lhendup to get
on with his sovereign.
On hearing my response, Lhendup must have thought that the news of his
improper approach to me might leak; he panicked and chose voluntary exile
in Nepal. Two or three days later, when the news broke that Bhutan’s prime
minister had fled his country and found asylum in Nepal, Secretary General
M.J. Desai asked me to look into this sudden development in Bhutan. I told
him what had happened, and explained that I had avoided asking Lhendup’s
friend to wait in Delhi till after I had spoken to him (Desai) or to Foreign
Secretary Gundevia, because I did not want to give the impression that
anyone in Delhi would give such a nefarious idea even a moment’s
consideration. Desai said I had done the right thing and I should now just
forget all about it, and he would find a way of alerting the king about his
security. He advised that I should keep a discreet eye on Lhendup’s
activities in Nepal. Lhendup did not receive any encouragement from any
quarter in Kathmandu and settled down to a quiet, unpretentious life as an
expert chicken farmer.
Nine or ten years later, when I was India’s ambassador in Nepal, he came
to see me. He was a very repentant and saddened man, terribly homesick for
Bhutan and asked me to do something to enable him to return to his own
country where he wanted to live peacefully as a loyal citizen. When an
appropriate occasion arose, I did the needful. The new monarch Jigme
Singye Wangchuck graciously allowed him to return to Bhutan where he
lived in mildly restricted freedom, did some farming, played a lot of golf
and died peacefully in 2007.
Bhutan’s monarchy is a stable institution commanding respect, loyalty
and affection of the people. Without ambition for direct autocratic personal
rule, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in order to accustom his people to the
responsibility of self-rule, took the initiative to institute an elective
assembly and the cabinet government responsible to it. There was no
demand or pressure on him from any quarter for those important political
reforms. After the system became fully functional under his benign watch
for some time, he voluntarily abdicated in favour of his son Jigme Khesar
Namgyel Wangchuck, who is following the path charted by his father and is
a popular king with a modern outlook. This is a rare example of an all-
powerful monarch guiding his people to democratic self-rule under a
constitutional monarchy. All this bodes well for Bhutan’s progress,
prosperity and stability.
chapter thirteen
A DIPLOMATIC WRANGLE WITH CHINA
In the India–Pakistan war of 1965, the Indian army and air force had inflicted
heavy damage on Pakistan’s armoured units of US-built Sherman tanks and
its air force equipped with American Sabre jets (F-86s), F-104s, radars and
other equipment supplied by America to its CENTO and SEATO ally. India’s
air-warriors in their little Gnats had virtually chased Pakistan’s F-86s and F-
104s out of the skies, and IAF bombers had raided and destroyed targets in
faraway places like Peshawar and Karachi. In a huge tank battle, our gunners
had knocked out numerous supposedly invincible Sherman tanks and also
captured a few in good working condition. The army wanted to install one of
these trophies in the green area in the middle of Connaught Place in New
Delhi; but our higher authorities were persuaded by the US embassy to save
them and their arms captured in battle such disgrace.
Throughout the two-week India–Pakistan war, China kept flinging threats
and ultimatums on India from across the northern border. We treated these,
with cool indifference, as empty threats. All this helped restore somewhat the
Indian army’s reputation and India’s prestige and influence in Afro-Asian
circles which had been badly dented by the debacle of 1962. In British and
American military circles there was surprise at the speed of the recovery of
India’s political morale and military confidence. But Peking still thought that
it could push India around and diplomatically humiliate and maul it at will.
One of the more interesting developments in that context during my time
in New Delhi was a move by the China–Indonesia–Pakistan triad to convene
an Afro-Asian Conference on the tenth anniversary, in 1965, of the Bandung
Afro-Asian Conference of 1955. In March 1964, President Soekarno of
Indonesia took the initiative to invite nineteen countries, including India, to
send their foreign ministers to Djakarta for a meeting to consider the
convening of a second Afro- Asian Conference. At Bandung itself, in 1955,
Nehru had become aware of the many ideological divisions and other serious
rifts among Afro-Asian countries, and of the ambitions of some Bandung
participants to use the conference for the promotion of their own national
interests or for their own projection as world leaders. It had taken a huge
personal effort on Nehru’s part to achieve consensus on the declaration that
was issued at the end of the conference. The ten principles enunciated in the
declaration were but a rehash of the five principles of coexistence
(Panchsheel), and Nehru was already totally disillusioned with China’s
cynical disregard of Panchsheel in the conduct of its relations with India and
in its foreign policy generally.
We found out that before issuing invitations to the preparatory meeting in
Djakarta, Soekarno had consulted only two countries, China and Pakistan,
and that China’s main objective was to dominate the Afro-Asian Conference
and isolate and humiliate India in that forum. Nevertheless, Nehru somewhat
reluctantly gave the go-ahead for India’s participation in the Djakarta meeting
by a three-member delegation led by Sardar Swaran Singh (a senior cabinet
minister), with Azim Hussain (special secretary in the MEA), and myself in
tow for legwork usually indispensable in any conference.
In a discussion of our strategy in the forthcoming conference, C.S Jha,
commonwealth secretary in the ministry of external affairs, recalled that in
the Bogor preparatory meeting preceding Bandung, the idea of inviting the
USSR to the Bandung Conference was mooted but not pursued. The question
under discussion was whether we should revive the idea and make a formal
proposal that Russia be invited to the second Afro-Asian Conference. Nehru
instructed that Moscow should be consulted in the matter beforehand, and our
delegation should make the proposal only with Moscow’s consent. Gromyko
told our ambassador that Russia would not ask for an invitation but would
attend the Afro-Asian summit if invited. In other words, we were free to
propose at the Djakarta meeting that Russia be invited to the conference.
The agenda of the preparatory meeting convened by President Soekarno of
Indonesia was simple: venue and dates etc. of the next summit—Algiers in
June 1965 was agreed without difficulty—and approval of the list of
countries to be invited to the summit in Algiers.
When the second item came up for discussion, the chairman read out
names of countries to be invited. The list did not include Malaysia, an Asian
country which had recently achieved independence. This was odd, and in
answer to my query a middle-level Indonesian official told me that Soekarno
simply would not have Malaysia in the conference. Lobby gossip further
revealed that Pakistan and China had also agreed to this. When I mentioned it
to Sardar Swaran Singh, he said, ‘That is very strange, but good! We shall see
what happens.’ Then he asked Azim Hussain and myself whether we should
also take it upon ourselves to propose the addition of Malaysia to the list of
invitees even though Malaysia had not asked us to do so. We both supported
the idea.
So, when Sardar Swaran Singh’s turn came to address the meeting, he
thanked the chair, expressed his appreciation of Indonesia’s important
initiative to convene the second Bandung Conference and the solid work
Djakarta had done for the preparatory meeting, which he felt deeply
honoured to attend. He profusely thanked the Indonesian government for its
generous hospitality, and referred, in a very soft and gentle voice, to what he
thought were one or two omissions in the list of invitees. The world, he said,
had been changing very fast, thanks to decolonization and other
developments. For example, Malaysia had recently become independent, and
Russia (he recalled Bogor) had been actively supporting Afro-Asian causes.
Besides, 65 or 70 per cent of its area lay in the Asian land mass along the
borders of another huge Asian country, China, and along the borders of a
South Asian country, Afghanistan. Furthermore, Soviet Russia had fully
adopted the Bandung policy of peaceful coexistence in its external relations.
And finally: ‘Mr Chairman, I feel that these two Asian countries fully deserve
to be taken into the Afro-Asian community’s fold. Therefore I formally
propose that Russia and Malaysia be included in the list of conference
invitees.’
If there is a thing called ‘political bombshell’, this was it.
For several minutes there was stunned silence in the conference hall. Then
I noticed that China’s Marshal Chen Yi looked at the leader of the Indonesian
delegation, Ali Sastroamidjojo or Foreign Minister Subandrio—I am not
quite certain which one of the two—who looked at Bhutto. Bhutto fixed his
questioning gaze on Chen Yi sitting next to him.
Two participants in the meeting spoke briefly; one to say the Indian
proposal deserved serious consideration, and the other—an African (perhaps
the delegate of Guinea)—supported invitation for both countries. I was
watching Bhutto, a frown on his face, anger in his eyes, and Chen Yi, sweat
streaming from his agitated face, fanning himself furiously. It was a hot,
summer day in Djakarta—the conference hall was not air-conditioned and the
ceiling fans whirring above us were only circulating hot air—but never
before had I seen a man sweat so profusely on the face.
Sensing that the Indian proposals might gather compelling support, the
Indonesian chairman proposed a short recess of fifteen or twenty minutes for
informal consultations among delegates. The triad, China–Indonesia–
Pakistan, met behind closed doors for half an hour or so, while we relaxed in
our seats, awaiting resumption of the meeting.
Neither Indonesia nor Pakistan, not even China, seemed inclined to openly
oppose Russia’s inclusion in the draft list of invitees to the second Bandung
Conference. Pakistan, in particular, was put in a great Islamic dilemma by
Indonesia’s allergy to the newly independent Islamic Malaysia. China’s plan
to dominate the Afro-Asian Conference and isolate India had come up against
an unanticipated hurdle. And three friendly Indians sat there with solemn
visages hiding their satisfaction at the turn of events and wondering what the
conspiring triad would come up with next.
The chairman came to Sardar Swaran Singh to say that Chen Yi and his
delegation would like to have a meeting with the Indian delegation after
dinner that night and he, therefore, was thinking of adjourning the meeting
for the day. Sardar Sahib made a show of consulting his two colleagues and
gave his consent.
In the two or three early decades of Independence, we Indians were a
guileless and very gullible lot. Witness the following account by Subimal
Dutt, foreign secretary who was with Nehru at the Bandung Conference:
There was no awareness of what was happening behind the scenes. I asked an
Indonesian friend about the origins of the China–Indonesia–Pakistan hook-up
we were witnessing at Djakarta; when did it take place? ‘At Bandung, in
1955,’ he said. ‘When you guys were gloating over India–China friendship.
Nothing secret about it. You guys were sleeping when all this was going on!’
To go back to the Djakarta scene of action, at 9:45 p.m. sharp that evening
the two delegations sat face-to-face across a narrow table in a small room,
where I had quietly arranged a map of Asia to be hung on a wall showing the
mass of China held in tight embrace by the mass of Asian Russia on its
northern and western flanks. No handshakes and no greetings were
exchanged, despite Sardar Swaran Singh’s remark in the air, as it were: ‘I am
happy to meet Marshal Chen Yi again.’
Chen Yi (CY) opened the meeting: ‘The Afro-Asian Conference is very
important,’ he said.
Sardar Swaran Singh (SSS) said, ‘Yes of course; very important. Your
Excellency, we attach very great importance to Afro-Asian solidarity and to
China’s role in strengthening it. As you said, this conference we are planning
will be of very great importance. I fully agree with Your Excellency.’ (This is
a very, very short precis of what SSS had spun out over four or five minutes.
CY: Then why are you doing this?
SSS: Doing what, Excellency?
CY: Wrecking the conference. By trying to bring Russia in it. Russia is not
an Asian country.
SSS: Field Marshal Chen Yi, I have only submitted a proposal for
discussion. Decision on it rests with Your Excellency and others in the
meeting. In the view of many countries, Russia is both a European and
Asian country.
CY: Are you doing it because Russia is a great power? (He thumps his
chest.) We, China, also a great power.
SSS: I know, Excellency. China is a great power, a very great power. But
thank you for telling me. I agree with you.
CY: Then why are you doing it? You do not want the conference.
SSS: We are very keen to have a second Afro-Asian Conference, Excellency
More countries have become independent since Bandung, like Malaysi
in Asia; and many more, twenty or more African countries have
become independent since 1955. Excellency, you asked why I proposed
Malaysia’s inclusion.
CY: No, No. Malaysia is not important. Why Russia?
In answer to this, Sardar Sahib launched off on a long explanation, very much
on the lines of the arguments he had adduced in the morning in support of his
proposal, repeating each important point a couple of times.
Then he looked at his watch; it was eleven o’ clock. Without rising from
his chair, he mentioned that he had to take some medicines at a particular
hour, and that he had not brought the medicine to the meeting.
Chen Yi rose from his chair. He looked flustered. Sardar Swaran Singh also
rose saying to Chen Yi that if he wanted to leave, their deputies could
continue the discussion. Then he specifically instructed Azim Hussain to
continue the important discussion with His Excellency’s delegation.
He lingered, hoping Chen Yi would leave first. Chen Yi obliged after
signalling to his delegation to continue, and saying to Sardar Swaran Singh:
‘This is not good; you will not gain anything by doing this. Not wise,’ and he
left the room.
A line in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound came to my mind: ‘Sometimes a
wise man gains his point by being thought unwise.’
The same old ding-dong argument continued for the next hour and a half
between Azim Hussain and Chen Yi’s deputy. Finally, to disarm his
interlocutor, Azim Hussain drew his attention to the map on the wall: ‘Look
there, Sir, China’s longest border with a foreign country is with Russia, three-
fourths of Russia’s territory lies in Asia in close proximity to China. Look at
that central Asian region of Russia bordering Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and
your own Sinkiang province! All Asian lands, Asian people!’
There was a guarded hint at a ‘compromise’—China could perhaps agree
to invite Malaysia; India should compromise and not press for Russia’s
inclusion!
Azim Hussain said Mr Chen Yi could propose that in the meeting the next
day.
The Chinese saw through the trick. They sulked, looked angry, spoke harsh
words. Azim Hussain and I relaxed, listened, argued back politely and
enjoyed doing all that hugely.
No compromise; and we dispersed after midnight!
The following day the conference decided to transfer this issue, along with
some other minor routine items, to Algiers, where these would be considered
in March–April 1965 in succession by the standing committee, the
preparatory committee, and the foreign ministers’ meeting in advance of the
summit on 29 June 1965.
A strong Indian delegation comprising five or six MPs, led by India’s
veteran of UN conferences, Foreign Secretary C.S. Jha, frustrated all attempts
by the triad and their five or six supporters to shelve the issue of invitations
to Russia and Malaysia. On two or three occasions, Algerian organizers
arranged meetings of the preparatory committee with only China and its
supporters present to approve the list of invitees (excluding Russia and
Malaysia), by obtaining a rump consensus behind the backs of India and its
more numerous supporters. But Jha would somehow find out and turn up at
those secret locations, as if on a magic carpet, to frustrate their attempts. The
end result was that the China–Indonesia–Pakistan triad could not achieve
their purpose and were on the defensive. On their initiative the summit was
postponed to November 1965.
At every stage of discussion of the issue, support had grown for invitations
being extended to both Russia and Malaysia to the Summit Conference.
China was isolated in regards to the invitation to Russia. Indonesia did not
have enough support, not even from Pakistan, for excluding Malaysia.
Pakistan could not openly oppose the exclusion of Malaysia or Russia from
the conference. Therefore, at the preparatory meeting in November, Indonesia
let it be known that President Soekarno would not attend the summit. China,
now, in any case, did not want the summit. So, in November, the summit was
adjourned sine die. End of farce.
chapter fourteen
IN GRIEF: A LEAP INTO THE BIG WORLD
I had been in post in the ministry of external affairs for four years when in
mid-1966, pressures of postwar workload began to ease somewhat and
Foreign Secretary C.S. Jha asked me whether I was keen on an immediate
posting abroad. He advised that I should stick around at headquarters for
another eight or ten months, for two or three posts of head of mission would
fall vacant and he would, then, consider me for an ambassadorial
appointment. Meanwhile B.L. Sharma, who was doing the specialist job of
officer on special duty (Kashmir) in the MEA since 1947, was to retire
shortly and Mr Jha wanted me to join that post. The post was outside the
IFS cadre and its emoluments were substantially higher than those of the
director’s grade in the IFS. I readily agreed to move over to the office of the
OSD (Kashmir) on B.L. Sharma’s retirement. Mr Jha advised me to keep to
myself the matter of my likely elevation to ambassadorship in 1967.
I was forty-two at that time; promotions were slow in the Foreign Service
and there was a lot of frustration in the ranks of competitive recruits in the
service. I had not expected such luck for another four or five years, or more.
It was thrilling news which filled me with feelings of excitement, humility
and gratitude to the powers on high. I did not have enough words to thank
Foreign Secretary Jha.
The work in my new job was of great interest to me, but it was not
without a pang that I moved off my old desk. For though the area of my
charge as director (north) was limited to Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, His
Holiness the Dalai Lama and his offices in Dharmashala and New Delhi,
resettlement of Tibetan refugees and the war book duties, the area was in
the news all the time. In Delhi’s diplomatic corps there was a lot of interest
in the region and in the problems I was dealing with. Therefore, many
foreign ambassadors were in regular touch with me to discuss the situation
on the northern border, the ongoing build-up of our defences in the
Himalayas or simply to exchange views on the ever-changing hue of India–
Nepal relations—a fair number of ambassadors resident in Delhi were
concurrently accredited to Nepal.
The ambassadors of Nordic countries and Switzerland, in particular, were
interested in our experience of resettling Tibetan refugees in different parts
of India. Their visits to my office gave me the opportunity to observe how
an ambassador walks, how he sits, how he talks, how he greets you when he
comes to call on you or takes leave, how he comports himself when he
visits the Foreign Office to call on a minister or the foreign secretary or to
have a chat with a comparatively junior official like myself.
As head of the northern division, it was also a part of my duties to control
visits of foreigners to India’s northeastern region. For visiting Sikkim and
other northeastern states, foreigners required an Inner Line Permit, which
was issued by a designated authority only after clearance from me.
Normally I would accommodate foreign dignitaries and diplomats resident
in Delhi, if they were a friendly sort and not likely to sniff around for secret
information or cause some other mischief. I would give the clearance after
consulting the concerned military and civil authorities in Delhi and the
designated authorities in the region. But quite a few requests had to be
turned down for security reasons.
A case of particular interest was that of Sir Olaf Caroe of the former ICS,
who wanted to visit Sikkim, Bhutan and Assam. The gentleman, I knew,
was not well disposed towards India. In Sikkim, I was certain, he would
only incite the international ambitions of the maharaja who, I was told, had
invited Sir Olaf to Gangtok. The area was not open to tourism; Sir Olaf
could not possibly have any legitimate business there. Besides, he was
governor of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan when, under his
indulgent watch, tribals were armed and trained by Pakistan’s army to
invade Kashmir. So, I rejected his request for an Inner Line Permit. The
British high commissioner then made approaches on his behalf to high
quarters in the Foreign Office and in the prime minister’s office, but they
upheld my decision and Foreign Secretary Jha told the high commissioner
that the procedure for the issue of Inner Line Permits was a complicated
one, requiring prior consultation with a number of concerned authorities by
the director (north), whose decision was final and could not be
countermanded.
But even this does not answer any of my questions. My own personal
search for answers to these questions has been in vain.
Akhiyan mila ke
Jiya bharma ke
Chale nahin jana
And then she did a little jig Bollywood style followed by ‘Namaste’.
I picked up the little angel and kissed her on the forehead and both of us
walked over to her parents. I thanked them for such a touching welcome.
My hostess said: ‘Ambassador, you are now a part of our family!’ There is
nothing on earth to match ‘poulet aux citrons’ and ‘poulet aux olives’ made
in a Moroccan home. Moroccan cuisine and the warmth of Moroccan
hospitality, from the feasts in the royal palaces to meals in middle-class
homes, are in a class of their own. Kadambari and I had enjoyed both in
good measure.
For Kadambari, an exciting occasion came soon after the mother of the
king’s children (that is the description of the lady who in other countries
would be called the queen) gave birth to a son—the present Mohammed VI.
As a part of the celebrations, the king invited the wives of some local
dignitaries and a few ambassadresses, including Kadambari, to the harem to
see and bless the mother and the child and enjoy a lavish dinner with the
ladies of the harem. The king himself spoke with each invitee and was a
most warm-hearted and charming host. For the invitees this was a once-in-
a-lifetime treat: nearly half a century later Kadambari still recalls the
occasion with nostalgia.
Morocco is one of the most scenic countries in the world with snow-clad
mountains, lush green plains with their palm groves and orchards, and
deserts juxtaposed together in an abundance of countless cultural, historical
and architectural attractions for tourists of all ages. The cities of Fez and
Marrakesh in central Morocco and Agadir down south in the desert were
my favourites. Marrakesh had a golf course lined with orange trees. I
played a game of golf there with some Moroccan friends. To quench our
thirst on a sunny afternoon we plucked and ate juicy oranges while walking
on the course! In the 1960s, Morocco had a population of 8 million, and it
was regularly hosting 9 to 10 million tourists every year—that number must
have grown larger still. Morocco’s scenic golf courses are among the
country’s major tourist attractions.
In December, I received orders transferring me to our embassy in
Washington DC as deputy chief of mission. I was told that our ambassador
in Washington, Ali Yawar Jung was seriously ill, that Nixon had been
elected President, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi felt there would be
new difficulties in India–US relations and she wanted me there to deal with
the situation. When I returned to Delhi for a short holiday and
consultations, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said to me, ‘Richard Nixon
means trouble for India. He dislikes India and he hates me. You know
America; I want you to be there to deal with the problems that might arise
and hold Ambassador Jung’s hand. I don’t want to withdraw him while he is
under treatment there.’
Kadambari was disturbed and unhappy again, but there was no way I
could argue with the prime minister. My normal tenure of three years in a
post had been cut short by half. We were not happy to leave Morocco and
Tunisia. But this short posting had a therapeutic effect on our lives and
prepared us for exacting times during the next eight to ten years. A long
meeting Kadambari had with Indira Gandhi helped her calm down, and off
we went to Washington DC in April 1969.
chapter fifteen
INDIA AND THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE
This sympathetic and friendly view of India was a good enough basis for a
serious exchange of views between Nixon and Indian leaders; but such a
dialogue never took place because of Washington’s lingering suspicion, and
worry about New Delhi’s deepening relations with Moscow and India’s
unfading memories of Nixon’s past hostility and the anti-India feelings
Nixon had tried to spread in American political circles after his 1953 visit to
Delhi. Poor personal chemistry and mistrust between him and Indira Gandhi
also came in the way of a rapprochement when the two elected leaders were
in power in Washington and New Delhi.
Dr Kissinger said he did not really know what India wanted. If India
wanted to become an extension of Soviet foreign policy, then
inevitably the American interest in India was bound to decline and
India would have to look to the Soviet Union for the greater part of its
economic and other assistance. He could not understand why India
would want to be drawn into the Sino-Soviet rivalry, or why it would
deliberately antagonize the one country that had no national interest in
the subcontinent except an independent and healthy India and an
independent subcontinent.
Ambassador Jha replied that the situation in India was very difficult.
First of all, Madame Gandhi was not at all pro-Soviet. She had for a
long time resisted the proposal—that had first been thought up by
Dinesh Singh, the former foreign minister—of this treaty of friendship.
In fact, Jha said on a personal basis, he wouldn’t be a bit surprised if
Dinesh Singh actually received pay from the communists. At the same
time he also thought that Kaul and Haksar were very much under
Soviet influence. In short, for both these reasons Madame Gandhi was
under great pressure. The project had been going along for about a
year, and recently Madame Gandhi felt she needed some dramatic
foreign policy, so she picked it up, but Dr Kissinger could be certain
that she did not have her heart in it.
That might be so, Dr Kissinger said, but the problem is how she
would carry out the policy. Dr Kissinger could tell her that from our
selfish point of view it did not hurt us to have India pursue such a pro-
Soviet line in relation to our China policy, nor should the ambassador
have any illusions that it was possible to stir up any basic American
public support on the Bengali issue. Still, in order to score temporary
points, India was running a tremendous risk of permanently alienating
the United States.
Jha himself did not prepare a record of this meeting, or, perhaps, he kept
one in his private papers. I did not see it. But if there is a modicum of truth
in Kissinger’s record, there is a lesson for future practitioners of the art of
diplomacy in his curt dismissal of Ambassador Jha’s denigration of his
foreign minister and of the two senior-most advisers of Prime Minister
Gandhi as virtual agents of a foreign power, as well as the implication that
the iron lady was a puppet in their manipulating hands.
As if that were not enough, Kissinger also sounded a personal warning to
the ambassador and a threat to India!
While it is advisable for a diplomat to keep up the search for common
ground between two opposing sides, letting down your own side brings
neither respect nor reward.
chapter seventeen
BANGLADESH: THE FAILURE OF NIXON–
KISSINGER DIPLOMACY
On the basis of what Zhou En-Lai had said to him in July, Kissinger had
assured President Nixon that ‘China would not stand idly by if India
attacked Pakistan’. But the Chinese had realized that the India of 1971 was
not the India of 1962. Besides, India had taken measures to hold the
Chinese in the north if they militarily intervened in the war. China’s
dilemma was resolved when the Pakistan Air Force initiated the war by
launching surprise attacks on 3rd December on a number of bases of the
Indian Air Force in the northern states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar
Pradesh, and the following day Yahya Khan declared war on India.
From the start, the twelve-day war went badly for Pakistan. In fact the
war would have ended in nine or ten days but for the American advice to
Yahya Khan to hold out for the expected military intervention by China,
which did not materialize. Nor did the dispatch of the Seventh Fleet to the
Bay of Bengal intimidate or deter India, and on 16 December the war ended
with the Pakistan army’s unconditional surrender at Dhaka with 90,000
Pakistani troops as prisoners of war.
In the afternoon of the day President Nixon gave the order for the fleet to
sail, an Indian gentleman with access to important persons in the White
House, asked to see me urgently. He came to my residence within hours of
the event to tell me of the President’s decision: ‘Mr Rasgotra, I cannot tell
you how I got to know this, but the war is going to get bigger, and as a
concerned Indian I thought I should warn you.’
I thought it was a plant, but the fact of the Seventh Fleet having been
ordered to the scene of conflict was there. The White House must have
thought India would panic, ask for peace and Pakistan would be saved. A
few hours later, a friendly source confirmed to me the order for the fleet to
sail to the Bay of Bengal, nominally to ‘evacuate American citizens’ but
actually to ‘pose a threat to the ongoing Indian military operations in East
Pakistan’!
I telephoned Foreign Secretary T.N. Kaul, who was in New York in
connection with a Security Council meeting, to give him the news, and he
suggested I speak to P.N. Haksar in Delhi, which I did immediately.
Haksar’s response: ‘Okay, how long will it take the fleet to reach our
shores?’ I said I would check and call back. I called him again to say that
seven to eight days was the estimated time. Haksar said to me, ‘Maharaj, it
is all right. Let it come; the war will be over before that. But let me know if
there are any further developments.’
That evening, Victor Shukla, the embassy’s information counsellor,
called five or six journalists to talk to me about the developments, which
were still not in the public domain. The news was splashed across American
electronic media later that night, and in print media the following morning
in banner headlines highly critical of the administration. In the media, the
Congress and the general public, there was anger over this latest move
against India.
In India there was shock but no panic. Prime Minister Gandhi summoned
the chief of the Indian navy, Admiral Nanda and asked what he planned to
do. Nanda said he would take command of the lead Indian vessel in the
Bay, and he would ask the commander of the nuclear armed fleet to come
over to his ship for a drink and offer him all necessary assistance for
evacuation of American personnel! The morale of the Indian Armed Forces
rose higher when the Indian defence minister, Babu Jagjivan Ram declared
two days later that if the Seventh Fleet came too close to India or interfered
with Indian military operations in East Bengal, he would take action to
damage, if not sink, the fleet!
When I met Babuji in February 1972, I asked him how he had planned to
sink such a formidable nuclear armed armada. A leading figure in the
Indian National Congress hierarchy, Babuji had held several cabinet posts
and was an experienced administrator. He was a cool-headed, soft-spoken
man who never got ruffled in a crisis and was always careful in choosing
his words in whatever he wanted to say. He said the day after the news
broke, scores of naval officers and men volunteered for suicide attacks on
the offending American ships. They had told him they would wrap
themselves up in limpet mines and swim deep underwater towards the ships
from all directions. Whether it succeeded or not, it was a practical strategy.
What is more, it showed the determination not to submit to America’s
threat. My own guess, which I shared with Babuji, was that American
public opinion was so roused against Nixon’s move that, the threat apart, he
would not find it possible to initiate hostilities against a sister democracy. In
any case, the fleet reached the Bay of Bengal too late and lingered there in
idleness for some time, a monument of shame to the President of the United
States and his national security adviser.
In the last four or five days of the war, Kissinger conjured up another
ruse to divert attention from the failure of his (and Nixon’s) East Pakistan
policy. It was said that after the war in the east was over, India had plans to
transfer a couple of divisions, or more, of its battle-hardened troops to the
western front and launch a major invasion to destroy the Pakistan army and
undo that country completely. West Pakistan had to be saved; therefore
there were daily summons to the Russian ambassador to transmit fevered
messages to Secretary General Brezhnev to stop the Indians from invading
West Pakistan! It was a charade. The Soviet’s laughed and went through the
motions; the Indians were not amused.
The assurances the White House wanted had been given to Ambassador
Keating by Prime Minister Gandhi and Foreign Minister Swaran Singh. In
Washington, Ambassador Jha had given the required assurance to Kissinger
and to Undersecretary John Irwin. I had repeated the same to Joseph Sisco.
Besides, American intelligence itself had reported to the President and
Kissinger that the Indian army had adopted a defensive posture against the
Pakistan army’s fierce attacks in the west. Regardless of all that, after the
Pakistan army surrendered in Dhaka on 16 December and Prime Minister
Gandhi ordered unilateral ceasefire in the west on 17 December, Kissinger
exulted in his (and Nixon’s) success in saving Pakistan! Having failed to
involve China in the war, he was now assigning a role in ending the war to
Russia under heavy American pressure! How obtuse could one be!
But Henry knew (and so did President Nixon) that their policy was in
shambles. There were rumours in Washington that Dr Kissinger was in a
state of deep depression and that for three or four days, even President
Nixon had shunned him.
I felt sympathy for the man and prayed for his quick recovery from the
shock of the failure of his policy. He had been under immense pressure
lately because of the Vietnam War and his inconclusive, protracted peace
negotiations with Hanoi’s representatives in the bistros of Paris. He had
alienated the entire State Department, lost congressional support and
incurred disapprobation of the media and the public. All that must have
taken its toll.
The acid test of policy, Kissinger had written in A World Restored, ‘is its
ability to obtain domestic support’. His policy’s starkest failure lay
precisely in its total lack of domestic support.
The emergence of an independent Bangladesh was not failure of
Washington’s India–Pakistan policy alone, it had demonstrated the
irrelevance of Kissinger’s doctrine of Linkage. Even his Chinese friends
thought Linkage was a strategic trap, disavowed it and stayed a safe
distance from it.
American policymakers were used to the willing submission of leaders of
European democracies and other countries such as Pakistan to their dictates.
Where American national interest came in conflict with another country’s
interests, the former had to prevail. In Europe, only General Charles de
Gaulle’s France dared pursue an independent foreign and security policy
despite being a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
In the post-World War II situation, Britain was the United States’ most loyal
and obedient ally, except during Edward Heath’s prime ministership.
Therefore, for Nixon and Kissinger it was a novel, and unpleasant
experience to be defied by an Asian leader, the prime minister of the
world’s largest democracy, who was conscious of her responsibility to
safeguard her own country’s security and stability, and of her answerability
in that regard to her Parliament and people. In their frustration Nixon and
Kissinger heaped insults and abuse on the Indian prime minister. She bore
all that with unwonted sang froid, but left no doubt in her talks with Nixon
in November 1971, that Pakistan’s pushing ten million of its nationals into
India was tantamount to an invasion of her country and it would be dealt
with as such. She ignored their threats of aid cuts and made it clear that if
the United States were to embark on a course of hostility, she would live
with that too and explore other options.
US–India relations had reached their lowest point ever at the end of 1971.
There was neither the mood, nor any move from either side to mend
relations. Nixon made a gesture by way of making amends in his annual
report of 1973 to the Congress by saying that ‘India emerged from the 1971
crisis with new confidence, power and responsibilities . . . The United
States respects India as a major country. We are prepared to deal with it in
accordance with its new stature and responsibilities on the basis of
reciprocity.’ To allay India’s anxiety over Washington’s new relationship
with China, the President had added a reassuring sentence in the same
report saying, ‘The United States will not join in any group or pursue any
policies directed against India.’ But he commanded little credence in India.
Nevertheless pro forma high-level contacts were resumed in early 1974
when Foreign Minister Swaran Singh met with Secretary of State Kissinger
in New York in April 1974, and the establishment of a joint commission
was agreed to promote economic cooperation between the two countries.
Kissinger’s own return visit to India that year did not help advance the
relationship because of the lack of trust in him in India due to his past
hostility and unreliability.
Also the policies and actions of the two countries kept creating new
hurdles in the way of an improved relationship. India’s underground nuclear
test (the PNE, so-called) in 1974 sent shock waves around the world and
attracted American sanctions. New legislation by the Congress put an end
to American fuel supplies for the Tarapur nuclear power plant, which had
been gifted to India by President John Kennedy. Disputation about the
rights and wrongs of this act of the US continued to hamper progress in
relations till 1982, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s state visit to the
US at President Ronald Reagan’s invitation gave them a positive turn.
In Delhi, D.P. Dhar was in charge of developing the framework for peace
negotiations with Pakistan. My opinion was invited in that regard during
my consultations visit to Delhi in February 1972. The 90,000 Pakistani
prisoners of war had been brought over to India for their safety. The Indian
army had also occupied some strategically important areas of Pakistan,
especially the entire sub-district of Shakargarh on the southern border of the
Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, from where the Pakistan army had
threatened to cut our road link to the Kashmir Valley in 1965 and again in
1971. Foreign Secretary T.N. Kaul was present at my meeting with D.P.
Dhar in a secure room at the Ashoka Hotel in Chanakyapuri. Two or three
other persons were also present, representing the Defence ministry and our
intelligence agencies. Kaul did not say much at that meeting; the others,
including D.P. Dhar, were of the view that we should vacate the Pakistan
territory we had captured and hold the prisoners as a sort of leverage for a
good peace agreement.
My view was that 90,000 prisoners of war were no leverage but a huge
liability. We would have to feed them and look after them under the Geneva
Protocol. By handing them over to Pakistan we might earn the goodwill of
their families in Pakistan’s Punjab and Frontier provinces. Back home in
Pakistan, they would be an embarrassment for Bhutto’s government. On the
other hand the areas we occupied in Pakistan were of strategic importance
and should be handed back to Pakistan only after a satisfactory peace
agreement was reached, especially on Kashmir. The goal in regard to
Kashmir should be recognition of the new ceasefire line as the international
border. Everyone agreed to the last point, but on the other two points I was
overruled.
Nevertheless, I do not agree with those who say we won the war and lost
the peace; that in my view is only partially true. Indian leaders wanted a
bilaterally negotiated peace agreement without a third party’s good offices.
Since the Simla Agreement, the UN and all other meddlers in Kashmir have
acknowledged that the issue is now squarely for India and Pakistan to settle
between them. That was some progress, even though on the question of the
new Line of Control (LOC) being treated as the international border in
Kashmir, Bhutto had duped our negotiators, stricken by the Versailles
Syndrome.
We were in a position to clinch the issue and we failed to do so for fear of
a breakdown of negotiations. Haksar, D.P. Dhar and P.N. Dhar wanted to be
generous to the defeated enemy. Heavens would not have fallen if Bhutto
had gone back empty-handed. He or someone else could have come back to
Shimla to agree to a final division of Kashmir along the LOC as the
international border. The wily Bhutto agreed orally and promised he would
persuade his people to support his agreement, but went back and reneged on
the unwritten commitment he had given to Prime Minister Gandhi.
Many years later I asked Haksar why he had placed such trust in Bhutto’s
oral promise. He said Bhutto had sought a private meeting with him, fallen
at his feet and begged him not to send him back to be butchered by his
enemies, trust him and his word of honour about the LOC being treated as
the border; he wanted time to sell the idea to his countrymen. Haksar then
persuaded Indira Gandhi that Bhutto deserved her understanding and
sympathy.
chapter eighteen
RENEWAL OF FAITH
When you are confronted with a difficult problem, do what you think
is right and do it fearlessly as duty that has to be done in the spirit of
service.
Where human beings are concerned, act with love, sympathy and
compassion.
Never act in anger; nor consciously harm anyone.
Have no fear of enemies; treated with kindness, enemies will
become friends.
Let love, truth and compassion be your guide in your actions.
I am with you always.
‘You do not do meditation,’ he said, ‘only physical yoga, the exercise part.
You will not have much time in London to do meditation, but whenever you
can find a few minutes of calm, sit in a quiet room and concentrate on any
divine image or thought’—and he instructed me how to do it. ‘This will
help your concentration and stop your mind from wandering hither and
thither.’ A few years later he gave me a mantra to be repeated mentally to
aid concentration, which I have practised ever since.
It was in this marvellous way, with an abundant shower of Baba’s grace
and blessings on the morning of 2 July 1972, that I started my journey into
a phase of high responsibility in my working life. That was also the day
when I began to recover my faith. I came out of the audience with Sri
Sathya Sai Baba a changed man from the one I had been, and with a set of
instructions that would be my guide in what remained of my life and work.
Some people talk in wonder of Baba’s miracles such as the
materializations of things from the air, others deride them as the works of a
magician. Baba’s real miracles are worked in the hearts of human beings
who approach him with open minds.
Those who are lucky enough to be granted an audience come out of it
deeply changed, better human beings, shorn of their anger and ego. This,
his greatest miracle, is transforming human beings and societies in virtually
every country of the world. In India, he has revolutionized education and
set up model educational institutions, from an esteemed university in
Prasanthi Nilayam to colleges and schools in all parts of the country. He has
established super-speciality hospitals where all services are free of charge,
huge piped water supply projects for hundreds of villages and instituted a
village integration programme benefitting millions of hitherto marginalized
villagers. These are examples for our Central and state governments to
follow to serve the common people.
Like teachers and reformers of earlier ages, Baba also had his critics and
detractors. But in the common man’s age, Sathya Sai Baba was the common
man’s messiah. His miracles may be forgotten after the generation that
witnessed them passes, but his message of one humanity bound in love and
service will continue to resonate in the world in times to come, and the
common man will remember and worship him for the monumental
institutions and social service programmes he created for their well-being
and upliftment.
From July 1972 onwards, I made it a practice to visit Sri Sathya Sai’s
ashram at least once, sometimes twice a year, and every time there was a
new teaching and a fresh insight into life’s myriad mysteries. My
experiences of those years of Sathya Sai’s love and grace would fill a book
or two. Here I will narrate only one event, which was his last gift to me—a
revelation of his own divinity and a vision of the nature of existences.
After my retirement from government service in 1990, I had been seeing
a lot more of him. Apart from short visits, every year I would spend a
month in the summer in Brindavan or Puttaparthi, attending his discourses,
and spending time with the faculty of his university and giving lectures to
students on international relations. In 1988, and a few years later for the
second time, he had honoured me by asking me to deliver the convocation
addresses at the university of which he was the chancellor. In all these visits
I saw a good deal of Bhagwan Baba and on several occasions talked with
him and received his guidance on spiritual matters. Four decades had
passed since my first meeting with him. He must have thought that all those
years of meditation and my effort to live my life in accordance with his
precepts had readied me for the revelation which I attempt to describe here.
In Prasanthi Nilayam (old Puttaparthi), on the afternoon of 20 June 2009
and the following day, I saw Baba along with others assembled in the
temple verandah for his darshan. I was scheduled to leave Prashanthi at 1
p.m. on 22 June and was hoping for an audience with Baba that morning.
But Baba did not come to the temple and, instead, I received instructions to
postpone my departure till after a meeting with him that afternoon, which in
effect meant that I would be able to take a flight to Delhi only on 23 June. I
willingly complied with Baba’s command and changed my travel
arrangements accordingly.
In the private audience with Baba, he graciously granted me at around
4:30 p.m. on Monday, 22 June. I gave expression to my gratitude for the
honour he had bestowed on me earlier in April that year to make me a
member of his Central Trust’s Management Council, and asked for his
guidance as to any particular service I could render as a council member.
He changed the subject with a smile by informing me of a large sum of
money he was giving to the Sathya Sai International Centre in New Delhi—
I am chairman of the management committee of the centre. The centre’s
activities were expanding and, in particular, the work of the Sathya Sai
Primary School and the School for the Study of Human Values attached to it
was attracting notice in educational circles in India and abroad. I took
Baba’s generous gift as indication of his appreciation of the centre’s work.
Baba then said he would see me in the mandir at 8 a.m. the following day.
I reached the mandir at 8 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, 23 June, and
sat in the chair reserved for me in the outer verandah. The chair was
provided out of respect for my age—I was eighty-five—and its placement
was strategic in the sense that from where I sat, I got a clear view of Baba’s
arrivals and departures and of much of the rounds he used to make in the
mandir’s compound to give darshan to devotees assembled there. From my
seat I could see Baba almost as he left his residence to begin the short
journey to the mandir. He usually took three minutes to reach the gate of the
compound, the area adjoining which was reserved for women devotees.
My eyesight was still good in those days. I could read a newspaper’s
small print without spectacles. Everything seemed normal that morning. But
a moment after Baba came out of his residence, and my eyes caught sight of
him, things started to happen the likes of which I had not experienced
before. All of a sudden, I felt a surge of warmth in my body and a change
came over my vision. All that was static and stable a moment earlier—the
boundary wall, the buildings beyond, the serried rows of women devotees
in their multicoloured saris, thousands of male devotees assembled in the
hall—all became a sea of gentle waves of multi-hued light.
Instinctively my right hand went to the pulse in my left wrist. The pulse
beat was normal. My eyes opened wide in wonder at the panorama
unfolding before them. My gaze turned towards the gate of the mandir
compound, a few yards beyond which I could still clearly see, for a few
fleeting moments, Baba in the wheelchair, with four companions walking
behind him, slowly advancing towards the gate. Momentarily the scene
began to change and in a trice it was all light everywhere—the purest of
pure white light enveloped all. It looked as if nothing else had ever existed
there, nothing except the heavenly radiance I now beheld. Whichever way
my gaze turned, I saw only light, an all-enveloping luminescence
everywhere. Boundary walls topped by iron grills, solid buildings beyond,
the gate where I had had a clear view of Baba and his companions, and a
few thousand women devotees seated on two sides of Baba’s route to the
temple, Baba’s party of four—all had dissolved into that splendour of
divine effulgence. I could still see Baba moving slowly forward on air, as it
were, no wheelchair under him, on his usual course of giving darshan. But
now, he and his orange robe had also become a translucent white entity, yet
clearly distinguishable in outline, afloat on the sea of light around it. All
landmarks of the area with which I had become so familiar over the years
had vanished or become part of that light. There was no solid substance in
sight anywhere around.
How long did all this last? I cannot say with certainty. Perhaps not more
than three or four minutes. While beholding that marvel, I remember saying
to myself: ‘I am fully conscious and in possession of my senses. This is
strange, the light is so bright but it is not harsh on my eyes; no heat radiates
from it!’ I also observed how remarkably calm I was as my eyes feasted on
that cool, bright light which had transmuted everything into itself. The
supernatural spectacle had not unnerved me. And then suddenly the thought
came to me, ‘my Divine Teacher is giving me a vision of who he is and of
the reality of existences. I am a blessed recipient of his grace.’
In a moment, as it were, the scene began to change again. The light
swiftly receded from all sides to a point about forty or fifty yards from the
gate into the temple compound, where Baba and his party had then reached.
I could now make out Baba, in his orange-coloured robe, on the wheelchair
with his four companions behind him at the centre of a quickly shrinking
glow and, then, the normal everyday scene of Baba on his round to bless the
assembled devotees. My eyes blinked and were filled with tears of joy and
gratitude. Bedazzled by the transfiguration I had witnessed of Baba and the
surroundings into a sea of light, I sat in my chair in the verandah, oblivious
of what was happening around me.
A few minutes later, someone nudged me and I saw Baba’s wheelchair
advancing towards me in the verandah. Quickly I rose and touched his feet.
As I looked at him, he beamed his usual beatific smile and raised his right
hand in blessing. No words passed between us; none were necessary. The
avatar had blessed me with a revelation of his reality and of the Divine
Light called God.
Baba did not stay in the temple long that morning. Before leaving the
temple he blessed me again and said, ‘All is well; you can go back to Delhi
today.’
Every detail of that experience is etched in my mind and in my memory.
Looking back, I wonder how I could behold that marvel of indescribable
brilliance without any sense of bewilderment or awe overwhelming me. It
was also a wonder that no heat emanated from that sea of light. The mild
warmth felt by my body before the transfiguration began, was due, I
imagine, to what Baba had done to impart strength to my body and a
supernatural vision to my physical eyes so that I could withstand the
powerful impact of the divine revelation, behold and absorb it.
On two previous occasions, I had witnessed a self-revelatory act on
Baba’s part, which linked him with light. The scale of those manifestations
was much smaller and my normal eye was good enough to view them. Rai
Bahadur Sohan Lal’s house was the venue of both occurrences. The first I
have described earlier in this chapter. The second vision was that of a halo
around Baba’s head at a dinner in his company in the dining room. When
others were concentrating on the plates laden with delicacies before them. I
happened to look up and catch Baba’s eye, suddenly a halo of grainy
brilliance of an early winter morning sun had formed round his head, which
vanished instantly but only after I had had a good look at it. That it was an
act of grace on his part for my benefit was clear. When the feast ended and I
took his leave Baba smiled and said, ‘You saw!’ and walked away without
waiting for an answer.
For many years I had longed for a sight of that halo once again, but Baba
had been preparing me for a much larger vision of his divine reality. In a
discourse in the mandir compound in Prasanthi Nilayam, Baba had said,
‘The avatar comes not only to proclaim the eternal virtues but also to
shower his love on all mankind. But each one will get the benefit according
to the size of the vessel he holds.’
On 23rd June, he gave me a vision of the Supreme Light, which the
Upanishads describe as Narayana, the Supreme Reality also designated in
the Upanishads as Brahman. Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, speaks
of ‘one supreme light (noor) from which the entire universe was born.’ A
vision of that noor was Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s last gift to me before he went
into mahasamadhi.
chapter nineteen
DIPLOMACY IN BRITAIN
When I met Foreign Minister Swaran Singh before leaving for London in
July 1972, he said to me that he realized it was not going to be an easy task
and to do it I would need to be in total charge of the mission. ‘You are not
senior enough to be designated high commissioner, but after you have
settled down in London in a month or two I shall transfer High
Commissioner Apa Pant to another post. You will be acting high
commissioner until the day you tell me you have completed the High
Commission’s reorganization. I shall then give you a big ambassadorial
post.’
Two months after my joining duty in London as deputy high
commissioner, Apa Pant was transferred to Rome. He did not like it but
having completed his normal term in London, he could hardly demur. Soon
after, I had taken charge as acting high commissioner. Minister
(administration) in the High Commission, A. Madhavan, a brilliant IFS
officer, and I carried out a thorough inspection of all the various branches of
the High Commission, spread over six or seven different locations in
London. Yezdi Gundevia, a former DHC and foreign secretary had
described the Indian High Commission in his book, Outside the Archives as
an ‘inglorious archipelago from Aldwych to Edgeware’.
In Gundevia’s days in the 1950s, the sanctioned staff strength of the High
Commission was 1100; a couple of hundred more posts seemed to have
been added in the next two decades. But neither Gundevia, nor the five or
six DHCs who succeeded him, were able to do anything to cut the High
Commission to size because public figures who occupied the high
commissioner’s office were averse to staff reductions for fear of becoming
unpopular locally and also incurring the displeasure of their ministerial
friends in Delhi whose protégés in India House would lose their sinecures.
Besides London offices of their ministries would be closed down.
My room by room inspection of the main premises of the High
Commission, India House in Aldwych, gave me the idea that in that
building, around 400 persons could be accommodated and if we could
reduce staff strength to that number, we could dispense with fairly
expensive rented spaces in other parts of the city. A compact mission of that
size will make for greater efficiency in its functioning and also result in
substantial savings in the mission’s annual budget.
MARGARET THATCHER
The annual conferences of the two main British political parties, Labour
and Conservative, are occasions for the rank and file to assert themselves
and approve or reject policies proposed by their leaders at these lively
gatherings. These are also occasions for heads of foreign diplomatic
missions to make friends in high political circles of the country and to get to
know constituency leaders. In my two tenures in London, I made it a point
to attend both conferences in 1972–73 and 1988–89. I had friends in the
leadership ranks of both parties and it was both an education as well as fun
to watch them in action and to mix with a majority of British politicians.
At the annual conference of the Conservative Party in 1972, Edward
Heath, the prime minister, was clearly the much acclaimed leader. Another
person who left a deep impression on me was the comparatively young
Margaret Thatcher, the education minister. She was good-looking, confident
and self-assured, well spoken and clearly a potential future leader of her
party. François Mitterrand, the French socialist leader, was to say of her that
she had the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Caligula. She had a
striking, action-oriented personality with a magnetic quality to it which was
hard to describe. She oozed strength, determination and power. She had
very precise ideas about Britain’s political, social and economic problems
and their likely solutions. She struck me as a born leader and prime
ministerial timber.
Thatcher did not know much about India, but when I paid a courtesy call
on her in her office a couple of weeks after the party conference, she
evinced particular interest in Indira Gandhi, her politics and personality.
When I asked her whether she would like to visit India, her response was
quick and decisive: ‘Oh, yes, high commissioner, but only if you can also
arrange for me to meet with Madam Gandhi.’ A day or two later I sent a
handwritten note to Prime Minister Gandhi giving my impressions of
Thatcher’s personality and her likely future role in British politics. I
suggested that an invitation to visit India should be sent to her by the Indian
minister of education. I also mentioned Thatcher’s keen desire to meet with
her when she visits India.
An invitation arrived within a couple of weeks and in the spring of 1973
Thatcher was in India on a week-long tour of our country. In New Delhi, a
half-hour scheduled meeting with Indira Gandhi stretched into a ninety-
minute interaction of two soulmates in the course of which they talked, in
Indira Gandhi’s words to me, ‘about everything in the world and especially
our children’. A deep bond of mutual respect and affection grew between
them, and I too became a beneficiary of Margaret Thatcher’s friendship.
The briefings and instructions I received in India about Nepal were far from
encouraging. Everyone I talked with in government spoke of the hostility of
Nepal’s ruling elite and of King Birendra himself. Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi’s instructions to me were clear and characteristically laconic:
‘Nepal’s rulers cannot be trusted,’ she had said. ‘They say one thing and do
the opposite. I do not like that. They are not our friends. I am sending you
there, because you know them. See what you can do to mend matters. But
be firm in dealing with them.’
The ‘Panchayati Raj’ system instituted by the late King Mahendra in
1960, after dismissing an elected government, gave his autocratic regime
only a thin veneer of democratic governance which was already cracking in
places. The local administrations in the zones and districts, headed by
commissioners and bada hakims respectively, received their orders from,
and were directly responsible to the Palace Secretariat. As a result, in the
eyes of the public the king was already being regarded as being directly
responsible for acts of misrule or failures of economic policy.
It did not take me more than two or three weeks after arriving in
Kathmandu to realize how far the royal regime had tilted towards Beijing
and that it actively encouraged anti-India propaganda. The regime’s
violations of the provisions of the trade treaty were blatant and
confrontational. Despite the generous transit facilities granted by India,
official circles and the media were disgruntled and critical of India. They no
longer described their country as landlocked; they ascribed Nepal’s
economic woes and other difficulties to Nepal’s misfortune of being ‘India-
locked’!
Many things had changed since I had last lived in Nepal in the mid-
1950s, but two things struck me in particular. Of Nepal’s 32,000 sq. miles
of dense forests, now only about 8000 sq. miles were left; and the
monarchy, which was a popular and respected institution in the country, had
become controversial. How had so astute a man as Mahendra, and also his
two well-educated and widely travelled sons Birendra and Gyanendra,
failed to discern that a fake democracy—in the guise of Panchayati Raj—
was not a system that could endure for long in the world of the late
twentieth century?
In jettisoning democracy, Mahendra had actually shortened the life of his
dynasty. His son Birendra, after direct rule of eighteen years which had seen
periods of unrest and widespread rioting by students, terminated the
Panchayati Raj system in 1990, restored democracy and regained people’s
respect and affection for himself and his dynasty. But that gain was
squandered by his brother Gyanendra, who ascended the throne after Crown
Prince Dipendra massacred his family and killed himself on the night of 1
June 2001. King Gyanendra’s assumption of direct rule in 2005 sounded the
death knell of monarchy in Nepal.
The city of Kathmandu, a small town in the 1950s, had grown in size and
wealth. New educational institutions, hotels and restaurants had come up,
some of international standards. Prestigious new buildings and modern
housing were coming up in once seedy localities. Industry had not
progressed much, but tourism was thriving and it was a substantial foreign
exchange earner. The trade deficit with India was rising.
Every luxury item, the import of which was banned in India, was
imported in large quantities and smuggled into India openly in violation of
agreed provisions in the India–Nepal Trade and Transit Treaty. One of His
Majesty’s ministers said to me in confidence, ‘Sir, exports to India of luxury
items imported from third countries are our bread and butter. India, our
friend, should not take too much notice of this thing!’
Nepal had become a popular destination for Indian tourists the year
round. The casino in Kathmandu’s best hotel, The Soaltee, was the
favourite haunt of rich Indian gamblers. One late evening, after dinner with
my friend Prabhakar Rana, The Soaltee’s owner, I walked into the casino
out of curiosity. The large, semi-dark room was packed to capacity and
heavy betting was going on. There wasn’t a single free table or chair for
Kadambari and me to take. As we stood there absorbing the scene someone
recognized us and instantaneously a whisper went round the quiet room:
‘Indian ambassador’. And all of a sudden, much to my embarrassment, the
entire gathering stood up. I apologized for disturbing them, asked them to
carry on with what they were doing, wished them a good holiday in
Kathmandu and made a quick exit.
Kathmandu’s young, educated elite were an impressive group. Some of
its members, educated in Britain and America, had acquired an anti-India
bias, but most were well disposed towards India and altogether they were a
cultivated and likeable lot. But Kathmandu had also become the world
capital of hippie culture. A scenic part of the city around the
Swayambhunath Temple had become a place of pilgrimage for the world’s
hippies. Living expenses in that complex were unbelievably low and drugs
were freely available. So lots of them, male as well as female, came there
from Europe and America for unfettered drug use and a spell of peace,
friendship and free love. They did not create any law and order problem and
the Nepalese authorities wisely left the harmless young kids to enjoy
themselves in that tranquil natural environment. They smoked grass, played
music, danced, sang and lived happily in that little heaven on earth of their
imaginations. Dev Anand, a well-known Indian film star made a popular
film on them with a catchy title, Hare Krishna, Hare Ram, which was also
the burden of the film’s hit song which went as follows:
Dum marodumm . . .
Mitjaayeghamm . . .
Bolo subha sham . . .
Hare Krishna Hare Ram.1
It says something about the strong cultural moorings of the Nepalese youth
that they remained unaffected and uninfluenced by the hippies and their
way of life.
Karki was flustered and silent. So, I took his leave and returned to the
embassy.
That evening I sent a long telegram to Foreign Secretary Kewal Singh
describing the events of the five days and the action I had taken. The prime
minister approved of my actions and I received instructions to ask for an
immediate meeting with King Birendra, lodge a protest with him in even
stronger terms, and demand immediate action by his government on the
lines I had spelt out to Karki. I was also instructed to tell the king that my
government was recalling me by way of the strongest possible protest
against the treatment meted out to their envoy, and that the embassy would
remain under a chargé d’ affaires, pending the requisite apology and
amends etc.
The king received me the day I had asked for a meeting and I informed
him of our government’s decisions. Two days later I returned to New Delhi
to engage in an exercise under the prime minister’s instruction to chart out a
new Indian policy towards Nepal, based, largely, on the fundamental
principle of international relations—reciprocity.
Action by the Nepal government to meet our demands was swift. A
public apology was voiced on three occasions by Prime Minister Rijal; he
also paid a day’s visit to Delhi as a conciliatory gesture. Accompanied by
me, Prime Minister Gandhi received him at the airport but in her talks with
him she was forthright in letting Rijal know of her anger over Nepal’s
behaviour. Among other professions of friendship, he asked for the
restoration of normality in relations and my return to Kathmandu.
Nearly two months passed before the prime minister agreed to let me go
back to my post. Karki was not the foreign minister any longer.
1. HOLLAND
At the end of my three year term in Nepal in October 1976, I requested the
prime minister for a European posting where Kadambari could recoup her
health which had suffered a setback in Kathmandu. The ambassador’s post
in Holland was the only one available in Europe and I thankfully accepted it
and joined duty at the Hague in early November.
There were no serious problems between India and Holland except the
strident personal attacks on Indira Gandhi by Holland’s socialists and media
because of the Emergency she had imposed in India. When I called on
Prime Minister Joop den Uyl in early December 1976, he said tauntingly:
‘Ambassador, we in Europe respected India, especially for its democracy;
now you have a dictatorship. Has India given up democracy for good?’ It
wasn’t a pleasant opening for our talk, but I politely said to him that he
would soon revise his opinion about India and the Indian prime minister,
that the Emergency was not a popular measure and opposition to it was
growing even in the prime minister’s own party. Indira Gandhi was not
going to go down in history, I assured den Uyl, as the killer of democracy in
India; the Emergency would end soon. He asked when, in my view, that
would happen and I answered that he would not have to wait long, only a
few months.
The talk then turned to Holland–India relations in general and I took the
opportunity to convey India’s appreciation of Holland’s economic aid and
also indicated our need for more. I also stressed the need for more Dutch
cooperation in trade, industry and science and technology. He said after the
Emergency was lifted, his government would certainly consider all that and
meanwhile, I should talk to Ruud Lubbers, the finance minister, and to Jan
Pronk, the young minister of economy, who was already a respected figure
among the world’s leading economists.
Why was I so confident about an early end to the Emergency? Before
leaving for The Hague, I had a fairly long meeting with Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi in which she had expressed unhappiness about the attacks on
her in Holland’s political and media circles. She had asked me to do what I
could about all that and, in that context, I had said that the Emergency could
not possibly go on indefinitely and asked her how long it was likely to last.
‘No, it cannot go on indefinitely; perhaps a few more months, not many
months,’ was her short answer. I had, then, asked her whether I could say
that to the high authorities in The Hague and she had replied with a smile,
‘Yes, you can say that.’
So I was speaking about an early end to the Emergency on the authority
of India’s prime minister. Still, I was putting my neck out a bit, just in case
some unanticipated event came in the way of what Indira Gandhi had
planned to do. And though my talks with the Dutch ministers were
confidential, word was spreading in The Hague and even in neighbouring
capitals about ‘what the Indian ambassador had said to such and such Dutch
minister’.
A predawn telephone call on 21 March 1977 woke me up:
‘Congratulations Ambassador! Your prime minister has lifted the
Emergency and ordered fresh elections. You told me three months ago that
this would happen. Are you a political prophet or astrologer of some kind?’
And we had a little laugh. It was Jan Pronk, the minister of economy,
always well disposed towards India and already a good personal friend.
The Hague’s ruling elite warmed up towards India and India’s
ambassador; aid was increased and the prospects of cooperation grew in
other areas. But I could not achieve much progress in those fields, because
my assignment in Holland was too short for sustained pursuit of initiatives.
In February 1979, I was transferred to Paris as ambassador to France and
India’s permanent representative to UNESCO.
INDIA SPURNS THE CHANCE OF A MAJOR INDUSTRIAL
ADVANCE
Philips of Holland was the largest electronics company in Europe at that
time. When I visited its headquarters in Eindhoven, all the senior executives
of the company were there to receive me. At the end of a very pleasant
lunch the head of the board of directors surprised me with an offer. He said
Philips, an electronics firm, was only making light bulbs in India; that he,
along with me, would be ready to fly out to India in the company’s aircraft
at my convenience to meet Mrs Gandhi and tell her that Philips would set
up a huge electronics research and production centre in India to cater to the
entire electronics goods market of Asia. The offer, Mr Philips himself had
assured me, was a serious one and if accepted India would become a
leading electronics manufacturing centre in the world.
I wrote to Raja Dinesh Singh, Indian minister of commerce and industry,
recommending the offer for favourable and urgent consideration and
requesting him to arrange the date and time of a meeting for Phillips’ chief
executive with the prime minister. The honourable minister, who was also a
personal friend, did not even deign to acknowledge my letter.
When I met Dinesh Singh a few months later he said he did not want to
hand over his country’s electronics future to a Western capitalist! Mrs
Gandhi told me that Dinesh Singh had not even mentioned the matter to her,
and she chided me for not having spoken or written directly to her. ‘People
around me are showing themselves off as better socialists than myself,’ she
had said. Disappointed with the lack of India’s response, Philips decided to
set up the planned production centre in another more welcoming country.
India missed the chance of making a big leap in electronics technology and
manufacturing.
2. FRANCE
Soon after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s state visit to France in November
1981, I was asked to return to Delhi to take over as foreign secretary in the
ministry of external affairs. The day I assumed charge of the post of foreign
secretary I called on the prime minister and she asked me what I planned to
do and what my priorities were. I said as head of the service my first
priority was to clean up the work environment of our junior personnel and
refurbish two important sections with modern equipment—the
communications centre (called Telegraph section), where all incoming and
outgoing traffic was centralized, and the Central Cypher Bureau, where
officials were at work twenty-four hours a day. The services of these two
sections are used not only by the MEA but also by the prime minister’s
office and other departments of government for confidential
communications worldwide. She told me to go ahead with the cleaning up
and modernization I wanted to do. I handed over this task to Joint Secretary
V.B. Sony, head of the ministry’s Establishment Division, with the authority
to incur the necessary expenditure. He did a marvellous job of it all, and
within months the ministry’s performance showed marked improvement.
In the same meeting the prime minister had asked what else I planned to
do, especially in connection with the MEA’s external relations activity. I
said if things were to remain as they were my task would be easy. ‘We are
in a situation of diplomacy stasis. We are not talking with countries with
which we have problems. The foreign secretaries’ talks with Pakistan are in
suspension; with the world’s most powerful country, the United States, we
haven’t had much to do since 1971; we are not talking to China about the
border problem or, indeed, about any other important aspect of bilateral
relations and world affairs in general. The only major active relationship is
with Moscow which is of course of central importance to our foreign policy,
but with the USSR we do not have any serious problems and a couple of
visits to Moscow a year for consultations will suffice.
‘No, that will not suffice,’ said the prime minister. ‘In the given situation
what exactly would you like to do?’ she asked.
I said I would like to open up in all directions, with the USA as my first
priority, then restart foreign secretaries’ talks with Pakistan, followed by a
search for an opening to China. ‘A country of India’s size and importance
cannot remain bound in exclusive friendship with only one major power.
While our relations with France, Britain and Germany are in good shape,
we need to strengthen ties with Japan, a front rank power of the coming
decades. Next-door neighbours should be in our focus all the time without
our being obsessed with them.’
‘I like that approach,’ said the prime minister, ‘you can plan accordingly.
That reminds me I received an invitation from President Reagan to visit the
US some time ago; the American ambassador has been reminding us for an
answer, but here they are all opposed to my accepting the invitation Foreign
Minister Rao, policy planner G. Parthasarathy (G.P.) and my Principal
Secretary P.C. Alexander are all opposed to my accepting the invitation.
What do you think? Should I accept the invitation?’ ‘Of course Ma’am, you
should go to Washington,’ I answered and added, ‘the sooner the better. It’s
not the Washington of Nixon and Kissinger any more. Reagan wants to
mend relations with India. Why should you not respond positively?’ She
suggested that I take a look at the papers and talk to Narasimha Rao and
Parthasarathy about the matter.
HOME DIPLOMACY
Home diplomacy is seldom the easy part of a Foreign Service officer’s
tasks. Foreign Minister Rao did not think a visit to the US would achieve
much; and it might annoy the Russians. He approved of resumption of the
foreign secretaries’ dialogue with Pakistan, but was cautious about the
timing of an initiative towards China.
Parthasarathy was opposed to any initiative towards any of the three
countries. ‘Indira is not popular in the US. She will get a bad reception
there, only criticism of Non-alignment, the Emergency etc.’ And then the
clincher, ‘Russians won’t like it, and we’ll lose the one friend we have in
the world. Don’t you see?’ India’s policy planning chief was content with
India having just one friend in the world!
On China, Parthasarathy was frantically negative: ‘Krishna, you want her
to talk to the Chinese? Are you crazy? They killed her father, you know!’
I must say I was quite bewildered by this kind of personalization of
foreign policy. But Parthasarathy was adamantly against any initiative
towards China. When Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s son
and successor in office, decided that he did not want ‘to remain mired in the
past’ and wanted to defreeze the India–China relationship, he had to
dislodge Parthasarathy from the ministry of external affairs.
On Mrs Gandhi’s advice, I had another round of discussion with Rao and
Parthasarathy with no better result. And I was in a dilemma whether to give
up the effort or persevere in the advice I had given to the prime minister and
which she seemed to approve. ‘What is the use of being foreign secretary,’ I
asked myself, ‘if I cannot make a contribution to foreign policy and pull it
out of its one–friend-policy-freeze?’ So I recorded a long note on US–India
relations, with all their ups and downs during the previous decades,
highlighting the advantages of an improved relationship with the USA in
the vastly changed world situation. The note concluded with the
recommendation that the prime minister should accept President Reagan’s
invitation to visit the United States.
R.K. Dhawan, Indira Gandhi’s perceptive and dedicated private secretary,
told me that she did not like long notes but he thought the subject matter
was important enough for her to read my note and he put it in her box for
weekend reading.
Simultaneously I had sent copies of the note to Narasimha Rao and
Parthasarathy. On the morning of the following Monday in April 1982, the
prime minister’s copy came back to me with her approval of the visit to
Washington and I was told to convey to the US ambassador her acceptance
of President Reagan’s invitation for a visit in July. I was also instructed to
take in hand preparations for the visit.
Foreign Minister Narasimha Rao took the prime minister’s decision
stoically and he, in fact, graciously wished me good luck with the visit.
Parthasarathy, not having noticed that I had sent the note directly to the
prime minister, walked into my room to chide me for misplaced enthusiasm
for America and for putting at risk India’s relations with Moscow. After a
little argument I ordered coffee for him and showed him my copy with the
prime minister’s decision on it. ‘Oh. Well, that settles it then,’ he said; he
gulped his coffee and left the room not pleased with the foreign secretary’s
independence and audacity.
The dates of the visit were settled—28 to 31 July in Washington and 1 to
5 August in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles—and the MEA began the
preparatory work for the visit. In the course of the week, I sent to the prime
minister, through Foreign Minister Rao, a list of members of her delegation
for her approval; she struck out the names of both P.V. Narasimha Rao and
G. Parthasarathy and sent the paper back to me with her approval of the
rest. When I pleaded with her to include the two senior-most persons in the
MEA, she said she did not want in her delegation people who did not
understand the importance of normalizing US–India relations!
But a few days later the prime minister told me that Parthasarathy had
called at her residence and expressed appreciation of her decision to accept
Reagan’s invitation! So, she said, I could include him in the delegation.
Narasimha Rao did not ask for a reprieve and, to my deep regret, did not
join the party.
The endeavours of early pioneers, the struggle for human values, the
coming together of different races, have enabled it (the US) to retain
its élan and dynamism of youth. With dynamism and high ideals, it has
grown into a great power. Today its role in world affairs is unmatched.
Every word and action of your President is watched and weighed for
its global repercussions.
President Reagan was at his charming best and Prime Minister Gandhi was
a relaxed and happy guest. The atmosphere at the banquet at the White
House was a treat of warmth, informality, friendliness and congeniality. The
following day, the talks between Reagan and Gandhi and between the two
delegations for two hours covered in some depth US–India relations, the
relations of the two countries with China and Pakistan, as well as the
situation in Afghanistan and Lebanon. North–South and East–West
relations and problems of economic development also figured in the talks.
The general approach of both sides in this comprehensive exchange of
views was to build a new relationship of mutual understanding, friendship
and cooperation and to look for common ground on issues on which they
differed. That agenda was shared by the two sides and in the prevailing
bonhomie several important decisions were taken jointly to enhance
cooperation between the two countries. For example, it was agreed to set up
joint panels to strengthen cooperation in education, science and technology
and to set up a fund for the promotion of democracy worldwide.
The friendly informality of the occasion is illustrated by a little
negotiation between a close associate of the President, generally known as
Judge, and myself. Judge walked up to me and said: ‘You know, our
President is a Californian, the state which produces the best almonds in the
world. He will be mighty pleased if you were to buy some almonds; say one
million dollars worth.’ Since India was traditionally an importer of almonds
I mentioned the request to the prime minister who told me to straightaway
convey our agreement to the deal. Before long, Californian almonds
became a regular item in India’s imports from the US.
At the end of the scheduled three days in Washington I had to leave for
Delhi to prepare for my first visit to Pakistan. The prime minister and her
party would travel to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. She had spoken
to me intermittently about Pakistan but in the midst of fast-paced and
extremely busy programmes of the last few weeks she could not find the
time to give me detailed instructions. When I saw her off at the airport she
took me aside on the tarmac and said, ‘I am sorry we haven’t had time to
talk about Pakistan. But you know it all and you can talk to them about any
subject they want to talk about, including Kashmir and the No War Pact
they are so keen about. What I will want to know from you on your return is
whether there is a grain of sincerity in him (President Zia-ul-Haq).’
INDIA-RUSSIA RELATIONS
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had serious reservations about Russia’s
military intervention in Afghanistan and she had spoken to Russian leaders
from time to time about the dangers of the jihad which the Russian army’s
presence in Afghanistan had provoked. Nevertheless, India–USSR relations
had remained stable and she continued to advise Moscow to end its military
intervention in Afghanistan. This matter came up, in a dramatic way, in the
prime minister’s state visit to Moscow in October 1982. When the two
delegations met, after welcoming the prime minister, General Secretary
Brezhnev said to her: ‘Taraki1 kept asking me for 10,000 troops; and I kept
refusing. After much hesitation I sent 10,000 Russian soldiers to
Afghanistan in 1979. Now there are 1,10,000 Russian soldiers in
Afghanistan! I do not know what they are doing there. I want to get out of
Afghanistan. Madam, you know that region well! Show me a way to get out
of Afghanistan.’
Silence followed. Indira Gandhi did not show the slightest inclination to
react to Brezhnev’s plea. Brezhnev then repeated his little speech in
Russian; the interpreter read out the English version from his notes. It was
the same plea in the same words with emphasis on ‘I want to get out of
Afghanistan. Show me the way; show me the way.’
Indira Gandhi had an amazing capacity to hold her peace in such
situations. P.C. Alexander, her principal secretary on her right, myself on
her left, whispered to her to say something by way of advice to the Soviet
boss. Reluctantly, she obliged with a nugget of wisdom born of long
reflection: ‘Mr general secretary, it is a good idea to withdraw your forces
from Afghanistan. The way out is the same as the way in.
There was much curiosity among the Russians about what she meant by
‘the way out is the same as the way in’. The following day we were all
going to Latvia or Estonia, but the prime minister asked me to stay on in
Moscow and talk to Gromyko and other Russian officials and ‘explain my
meaning to them’. She did not explain to me the meaning of the aphorism
she had uttered for Brezhnev’s benefit; and I knew better than to ask her
what she had in mind.
I met Foreign Minister Gromyko and senior officials in the Foreign
Office the following day to tell them that Russia’s military intervention in
Afghanistan had done no good to Russia, Afghanistan or India. It had
brought Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States into play in that
country. Their actions were radicalizing the local population, which was
bound to have adverse consequences for the region. There was going to be
no victory there for Russia. Moscow should simply declare that its
intervention had achieved its purpose and start pulling out its troops from
Afghanistan. Nobody was going to prevent or interrupt their retreat. The
Afghans would then settle their problems in their own traditional ways.
We did not allow the differences on Afghanistan to affect close relations
with Moscow. Foreign Minister Rao and I kept up a dialogue with our
counterparts in Moscow. The joint commission of the two countries was
active in exploring areas of cooperation.
In the morning meeting Andrei Gromyko had broken the spell of puzzled
silence that had followed Mrs Gandhi’s aphoristic observation by
introducing some other insignificant topic, and the meeting had ended a half
hour later. Brezhnev was in very poor health and it must have taken a strong
effort of will on his part to sit through not only that meeting in the morning,
but also to host the dinner in the Kremlin’s ornate banquet hall for two
hours in the evening.
Russia had developed a new advanced jet fighter, MiG-29. The Indian
Air Force wanted it, but the Russians were secretive about it and denied its
existence. Prime Minister Gandhi had asked me to try and find out whether
the MiG-29 existed and, if so, why Moscow was reluctant to give it to us.
At the high table at the banquet I was seated two places away from her on
her left and facing me across the table was the Russian Defence Minister
Field Marshall Ustinov. It was a golden opportunity to find out the truth and
when there was a gap in the conversation I addressed the field marshall to
say that I had seen a glowing account in an American journal of the
performance of a brand new Russian jet fighter, MiG-29. India’s air force
needed an advanced jet fighter but we were told by the Russians that there
was no such thing as MiG-29.
While the Russian translation was coming through, I saw Ustinov
whispering to another Russian military officer at the table. When the
interpretation finished, I heard Brezhnev asking his own people in a loud
voice: ‘Hey, what is he saying?’ I took the opportunity to address him
directly and repeat what I had said to Ustinov. And after the interpreter
explained to him what I had said, Brezhnev turned to Ustinov and asked,
‘Do we have the plane?’ ‘Yes, we have the MiG-29, but production is slow
and numbers are not enough,’ said Ustinov. ‘Then we should give our
friends what they need,’ said Brezhnev. The decision was made; negotiating
channels were activated and in due course we got the advanced jet we
wanted.
In our recent efforts to improve relations with the US, New Delhi has
allowed an impression to gain currency in the public of downgrading of
Russia’s importance in India’s foreign policy considerations. I hope this is
not so in reality. For this relationship remains of vital importance to India’s
security now and for the future. The Russians on their part, freely
acknowledge the value of India’s friendship. In all our crises since 1962,
Russia’s political and arms support has been the most critical factor in
India’s strength and growth as a world power. Which other country would
loan us a nuclear submarine or help us build our own nuclear submarines?
And why are we casting around for a multi-role jet, when Russian jets of
the Indian force had proved their superiority in the wars of 1965 and 1971?
The Sukhoi series of jets are good enough for us. And of course, we must
rapidly develop our own Light Combat Aircraft (LCA).
GORBACHEV
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev of Russia, who ruled Russia from 1985 to
1991, was a man of the same mould. His new thinking (Glasnost) and
restructuring (Perestroika) led to the peaceful liberation of east European
and central Asian nations.
I was invited to a one-on-one meeting with the great man at the
Rashtrapati Bhavan during his visit to Delhi in November 1986. To my
surprise he complimented me on an article I had written criticizing his
views on Asian security. In a speech in Vladivostok, in which he had
proclaimed Glasnost and Perestroika as the panacea for Soviet Russia’s ills,
Gorbachev had also proposed an Asian security arrangement on the lines of
the Helsinki Accords. In an article in The Patriot of New Delhi, I had
dubbed the proposal as premature and impracticable in the prevailing
circumstances in Asia. For, the kind of patient preparatory work in the form
of confidence building measures (CBMs) that had preceded the Helsinki
consultations had not even been thought of in Asia. Besides, the many inter-
Asian fissures that had surfaced in the Bandung Conference and the failed
attempts ten years later to organize an Afro-Asian Conference had only
deepened the differences and rivalries among Asian countries. Gorbachev
said my article showed the kind of new thinking needed in the changing
world and that was why he had wanted to meet and talk with me!
In a freewheeling discussion I said to him that during my travels in
European countries, I had noticed an all-pervading fear and suspicion of
Russia, and asked what he planned to do to change that unhappy situation. I
had also drawn his attention to the dangerous consequences of Russia’s
military intervention in Afghanistan. His answer was brief and conclusive:
‘Mr Rasgotra, I am going to change all that in the next two to three years.’
In regard to the secessionist urges in the central Asian region I had asked
him whether a loose restructuring of the Russian state was part of his
perestroika, and Gorbachev had said he had an open mind and that use of
force was no solution in any situation. In a declaration signed by him and
Rajiv Gandhi at the end of his Delhi visit he had renounced the use of force
in international relations. He was the first communist leader to do so.
It seemed to me that Gorbachev had made two basic decisions: to change
Moscow’s policy of ideological confrontation with the West to one of peace
and cooperation; and to abjure the use of force to suppress the aspirations
for liberty within Russia’s ‘nationalities’ and for sovereignty and
independence in east European countries.
PART–I
NON-ALIGNMENT
The foreign policy of a state is a framework of principles and practical
considerations in the light of which it seeks friendship and cooperation of
other countries to pursue and strengthen world peace and to safeguard its
security and other national interests on a reciprocal basis. Foreign
policymaking is a dynamic process which must remain open to adaptation,
adjustment and change in accord with changing conditions of the world.
The foreign policy of a state begins with its neighbours, but it must not
remain trapped in the region to the neglect of the state’s interests and role in
the larger world. India will grow to greatness only if its vision and policies
transcend the subcontinent’s truncated geography.
In that overall context, Nehru had adopted the policy of the good
neighbour. His engagement with neighbours was benign but watchful,
which meant helping them if they asked for help if India had the means to
provide it. But he would not allow them to take liberties with India’s
security and other vital interests.
Nehru was also one of the few statesmen who realized that foreign
policy, which earlier used to be bilateral, or regional, had became global
after World War II because of the global reach of missiles and nuclear
weapons and of the national power of the USA and Russia. Great advances
in the speed and means of travel and communication and the activities of
the United Nations are contributing to globalizing foreign policy.
India needed a world of peace and cooperation to stabilize its system of
democratic governance and for its economic and social development. It
passionately desired and worked for the freedom of colonies and for the
elimination of racial discrimination and poverty in the world. While it
wanted to cultivate the friendship and cooperation of all nations, it abhorred
and rejected the role of a camp follower of one of the two power blocks
engaged in Cold War. The independent policy of Non-alignment, which
Nehru announced on 7 September 1946,1 was a response to the condition of
the world in which India had attained Independence.
Non-alignment was not a mere idealistic concept. It was a policy in
which pragmatism, idealism and realism went hand in hand, and Nehru
used one or more of these traits in his conduct of India’s relations, at
different times, with a neighbour or a great power or in the United Nations
Security Council on issues which included Kashmir, the Suez Canal crisis,
Goa’s liberation or Soviet Russia’s military interventions in Hungary and
Czechoslovakia.
The very novelty of the concept of Non-alignment aroused curiosity,
interest, bewilderment and hostility. But it also assured for India a distinct
place in the councils of the world. That was no small gain for a country
which had just emerged on the world scene. For the world in which India
awoke to freedom was not friendly towards it. Within a few weeks of
Independence, Pakistan launched its first war in Kashmir with the
connivance of British officials in its employ.
Britain’s resentment over India’s Independence was palpable in bilateral
dealings and in the UN Security Council’s discussions on Kashmir. China
was engaged in surreptitious encroachments on Indian territory. Stalin’s
Russia did not consider India truly independent. The United States disliked
India’s independent foreign policy opposed to military alliances, and would
soon start arming Pakistan which would militarize that country’s polity and
lead to more conflicts with India.
The first decade of Independence was one of struggle to convince the
world of the genuineness and sincerity of India’s desire for world peace and
its concern over prevailing tensions, the nuclear arms race and the problems
of racism, poverty and deprivation of colonial possessions of Western
powers.
The period of the 1960s and 1970s, when scores of newly independent
countries endorsed and adopted Non-alignment as their foreign policy, was
the heyday of Non-alignment. India received substantial financial and
technical assistance from both superpowers to lay its industrial base, to
meet its recurring shortages of food grains and to modernize its agriculture.
From zero or negative growth in 1947, the economy grew at a steady pace
of 4 to 4 ½ per cent of GDP per annum, and a base was laid for India’s
scientific, technological and industrial advance.
The institutions of democracy—universal suffrage, electoral process,
Parliament, the cabinet system and an independent judiciary were firmly
established. Despite its failure to prevent the two wars of 1962 and 1965
and China’s growing hostility, the policy had proved its relevance in a
world polarized in two opposing military alliances.
PART–II
1. TRADITION
In civilizational states like India and China, their millennial traditions
dormant in the memory of succeeding generations, manifest themselves in
transformational moments in the nation’s life and exert an influence in the
making of foreign policy. The remarkably rich and varied Indian tradition
comprises Vedantic beliefs, the independence of spirit bequeathed to man
by his Divine origin, the idea of the world as one family, Buddha’s middle
path, Emperor Ashoka’s renunciation of war, Emperor Jalalud-din
Muhammad Akbar’s respect for and tolerance of faiths other than his own,
and Mahatma Gandhi’s truth and non-violence as the means for humanity’s
uplift to a higher level of civilization.
Kautilya’s realistic contribution of pragmatic statecraft is also part of this
tradition. ‘Peace is to be preferred to war’ is a critical principle of Kautilyan
foreign policy. The choice of policy, he says, is dictated by the ‘current
condition of the states involved (the world)’. In another axiom he sums up
the basic conditioning of international politics: ‘Bilateral relations are
determined by the power equation between the two states.’ A mix of all
these streams goes into the making of the country’s foreign policy. What he
says about neighbours is dealt with later in this chapter.
At a meeting of the Conservative members of Parliament in March 1936,
Winston Churchill spoke of the ‘wonderful unconscious tradition of British
foreign policy’:
For 400 years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the
strongest, most aggressive, most dominant power on the Continent,
and particularly to prevent the Low Countries falling into the hands of
such a power . . . Moreover, on all occasions England took the more
difficult course . . . we always chose the harder course, joined with the
less strong powers, made a combination among them, and thus
defeated and frustrated the Continental military tyrant whoever he was,
whatever nation he led. Thus we preserved the liberties of Europe,
protected the growth of its vivacious and varied society, and emerged
after four terrible struggles with an ever-growing fame and widening
Empire and with the Low Countries safely protected in their
independence. Here is the wonderful unconscious tradition of British
Foreign Policy.2
Men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who
is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation, which owing
to the baseness of men is broken at every opportunity for their
advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which
never fails.5
PART–III
1. PAKISTAN
Pakistan is a specific problem for India’s foreign policy. I am all for a
continual dialogue with Pakistan on all issues, including Kashmir. Our
position on the issue of talks with Pakistan is not steadfast; it changes with
every new government for reasons not of logic or good sense but of a
passing sentiment.
The most recent dialogue was initiated in the time of Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee on a clear commitment by the President of Pakistan,
General Musharraf, in a joint press statement (see annexure p. 396) issued
by the two leaders in Islamabad on 6 January 2004, to reassure ‘Prime
Minister Vajpayee that he (Musharraf) will not permit any territory under
Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner’.
Musharraf did stop terrorist attacks on India and secret talks made
considerable headway during Dr Manmohan Singh’s prime ministership, till
Musharraf’s position weakened within Pakistan and even as a document
was virtually ready for signing, he told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
that he was not able to carry the negotiations forward to a conclusion.
Thereafter terrorist attacks have taken place in India with the ISI’s support.
So, we should either forget about Musharraf’s commitment and engage in
talks, or take a firm stand on it and wait for Pakistan to fulfill its
commitment before resumption of talks.
Secret negotiations actually had led to agreement on many aspects of the
Kashmir issue and there was a document ready for signatures. It was
agreed, for example, that there would be no independence (azadi) for
Kashmir and no change in the border (LOC), but there would be freedom of
movement across it for Kashmiris of both sides. There was no reference to
UN resolutions, and India had agreed to reduction of military troops in
Kashmir subject to Pakistan ensuring the end of hostilities and terrorism (a
vitally important condition). Finally, a joint mechanism of the two
Kashmirs, for socio-economic subjects only, and autonomy for J & K, like
all other Indian states, was also agreed on.
It was Pakistan, not India, that balked at proceeding to a positive
conclusion of the negotiations. While President Musharraf was also the
army chief, his deputy general, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the ISI were on
board; but as soon as Musharraf shed his role as head of the Pakistan army,
the new army chief, General Kayani, withdrew his support compelling
Musharraf to abandon the agreement.
The most recent ruckus was about the practice of visiting Pakistani
delegations to meet with the Hurriyat people before engaging in talks with
India. The Pakistanis, in their attempt to make Syed Ali Shah Geelani and
his Hurriyat colleagues the true representatives of the Kashmiris, are, in
fact, exposing them as Pakistan’s show boys in Indian Kashmir. Visiting
Pakistani delegations’ insistence on such meetings is quite ridiculous. What
surprises me is that someone as dignified and with such high religious
authority as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, submits himself to this kind of
treatment.
It would be a great pity if such little difficulties were to oblige India and
Pakistan to hold talks only in third countries. The present logjam has to be
broken and the leadership in both countries should consider new informal
initiatives. Prime Minister Modi’s short visit to Lahore on the occasion of
Nawaz Sharif’s granddaughter’s wedding was a praiseworthy act of
statesmanship.
A basis for the resumption of comprehensive dialogue, including talks on
Kashmir, exists. The efforts of Prime Minister Modi and Nawaz Sharif to
restart the comprehensive dialogue, including talks on Kashmir, deserve
support. It might help matters and eventually ensure success of the dialogue
if representatives of the armed forces of the two countries are also involved
in it or the two are encouraged to engage in a parallel dialogue of their own.
PART–IV
CONCLUSION
The conclusions that emerge from the foregoing analysis concerning India’s
foreign policy for the foreseeable future are:
SUMMIT DIPLOMACY
The energy and time Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invested in getting
to know the world and in making his own impact on it is a new experience
in India’s foreign policy and diplomacy. His initiatives to develop fresh
links at the summit level with fifty-odd countries, big and small, through
carefully timed visits abroad and hosting an equal number of return visits in
his first year and a half in office as a prime minister is unprecedented in
independent India’s history.
There was a significant geo-economic content to each of Mr Modi’s
summit-level contacts. The absence of manufacturing has been a drag on
the Indian economy. ‘Make in India’ may well prove to be a game changer
for the country’s economy.
When world conditions and times change, leaders can make a difference.
One must not remain mired in the past. By reinforcing old friendships and
cultivating new ones, Prime Minister Modi has already made a difference in
India’s foreign policy and relations with foreign countries. In his time,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made a difference by signing the US–
India nuclear energy deal despite stiff domestic opposition.
Narendra Modi, a man who has risen to the top from a street tea vendor,
is obviously a natural leader. He may well be India’s man of destiny in this
transformational time for the country. The massive majority the Indian
electorate gave him in the general election of 2014 does great credit to
Indian democracy. Will that election perhaps mark the beginning of a new
era of the rise of the common man’s leadership in Indian democracy?
India’s strategic community, so-called, is already beginning the search for
a doctrine in Prime Minister Modi’s achievements; I hope he will not give
them a chance to declare one on his behalf. The unpredictable advances in
technology, knowledge and communications and the ever-widening range
of international interactions dictate that India keep its eyes and ears, heart
and mind open to stay abreast of unimaginable changes and unforeseen
events which will require quick responses and adjustments in policy. A
combination of principles and pragmatism makes for a successful foreign
policy.
1941: At the University Officers Training Corps while a student in Hindu College, Amritsar.
1948: Trekking in the snows in the Dhauladhaar range overlooking Dharamshala.
PM Nehru hosted a dinner at his residence for King Mahendra and Queen Ratna (seated with him
on the sofa) in 1955.
1971: Kadambari with President Nixon at the banquet for PM Indira Gandhi at the White House.
1971: Kadambari at the ambassador’s reception in Washington DC.
1972, London: Kadambari, and myself as acting high commissioner, with Labour leader Michael
Foot and Mrs Jill Foot.
1972, London: Kadambari and I called on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was
recuperating in a hospital in London.
1973, London: Lord Mountbatten with Kadambari and myself at a reception at India House.
1973: Kadambari welcoming Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw at our dinner for him.
1973: Presenting a portrait of PM Nehru to Lord Butler, master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Lord Butler is showing the portrait to Nehru’s former landlady, who had come for the occasion.
1973: In discussion with PM Indira Gandhi on her arrival at Heathrow Airport.
1973: Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s education minister, at our residence for dinner after her first
visit to India.
November 1973: In conversation with King Birendra of Nepal after presenting credentials.
1978: The Netherlands: Amitabh Bachchan with Sujit Kumar and Prem Chopra (third and fourth
from left) at the ambassador’s residence for dinner.
February 1979: With President Giscard d’Estaing at the Élysée palace, after presentation of
credentials.
October 1981, Paris: PM Indira Gandhi’s state visit to Paris. Kadambari escorting Indira Gandhi to
the ornate salon on the first floor of our residence.
Foreign secretaries of the seven SAARC countries in Delhi in 1982 to draft the SAARC charter.
July 1982: Giving President Zia-ul-Haq a draft of the Treaty of Good Neighbourly Relations
including a No War Pact.
1983, Colombo: In discussion with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Hamid about Sri Lanka’s Tamil
problem.
1983, Mauritius: Signing a cultural agreement with the foreign minister of Mauritius in the
presence of PM Indira Gandhi and PM Sir Anerood Jugnauth.
With other officials at the opening session of the Commonwealth Summit in New Delhi.
With His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wanchuck after the king gave his consent to the Chukha
Hydroelectric Project.
January 1985: Greeting President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania at the Six Nation Summit in New
Delhi.
October 1988: Kadambari and myself about to board the Royal Coach to proceed to Buckingham
Palace to present credentials to Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II.
Kadambari and myself welcoming PM Margaret Thatcher to India House to unveil a sculpture of
Indira Gandhi.
Welcoming Prince Charles to the dinner to celebrate PM Nehru’s birth centenary.
With Mother Teresa and the Duke of Edinburgh at an exhibition of photographs of Mother Teresa’s
charity works in London.
1989: Kadambari hosted a special event at India House to promote the Indian beautician Shahnaz
Husain’s products. Barbara Cartland was present.
November 1989: With Sathya Sai Baba and vice chancellor of the Sathya Sai Institute of Higher
Learning, Prashanti Nilayam after my convocation address.
With former Foreign Minister (and future prime minister) Narasimha Rao at a function at the Rajiv
Gandhi Foundation, with Mrs Sonia Gandhi looking on.
March 2000: With President Bill Clinton in New Delhi at PM A.B. Vajpayee’s reception for him.
Group photograph taken at the Élysée Palace in Paris after a meeting of the Indo-French Forum,
co-chaired by President Jacques Chirac and myself.
The family. Behind Kadambari and I in the second row, from left to right, are our son Dilip
Rasgotra, grandsons Devesh and Ajitest, and daughter-in-law Radhika.
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE
1. Nehru’s radio broadcast from New Delhi on 7 September 1946.
2. In Samskrita: lokasamastasukhinobhavantu.
3. In Samskrita: Om SahaNau-Avatu, SahaNauBhunaktu,
SahaViiryamKaravaavahai: TejasviNau-Adhiitam-
AstuMaaVidvissaavahai
4. In Samskrita: Om SarveBhavantuSukhina, SarveSantuNir-Aamayaah,
SarveBhadraanniPashyantu, MaaKashchid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet, Om
ShaantihShaantihShaantih.
5. Nehru, Jawaharlal. The Discovery of India. Penguin Modern Classics
Edition. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2012, p. 17.
6. The principles of Panchsheel are: Mutual respect for each other’s
territorial integrity and sovereignty; Mutual non-aggression; Mutual non-
interference in each other’s internal affairs; Equality and mutual benefit;
and Peaceful coexistence.
7. Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai ICS was agent general for India in Washington
from 1942 to July 1947. As secretary general, he was the senior-most
officer in the new ministry of external affairs.
8. Text of the letter is in annexure 1.
9. Yezdi Gundevia, who later rose to the position of foreign secretary.
10. My recollection is that the exodus of British members of the ICS had
begun in late 1946. Accounts vary; according to Wikipedia, at the time
of Partition there were 980 ICS officers of which 468 were Europeans.
Most of these later left India, some for Pakistan and the rest for Britain.
Out of the 101 Muslim ICS officers, ninety-five opted for Pakistan.
CHAPTER TWO
1. Dutt, Subimal. With Nehru In The Foreign Office. Calcutta: Minerva
Associates, 1955, p.37.
CHAPTER THREE
1. Indian National Army headed by Subhash Chandra Bose, a prominent
leader of India’s struggle for Independence.
2. Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi. ‘Chapter 34: Assignment in Washington’. In The
Scope of Happiness: A Personal Memoir. Crown Publishers, 1979.
3. National Herald of 25 August 1949.
4. Gopal, Sarvepalli. Radhakrishnan, a biography. Oxford University Press,
1989.
5. For full account of the meeting see: Dayal, Rajeshwar. A Life of Our
Times. Orient Blackswan, 1998, pp. 139–145. Dayal was
Radhakrishnan’s deputy in the embassy.
6. Ibid.
7. Annie Besant was a prominent British socialist, theosophist, women’s
rights activist, writer, orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule. In
pursuit of her theosophy-related work, she travelled to India and became
involved in politics as a member of the Indian National Congress. In
1917, she was elected President of the Congress. She continued to
campaign for Indian independence and for the causes of theosophy until
her death in 1933.
8. Extracts from the memoranda of Present Eisenhower’s White House
conversations, kept in the Eisenhower Memorial Library; cited in the
International Herald Tribune of 3–4 November 1979.
9. Panikkar, K.M. In Two China’s: Memories of a Diplomat. London: Allen
&Unwin, 1955, Chapter IX, p. 102.
10. Sarvepalli, Gopal. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. India: Oxford
University Press, 2003, Vol. 2, p. 102.
11. Dutt, Subimal.With Nehru in The Foreign Office. Calcutta: Minerva
Associates, 1977, p. 43.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Sarvam dukham dukham; sarvam kshanikam, kshanikam.
2. Anityamasukhamlokam imam prapyabhajasva mam: IX:33.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. A rendering in English would go something like this: Courtesy was the
hallmark, once, of the mode of address in Delhi; now it is the curt ‘Hey
you’.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State
Department. W.W. Norton and Company, 1987, p. 335.
2. Ibid.
3. Lippmann was the United States’ most popular and respected columnist
and political thinker.
4. Sarvepalli, Gopal. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. India: Oxford
University Press, 2003, Vol. 2, p. 182.
5. That this was indeed the considered US policy was confirmed by Dulles
in his talks with Nehru in March 1956. He told Nehru that soon
Pakistan’s army would be as large as India’s and it would have superior
equipment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. The report of the British ambassador in Moscow, Sir Patrick Reilly on
Moscow talks was released in 1990. A brief account of the talks based on
Sir Patrick’s report to the Foreign Office appeared in the Guardian of
London on 1 January 1990, when I was India’s high commissioner in
London.
2. Bachchan, as Hindi officer in the MEA did extremely useful work to coin
Hindi equivalents of diplomatic words and phrases, and other official
jargon. The irrepressible genius that he was, despite heavy pressures of
official work he continued to enrich Hindi with his new writings in verse
and prose.
3. J.N. Papers (M.O. Mathai). Subject file No. 29, Sheet 19.
CHAPTER TEN
1. Dutt, Subimal. With Nehru In The Foreign Office. Calcutta: Minerva
Associates, 1955, p. 155.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1. Secretary of State Rusk’s Telegram 32 of 9 December 1961, cited in:
Rakove, Robert B. Kennedy Johnson, and the Non-aligned World, p. 246.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1. Dutt, Subimal. With Nehru In The Foreign Office. Calcutta: Minerva
Associates, 1955, p. 155.
2. India Weekly. London, Friday, 24 October 2003.
3. The late G. Parthasarathy (G.P.), a distinguished Indian diplomat, was a
trusted adviser to prime ministers Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Ashok is the
custodian of G.P.’s papers. Since I personally have seen no evidence of
the Kennedy offer—I had heard rumours about it in Washington DC—I
asked Ashok to let me see the letter. He said the letter was lost when the
family shifted from one residence in Delhi to another after G.P.’s death,
but he swore that he had seen and read the letter. Ashok, now living in
retirement, had held responsible positions in government including that
of science adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1. Maharaja Hari Singh was the last princely ruler of Jammu and Kashmir.
He signed the document of accession leading to the state’s integration
with India following Pakistan’s invasion of the state.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Great Britain: George Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1979, p. 855.
2. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Great Britain: George Weidenfeld
and Nicolson: Great Britain, 1979.
3. He causes fear to none and none can frighten him; he is free from the
agitation of the mood caused by euphoria, anger and excitement (XII.15).
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1. Westad, Odd Arne. Restless Empire: China’s America and the World
since 1750. New York: Basic Books, 2012, p. 369.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1. ‘Inhale the soothing smoke of herb divine
Draw it in deep and long
Inhale it till your sorrows all
Are drowned in song.
Hare Krishna, Hare Ram.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1. Nur Muhammad Taraki, President of Afghanistan, who was overthrown
in a coup in 1979 by hardline communist Prime Minister Hafizullah
Amin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1. In Samskrita: Anudvega-karamvakyam, satyampriya-hitam cha yat.
(From: Radhakrishnan. The Bhagavad Gita. XVII.15).
2. In Samskrita: Apriyasya cha pathyasyavaktashrota hi durlabhah. (From:
Shanti Parva. The Mahabharata. 63.17).
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1. In his radio broadcast of 7 September 1956, Nehru had said: ‘We propose
as far as possible to keep away from the power politics of groups aligned
against one another, which have lead in the past two world wars and
which may again lead to disasters on an even vaster scale. We believe
that peace and freedom are indivisible and the denial of freedom
anywhere must endanger freedom elsewhere and lead to conflict and war
. . .’
2. Eban, Abba. The New Diplomacy: International Affairs in the Modern
Age. Random House, 1983, pp. 242–243.
3. In Samskrita, Sainyadvinanaiva rajyamnadhanamnaparakramah,
Balinovashagahasarvedurlabhasya cha shatravaha.
4. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. London: Everyman’s Library Dent &
Sons Ltd: London, 1992, p. 13.
5. Ibid., p. 93.
6. For an amusing incident connected with this situation see: Gundevia,
Y.D. Outside the Archives. Sangam Books Ltd, 1983, pp. 271–272.
Appendix
MANDALA
JOINT PRESS STATEMENT
The President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India met during the
SAARC Summit in Islamabad.
The Indian Prime Minister while expressing satisfaction over the
successful conclusion of the SAARC Summit appreciated the excellent
arrangement made by the host country.
Both leaders welcomed the recent steps towards normalization of
relations between the two countries and expressed the hope that the positive
trends set by the CBMs would be consolidated.
Prime Minister Vajpayee said that in order to take forward and sustain the
dialogue process, violence, hostility and terrorism must be prevented.
President Musharraf reassured Prime Minister Vajpayee that he will not
permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism
in any manner. President Musharraf emphasized that a sustained and
productive dialogue addressing all issues would lead to positive results.
To carry the process of normalisation forward the President of Pakistan
and the Prime Minister of India agreed to commence the process of the
composite dialogue in February 2004. The two leaders are confident that
the resumption of the composite dialogue will lead to peaceful settlement of
all bilateral issues, including Jammu & Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both
sides.
The two leaders agreed that constructive dialogue would promote
progress towards the common objective of peace, security and economic
development of our peoples and for future generations.
Islamabad
January 6, 2004
SARDAR PATEL’S LETTER TO PT NEHRU
AFTER THE CHINESE INVASION OF TIBET
My dear Jawaharlal,
Ever since my return from Ahmedabad and after the cabinet meeting the
same day which I had to attend at practically fifteen minutes’ notice and for
which I regret I was not able to read all the papers, I have been anxiously
thinking over the problem of Tibet and I thought I should share with you
what is passing through my mind.
I have carefully gone through the correspondence between the External
Affairs Ministry and our Ambassador in Peking and through him the
Chinese Government. I have tried to peruse this correspondence as
favourably to our Ambassador and the Chinese Government as possible, but
I regret to say that neither of them comes out well as a result of this study.
The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of
peaceful intention. My own feeling is that at a crucial period they managed
to instill into our Ambassador a false sense of confidence in their so-called
desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means. There can be no
doubt that during the period covered by this correspondence the Chinese
must have been concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action of
the Chinese, in my judgement, is little short of perfidy. The tragedy of it is
that the Tibetans put faith in us; they chose to be guided by us; and we have
been unable to get them out of the meshes of Chinese diplomacy or Chinese
malevolence. From the latest position, it appears that we shall not be able to
rescue the Dalai Lama. Our Ambassador has been at great pains to find an
explanation or justification for Chinese policy and actions. As the External
Affairs Ministry remarked in one of their telegrams, there was a lack of
firmness and unnecessary apology in one or two representations that he
made to the Chinese Government on our behalf.
It is impossible to imagine any sensible person believing in the so-called
threat to China from Anglo-American machinations in Tibet. Therefore, if
the Chinese put faith in this, they must have distrusted us so completely as
to have taken us as tools or stooges of Anglo-American diplomacy or
strategy. This feeling, if genuinely entertained by the Chinese in spite of
your direct approaches to them, indicates that even though we regard
ourselves as the friends of China, the Chinese do not regard us as their
friends. With the communist mentality of “whoever is not with them being
against them”, this is a significant pointer, of which we have to take due
note. During the last several months, outside the Russian camp, we have
practically been alone in championing the cause of Chinese entry into UN
and in securing from the Americans assurances on the question of Formosa.
We have done everything we could to assuage Chinese feelings, to allay its
apprehensions and to defend its legitimate claims in our discussions and
correspondence with America and Britain and in the UN.
Inspite of this, China is not convinced about our disinterestedness; it
continues to regard us with suspicion and the whole psychology is one, at
least outwardly, of scepticism perhaps mixed with a little hostility. I doubt if
we can go any further than we have done already to convince China of our
good intentions, friendliness and goodwill. In Peking we have an
Ambassador who is eminently suitable for putting across the friendly point
of view. Even he seems to have failed to convert the Chinese. Their last
telegram to us is an act of gross discourtesy not only in the summary way it
disposes of our protest against the entry of Chinese forces into Tibet but
also in the wild insinuation that our attitude is determined by foreign
influences. It looks as though it is not a friend speaking in that language but
a potential enemy.
In the background of this, we have to consider what new situation now
faces us as a result of the disappearance of Tibet, as we knew it, and the
expansion of China almost up to our gates. Throughout history we have
seldom been worried about our north-east frontier. The Himalayas have
been regarded as an impenetrable barrier against any threat from the north.
We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no trouble. The Chinese were
divided. They had their own domestic problems and never bothered us
about frontiers. In 1914, we entered into a convention with Tibet which was
not endorsed by the Chinese. We seem to have regarded Tibetan autonomy
as extending to independent treaty relationship. Presumably, all that we
required was Chinese counter-signature. The Chinese interpretation of
suzerainty seems to be different.
We can, therefore, safely assume that very soon they will disown all the
stipulations which Tibet has entered into with us in the past. That throws
into the melting pot all frontier and commercial settlements with Tibet on
which we have been functioning and acting during the last half a century.
China is no longer divided. It is united and strong. All along the Himalayas
in the north and north-east, we have on our side of the frontier a population
ethnologically and culturally not different from Tibetans and Mongoloids.
The undefined state of the frontier and the existence on our side of a
population with its affinities to the Tibetans or Chinese have all the
elements of the potential trouble between China and ourselves. Recent and
bitter history also tells us that Communism is no shield against imperialism
and that the communists are as good or as bad imperialists as any other.
Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on
our side but also include the important part of Assam. They have their
ambitions in Burma also. Burma has the added difficulty that it has no
McMahon Line round which to build up even the semblance of an
agreement. Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different
from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers. The former
has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the
guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national or historical
claims. The danger from the north and north-east, therefore, becomes both
communist and imperialist.
While our western and north-western threat to security is still as
prominent as before, a new threat has developed from the north and north-
east. Thus, for the first time, after centuries, India’s defence has to
concentrate itself on two fronts simultaneously. Our defence measures have
so far been based on the calculations of superiority over Pakistan. In our
calculations we shall now have to reckon with communist China in the
north and in the north-east, a communist China which has definite
ambitions and aims and which does not, in any way, seem friendly disposed
towards us.
Let us also consider the political conditions on this potentially
troublesome frontier. Our northern and north-eastern approaches consist of
Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the tribal areas in Assam. From the
point of view of communication, there are weak spots. Continuous
defensive lines do not exist. There is almost an unlimited scope for
infiltration. Police protection is limited to a very small number of passes.
There, too, our outposts do not seem to be fully manned. The contact of
these areas with us is by no means close and intimate. The people
inhabiting these portions have no established loyalty or devotion to India.
Even Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas are not free from pro-Mongoloid
prejudices. During the last three years, we have not been able to make any
appreciable approaches to the Nagas and other hill tribes in Assam.
European missionaries and other visitors had been in touch with them,
but their influence was in no way friendly to India or Indians. In Sikkim,
there was political ferment some time ago. It is quite possible that
discontent is smouldering there. Bhutan is comparatively quiet, but its
affinity with Tibetans would be a handicap. Nepal has a weak oligarchic
regime based almost entirely on force: it is in conflict with a turbulent
element of the population as well as with enlightened ideas of the modern
age. In these circumstances, to make people alive to the new danger or to
make them defensively strong is a very difficult task indeed and that
difficulty can be got over only by enlightened firmness, strength and a clear
line of policy. I am sure the Chinese and their source of inspiration, Soviet
Union, would not miss any opportunity of exploiting these weak spots,
partly in support of their ideology and partly in support of their ambitions.
In my judgement the situation is one which we cannot afford either to be
complacent or to be vacillating. We must have a clear idea of what we wish
to achieve and also of the methods by which we should achieve it. Any
faltering or lack of decisiveness in formulating our objectives or in pursuing
our policies to attain those objectives is bound to weaken us and increase
the threats which are so evident.
Side by side with these external dangers, we shall now have to face
serious internal problems as well. I have already asked Iyengar to send to
the External Affairs Ministry a copy of the Intelligence Bureau’s
appreciation of these matters. Hitherto, the Communist Party of India has
found some difficulty in contacting communists abroad, or in getting
supplies of arms, literature, etc., from them. They had to contend with the
difficult Burmese and Pakistan frontiers on the east or with the long
seaboard. They shall now have a comparatively easy means of access to
Chinese communists and through them to other foreign communists.
Infiltration of spies, fifth columnists and communists would now be easier.
Instead of having to deal with isolated communist pockets in Telengana and
Warrangal we may have to deal with communist threats to our security
along our northern and north-eastern frontiers, where, for supplies of arms
and ammunition, they can safely depend on communist arsenals in China.
The whole situation thus raises a number of problems on which we must
come to an early decision so that we can, as I said earlier, formulate the
objectives of our policy and decide the method by which those objectives
are to be attained. It is also clear that the action will have to be fairly
comprehensive, involving not only our defence strategy and state of
preparations but also problem of internal security to deal with which we
have not a moment to lose. We shall also have to deal with administrative
and political problems in the weak spots along the frontier to which I have
already referred.
It is of course, impossible to be exhaustive in setting out all these
problems. I am, however, giving below some of the problems which, in my
opinion, require early solution and round which we have to build our
administrative or military policies and measures to implement them.
a) A military and intelligence appreciation of the Chinese threat to India
both on the frontier and to internal security.
b) An examination of military position and such redisposition of our
forces as might be necessary, particularly with the idea of guarding
important routes or areas which are likely to be the subject of dispute.
c) An appraisement of the strength of our forces and, if necessary,
reconsideration of our retrenchment plans for the Army in the light of
the new threat.
d) A long-term consideration of our defence needs. My own feeling is
that, unless we assure our supplies of arms, ammunition and armour,
we would be making our defence perpetually weak and we would not
be able to stand up to the double threat of difficulties both from the
west and north-west and north and north-east.
e) The question of China’s entry into the UN. In view of the rebuff which
China has given us and the method which it has followed in dealing
with Tibet, I am doubtful whether we can advocate its claim any
longer. There would probably be a threat in the UN virtually to outlaw
China, in view of its active participation in the Korean war. We must
determine our attitude on this question also.
f) The political and administrative steps which we should take to
strengthen our northern and north-eastern frontier. This would include
the whole of the border, ie. Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the
tribal territory in Assam.
g) Measures of internal security in the border areas as well as the states
flanking those areas such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Assam.
h) Improvement of our communication, road, rail, air and wireless, in
these areas and with the frontier outposts.
i) The future of our mission at Lhasa and the trade posts at Gyangtse and
Yatung and the forces which we have in operation in Tibet to guard
the trade routes.
j) The policy in regard to the McMahon Line.
These are some of the questions which occur to my mind. It is possible that
a consideration of these matters may lead us into wider question of our
relationship with China, Russia, America, Britain and Burma. This,
however, would be of a general nature, though some might be basically
very important, e.g., we might have to consider whether we should not enter
into closer association with Burma in order to strengthen the latter in its
dealings with China. I do not rule out the possibility that, before applying
pressure on us, China might apply pressure on Burma. With Burma, the
frontier is entirely undefined and the Chinese territorial claims are more
substantial. In its present position, Burma might offer an easier problem to
China, and therefore, might claim its first attention.
I suggest that we meet early to have a general discussion on these
problems and decide on such steps as we might think to be immediately
necessary and direct, quick examination of other problems with a view to
taking early measures to deal with them.
Vallabhbhai Patel,
7th November 1950
MEETING WITH GENERAL MUSHARRAF
ARTICLE ON MRS RASGOTRA
Acknowledgements