The Ambassadors’ Club - The Indian Diplomat at Large

128 Pages·2012·1.13 MB·English

by  Krishna V Rajan

THE AMBASSADORS’ CLUB
The Indian Diplomat at Large
Edited by
Krishna V. Rajan
Foreword by
Shiv Shankar Menon
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
A SINGULAR SUMMIT
A.N.D. Haksar
‘IT’S A BOY!’: THE MAKING OF THE SHIMLA AGREEMENT
K.N. Bakshi
SUNSET FOR THE CHOGYAL
B.S. Das
NEPAL: DARKNESS AT NOON
Krishna V. Rajan
NEGOTIATING THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE: A MEMOIR
Chandrashekhar Dasgupta
PERSONA NON GRATA IN IDI AMIN’S UGANDA
Niranjan Desai
THE WALL COMES DOWN: AN INDIAN VIEW
A. Madhavan
THE LAST DAYS OF SALVADOR ALLENDE
G.J. Malik
HOPE AND DESPAIR IN SRI LANKA
L.L. Mehrotra
THREE UNFORGETTABLES IN AUSTRIA
K.L. Dalal
RE-IMAGINING SAARC
Kant K. Bhargava
THE UN ENVOY: AN IRAQI JOURNEY
Prakash Shah
ENGAGING WITH CHINA
Jagat S. Mehta
FIJI: DIPLOMACY EXTRAORDINARY
T.P. Sreenivasan
BHUTAN ARRIVES ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE
A.N. Ram
THE QUIET INNOVATOR: FOREIGN POLICY UNDER P.V. NARASIMHA RAO
Prabhakar Menon
Contributors
Index
FOREWORD
Shiv Shankar Menon
Ayoung man at a lecture last week surprised me by asking for advice. He had just got into the Indian Foreign
Service, something that he had wanted all his life. But now his IAS colleagues and, more worryingly, his girlfriend
were dissuading him from joining the service. ‘Am I making a mistake?’ he asked. I told him my honest opinion that
the IFS offers the best job in the world if you enjoy people, intellectual stimulation, dealing with the widest possible
range of issues, taking the initiative, and travel.
I do not know whether I persuaded him. But I now wish that I had just given him this book.
Here is the Indian Foreign Service at its honest, understated and effective best. In these accounts of significant
moments in their career, each former ambassador has shown us sides of Indian diplomacy that are seldom visible. This
is not the theory of diplomacy or grand strategy. It is the daily practice of diplomacy, conscious of the great
consequences that follow.
The real value is that these accounts add a sense of time, place and person – the atmospherics – which formal works
on international relations and negotiating accounts omit.
The fact that these accounts do not shy away from the first person singular pronoun ‘I’ (something that we spend our
lives avoiding in our official telegrams and work) is what gives this book its flavour. It is here that much of the joy of
diplomacy lies, and this book would have conveyed this pleasure to my young friend.
Reading these accounts it is also clear that the Indian diplomat’s world is a lonely one. This is not only because India
is unique in the world, or because non-alignment obliges us to deal with each issue on its own merits. It is also because
we are woefully thin on the ground, understaffed and under-supported.
Reading these accounts, one is also prompted to ask whether there is such a thing as a uniquely Indian diplomatic
style. I think there is one that is emerging here. Its elements include the high levels of individual initiative displayed by
many of these authors (often without or despite the institutional conservatism of do-nothings in the ministry). An
element of pedagogy is part of the mix. (After all these are the successful ones in one of the world’s most difficult
examinations.) And consistent throughout is a willingness and ability to find pragmatic solutions. I could cite several
examples from the texts, but will leave it to the reader to enjoy making his own discoveries and draw his own
conclusions.
There is a wonderful chapter in Harold Nicolson’s Diplomacy called ‘The Ideal Diplomatist’. (The word
‘diplomatist’ itself is redolent of the time when it was written in 1938-39.) Nicolson describes the qualities of the ideal
diplomat as he saw them. He thought that success in negotiation was based on influence, and that required seven
specific virtues: Truthfulness, Precision, Calm, Good Temper, Patience, Modesty, and Loyalty. Each of them is
necessary if the diplomat is to carry credibility with the country he is in and in his own country. And that is the ultimate
diplomatic virtue, credibility. Nicolson ends his chapter by saying: ‘“But,” the reader may object, “You have forgotten
intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage and even tact.” I have not
forgotten them. I have taken them for granted.’
I am not sure that this combination of admirable qualities ever was or will be more than an ideal. The earliest ideal
diplomat in India was Krishna. In the six months of frantic negotiation and mediation that preceded the great war of the
Mahabharata, his qualities are described in very similar terms to those Nicolson uses. Krishna had the added
advantages, repeated often in the Mahabharata, of his reputation and of knowing all those involved personally. That a
classical European diplomat of the early twentieth century and the Mahabharata describing events in a partly tribal
society several thousands of years ago should use the same terms for a diplomat’s qualities is remarkable. It suggests
that a diplomat requires the same qualities across vastly different cultures and over a very long period of historical
time.
As these texts show, India has much to be proud of in its diplomats. I do hope my young friend has a chance to read
this book when he is in the Foreign Service.
13 August 2011
New Delhi
INTRODUCTION
Few careers offer the rich diversity of personal and professional experiences as does a life in diplomacy, and if one
has the privilege of representing a country as unique as India, the opportunities for making a contribution to issues
of war, peace and development, as well as for introspection, self-education and original insights are very special
indeed. Unfortunately, the stories of former Indian diplomats are often never told. While in service, the official
demands on a diplomat’s time are an undoubted deterrent; the Official Secrets Act (whether in or out of service) even
more so. Indeed, for a retired Indian diplomat attempting to write a memoir, the element of self-flagellation involved in
recollecting events of long ago only gets aggravated by the anxiety of not violating, either in spirit or deed, the OSA!
Thus, when HarperCollins approached me to edit a volume of autobiographical recollections of former ambassadors,
I accepted with some trepidation. That the distinguished colleagues I approached for a contribution immediately
accepted was a matter of agreeable surprise: I can only take it as a mark of their personal consideration for me, as well
as evidence of the shared conviction in the ambassadorial community that the effort might be worth making, because
there is indeed a story to be told.
All the contributors are retired diplomats; some are in their late seventies, eighties or even nineties – so their
recollections, insights, reflections (and prognostications for the future) constitute a valuable addition to the sparse
reservoir of ‘oral histories’ available with us, presented possibly for the first time within the covers of a book in this
way.
The range of subjects covered is wide. Each writer was left free to decide which facet of a particular experience or
event or professional challenge he wished to dwell on, and the style and approach to be adopted. The common thread
connecting the very different styles is an unstated willingness on the part of contributors to open the doors of the
‘Ambassadors’ Club’ to a wider audience which includes non-specialists, to share some of the background,
atmospherics, off-the-record interactions, personal details, assessments and conclusions which are rarely discussed in
public. The reader is therefore likely to find quite a few ‘revelations’ embedded in the narratives, including on some
sensitive issues on which diplomatic lips are usually firmly sealed. Some contributions might even resemble a piece of
abstract art, to be interpreted one way or the other according to the reader’s inclination.
The contributions have not been grouped together under various heads, for this would have been difficult apart from
being somewhat artificial. But if one were to attempt to give the reader some idea of what could be expected from this
pot pourri of ambassadorial reminiscences, and the luxury of picking and choosing the piece to read, according to
preference or mood, here is a rough and ready guide:
‘Transitions’ would sum up the recollections on Bhutan (A.N. Ram), Sikkim (B.S. Das) and Nepal (Krishna V.
Rajan). India inherited from Britain and duly adjusted according to its evolving security perceptions, different treaty
relationships with these three Himalayan ‘states’ when it became independent. Under new treaties, Sikkim was a
‘protectorate’, Bhutan enjoyed notional sovereignty and Nepal’s independence was made subject to certain limits.
Preoccupation about China, which imparted to all three states their geopolitical importance for British India, only
increased after 1947, but Nehru chose to deal with them in his own way, combining British Indian colonial strategic
thinking with his progressive and democratic preferences. Calibration was the name of the game. Thus, ideas of the
complete merger of Sikkim and Nepal with India were discouraged by Nehru even when they were feasible. Successive
governments in New Delhi adjusted their policies, depending on the level of local sensitivity to its concerns about
China shown by the regime of the day in Gangtok, Thimphu or Kathmandu – and also the degree of warmth or
otherwise in relations between New Delhi and Beijing. Eventually, the linkages with India have followed different
trajectories, and thereby hang some fascinating tales.
Ram had the distinction of several assignments in Bhutan, including one as part of the Bhutanese Permanent Mission
in New York. He gives a fascinating (and necessary) reminder of how the shared vision of Jawaharlal Nehru and King
Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, developed after an arduous and lengthy journey on horseback and foot by Nehru to Bhutan in
1958, resulted in the eventual ending of Bhutan’s traditional isolation and the emergence of a mature, friendly, fast-
developing yet culturally very traditional neighbour in India’s sensitive northern periphery.
Das, a senior IPS (Indian Police Service) officer-turneddiplomat because of his own inclination, was utilized in the
latter capacity by the Indian government for nearly fourteen years. He was given the unusual responsibility of being the
chief executive of Sikkim. The mandate given to him will probably be forever buried several fathoms deep. But the sun
did set (with India’s encouragement) on its ruler, the Chogyal, and Sikkim proceeded to embrace democracy and
eventually opted to become an Indian province. I happened at the time to be the special assistant to Foreign Secretary
Kewal Singh (described by Das as ‘the principal actor’), and can testify to the fact that the entire exercise was carried
out with finesse and confidentiality in a manner which must be quite rare in the history of post-Independence India. A
handful of officials (Kewal Singh, Mrs Gandhi’s principal secretary P.N. Dhar, the political officer in Gangtok K.S.
Bajpai and later Gurbachan Singh) worked as a superb team and under the leadership of a clear-sighted prime minister
who genuinely believed that the national interest of India coincided with the popular aspirations of the vast majority of
the people of Sikkim, and approved and oversaw the implementation of policies which, in retrospect, can only be
described as ‘successful’ – from the point of view of the people of Sikkim as well as of India.
The chapter on Nepal describes India’s relative success in defining and maintaining a certain direction in Indian
policies, despite changes of government in New Delhi and Kathmandu, against the backdrop of a monarchy reluctant to
adjust to a purely constitutional role, a democracy struggling to consolidate, stabilize and deliver, and an incipient
Maoist insurgency committed to challenging state authority and ending Nepal’s special relationship with India. Just
when it seemed that the two countries had developed a certain maturity in their search for a stable and mutually
beneficial relationship, political turbulence took over, with the spectacular rise of Maoist power, the hijacking of an
Indian Airlines flight to Delhi, the royal massacre and a palace coup against democracy. Could the subsequent
unfolding tragedy in Nepal have been better anticipated by India and even prevented when there was still time? That is
the troubling and unanswered subtext of the Nepal memoir.
‘Grand Stand Plus’ would probably well define the contributions by A. Madhavan, Prabhakar Menon, K.N. Bakshi
and A.N.D. Haksar. Madhavan’s is a reflective flashback on one of the defining events of our time, the fall of the Berlin
Wall. The backdrop to the tumultuous and unexpected people’s movement which led to the rapid reunification of
Germany, and the implications of the latter for India and the world, are captured with imagination as well as
objectivity. It was a time of turbulence and change: Gorbachev in the Soviet Union urging glasnost and perestroika;
Tiananmen in China; the Wall as a symbol of communist dictatorship as well as a challenge to aspirations for unity and
freedom; German reunification, elections, eventually the unravelling of the Soviet Union itself.
India’s efforts to retain the priority attention of united Germany were in some measure successful due to Madhavan’s
efforts and the support he received from Rajiv Gandhi, President Venkataraman and Narasimha Rao; but the farsighted
vision of successive Indian leaders going back to Nehru, who had asserted that the Wall was a historical absurdity and a
symbol of united rather than permanently partitioned Germany, always underpinned the robust bilateral ties.
(Madhavan reminds us that Western leaders, including Margaret Thatcher, were opposed to reunification when it
looked imminent, with Thatcher even writing to Gorbachev urging Soviet intervention to prevent this ‘disaster’ from
happening).
Menon’s analysis of the foreign policy of one of India’s enigmatic, successful and still underestimated prime
ministers, P.V. Narasimha Rao, brings his foreign policy vision to life through a rare and hitherto silent insider’s
account. It makes a compelling case for a better understanding of the achievements and services to India of Rao – a
prime minister once caricatured as a ‘boneless wonder’ by a former foreign secretary for his alleged ineffectiveness as
a member of Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet, even characterized recently (by an eminent Indian journalist) as ‘India’s most
ruthless prime minister’. Menon is clear that Rao ‘brought to bear on India’s foreign policy . . . a density of thought
rarely seen in the conduct of India’s foreign relations’ and that ‘his novel approaches . . . made him a pathfinder
through some of the less charted terrain of India’s foreign policy’.
Bakshi, a long-time Pakistan expert since his days even as a young member of the service, shares some remarkable
insights on perennial India-Pakistan differences in his riveting memoir of the events leading to the Shimla Agreement.
This was the agreement signed between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi after Pakistan’s military defeat at India’s
hands, which was supposed to herald a new era of peace, and settlement of differences exclusively through bilateral
dialogue. For Bakshi and his fellow professionals at the operational level, the agreement was a disappointment,
representing a victory of the idealism of seniors and political masters over hard-headed objective understanding of the
‘psyche’ and indeed, the raison d’être of the Pakistani core establishment, which is to resist a comprehensive and
irreversible state of normality in India-Pakistan relations. The fact that in the following decades, other Indian leaders
have also tried to go the extra mile with Pakistan because of the same idealistic expectation, and failed because the
fundamental strategic objectives of the ‘core’ in Islamabad remain unchanged, is a sad reflection of India’s inability or
unwillingness to adjust to ground realities in its neighbourhood.
Haksar gives a brief, elegant and reflective account of the impromptu India-Pakistan summit meeting between Zia-
ul-Haq and Morarji Desai during the funeral ceremony of Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, the unexpected degree of instant
personal rapport struck between these highly dissimilar leaders, gently encouraging speculation as to why India might
have been silent when Bhutto was executed by Zia the following year, and why Morarji has the distinction of being the
sole recipient so far of both the Pakistani as well as Indian highest civilian honours.
A third category of contributions could be termed ‘Responses and Strategies’. Former foreign secretary and long-
time strategic thinker (and China expert) Jagat S. Mehta, now in his nineties, reflects on the uneven course of India-
China ties and prospects for the future, while recalling his own hands-on experiences in dealing with China, and
incidentally questioning Nehru and his advisers in their judgements of Chinese intentions in the late 1950s/early ’60s.
Could the India-China war have been avoided if Nehru had been a better judge, or better advised, and his devoted and
overawed bureaucrats were not convinced that ‘Panditji knows best’? He is clear that India, warts and all, will
ultimately triumph over China because of the former’s ‘global’ temperament as contrasted with China’s cultural
conditioning to be chauvinistic and isolationist.
T.P. Sreenivasan describes his unusual experiences as India’s man in Fiji after a coup aimed at marginalizing the
Indian-origin majority in Fiji’s affairs. Here is a good example of innovative diplomacy in a difficult and unstable
situation. In his own words: ‘Contentious elections, change of governments, military coups, trade sanctions and
expulsions are par for the course in diplomacy, but to face all these at one post and that too in a tropical paradise is
extraordinary.’
L.L. Mehrotra arrived in Sri Lanka at a particularly difficult moment in 1989. India’s high-risk response to President
Jayewardane’s request for troops to fight the LTTE had run into deep trouble under the new executive president,
Premadasa, who was determined to secure the immediate withdrawal of the troops while following a policy of
appeasement vis-à-vis the LTTE and the JVP in an environment of brutal large-scale assassinations perpetrated by both
organizations. How the daunting challenges to Indian diplomacy in a tense, complicated and tragic situation were
tackled is graphically documented by Mehrotra. Was Rajiv Gandhi’s risky military intervention in Sri Lanka, in a
violent and unstable internal situation (caused in part by India’s ill-advised policy under an earlier government’s watch
to harbour and support the LTTE’s activities from Indian soil), condemned to end in any other outcome than a
humiliating withdrawal?
Not every Indian diplomat makes it to a multilateral organization. Multilateral experience is considered to be
specialized, and it is sought after for more reasons than one. But it can be a rewarding as well as challenging –
sometimes frustrating – experience. Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, one of the few acknowledged specialists who has been
intimately involved with the tortuous route of international negotiations on climate change from the beginning, shares
his recollections of the first breakthroughs achieved by India and the developing countries in their efforts to get the
developed world to accept a fair share of responsibility in managing the threat to the planet on this score. Kant K.
Bhargava, a former secretary-general of SAARC and one who has worked with steadfast zeal but not always with too
much encouragement from his own government to making the regional grouping an effective and beneficial one,
recounts his experiences, including post-retirement, over several decades (part of the training was to convince an EU
interlocutor that papadams were different from spaghetti and hence entitled to duty-free treatment). And Prakash Shah
reveals the disappointing episode of his appointment as the UN special envoy to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, again without
much support from his home government, and in the face of the determination of the US to ensure that Saddam Hussein
should be toppled before sanctions were ended through a successful directly negotiated understanding between the UN
and Iraq.
Three first-person accounts of the 1970s: of experiences in Kreisky’s Austria, in Allende’s Chile and in Idi Amin’s
Uganda, complete this fascinating mosaic. K.L. Dalal describes his encounters with two women who were in the
shadow of great Indian leaders, but melted away into anonymity after the leaders themselves died. Miraben was
Mahatma Gandhi’s devoted disciple who abruptly left India and chose to retire in ashram-like austerity in a remote
Austrian village; Emilie Schenkl, the widow of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (who died in mysterious circumstances),
cut off her Indian connections because of the Bose family’s reluctance to recognize her as his spouse. Dalal also
contributed to removing the misunderstandings which had cropped up after the declaration of Emergency between Mrs
Indira Gandhi and a close traditional friend of the Nehru family, Chancellor Kreisky. G.J. Malik, a veteran diplomat
now in his nineties recollects the peculiar challenges confronting India’s ambassador in Allende’s Chile, including in
the aftermath of the bloody coup that overthrew the president, in an era of deep suspicion about the CIA’s sinister
activities against non-friendly regimes in developing countries. And Niranjan Desai paints in vivid colours Idi Amin’s
Uganda, where he was sent as a junior officer from the ministry following the bizarre expulsion of the Asian
community. Born and brought up in Tanzania, where he spent the first seventeen years of his life, Desai’s account of his
personal travails as he tried to befriend the Indian community in its hour of need, ending with his being declared
persona non grata, is of interest, not least because of the contrast with the aggressive pro-diaspora stance taken by the
Government of India decades later in the aftermath of the Fiji coup, as described by Sreenivasan.
There has been a sea change that has occurred in the way India now treats its diaspora, but the basic dilemmas
remain: how should India react if a foreign government mistreats people of Indian origin who are not Indian citizens
(as in Malaysia)? And what is to be done if a foreign government is unable to provide security for Indian nationals
against large-scale racist attacks (as in Australia)? As India assumes a high profile in global affairs and ‘Indians’
become more successful and prosperous, the dilemmas may only become more acute.
One hopes that this collection will be an eye-opener to anyone who thinks that the Indian Foreign Service is all about
cocktail parties and luxurious living conditions. What comes across is the capacity of an Indian diplomat, by virtue of
training and experience, for survival (physical and professional) in adverse situations, for objective assessment and
analysis, for reflection and introspection, improvement and improvisation, understanding of and contribution to
historical events of which he or she happens to be part – often in anonymity, and always with professional discretion
and dedication.
KRISHNA V. RAJAN
A SINGULAR SUMMIT
A.N.D. Haksar
Summit meetings have become a standard feature of international diplomacy in the twenty-first century. Leaders
meet each other with a frequency which is no longer unprecedented. Thanks to modern technology, the meetings can
even be virtual, as exemplified by the hour-long exchange between presidents Hu Jintao of China and Barack Obama of
the US while the latter was travelling in his airplane during the Easter break of 2010. Did they only speak on this
occasion, or also see each other as they conversed, is a detail as yet unrevealed. But it points to future possibilities.
Frequency may dull their impact. Nevertheless the importance of summit meets in the conduct of world affairs
remains unquestionable. They are the highest level for decision making on matters of importance, and also for enabling
the decision makers to know and size up each other for the future. Apart from providing opportunities for such personal
interaction, they are important for image building and moulding public opinion. They also have great symbolic value.
But all these possibilities presume careful and often protracted preparation in advance of such meetings.
Sherpa is a word which accompanied the word summit into the language of diplomacy. It refers to the lower level
workers who prepare a mountain path to the top for their masters. Rare indeed are summits not preceded by such
sherpas engaging in hard-nosed negotiation on all their aspects: policy and protocol, issues and images, final options
and fall back positions. The eventual result may often even depend on such preliminary efforts.
Despite the importance of preparatory groundwork, it is generally believed that the crucial aspect of an apex meet
lies in the interaction of personalities. Prior planning may have a role even here, but the interaction can also take place
without sherpa preparation or road-mapping. It is of course maximal in one-on-one meetings without the presence of
aides, though their content can then only be surmised by others.
This is one part of the background to a singular summit meet here described by a witness to its start. Another part of
it is the chequered history of summit diplomacy in India-Pakistan relations as a whole. While the Shimla Agreement
stands out as its best-known achievement, it is still an open question if the personal chemistry between successive
leaders of the two neighbour countries has contributed meaningfully to building good relations between them since
they became independent.
Jawaharlal Nehru and the Pakistani leaders of his time carried too much historical baggage from the politics
preceding partition to be able to establish any worthwhile rapport. Nehru’s successor Lal Bahadur Shastri and
Pakistan’s first military ruler Ayub Khan, one a homespun Gandhian and the other a Sandhursttrained general, were too
disparate in background to warrant much mutual understanding. The next generation of leaders, Indira Gandhi and
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, signed the historic Shimla Agreement, the results of which have subsequently been questioned. But
any definitive assessment of their personal equation remains unclear, clouded over by their personalities.
Legends also surround their children, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto, who met as prime ministers of their
countries and were both assassinated when out of office. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao held no fewer than five
summit sessions with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had meetings with
President Pervez Musharraf, including the long session at Agra which resulted in much speculation. Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh also met General Musharraf and has continued summit meetings with Pakistani leaders after him.
But all these are perhaps still too close to the present time to enable judgement on the personal interactions involved
and the long-term effects on bilateral relations which continue on a zig-zag course.
A contrasting interlude within this scenario of rise and fall of relations is provided by the brief coincidence in office
of Morarji Desai and Zia-ul-Haq. Both came to power at about the same time, one in the aftermath of the Janata
electoral wave which unseated Indira Gandhi, and the other after toppling the elder Bhutto in a military coup. The
Janata interlude was a comparatively cordial phase in India-Pakistan relations, despite or maybe because of its short
duration. The relationship also featured what appears to have been a rather un-orchestrated summit, one between a new
military leader and an old political veteran that was perhaps unique as much for its chemistry and spontaneity as for its
lack of publicity.
The scene was the funeral of President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya in the summer of 1978. Many foreign leaders had
come to Nairobi to pay tribute to that pioneer of African independence. Among the prominent personalities who arrived
at short notice were the prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan.
The two had never met each other before. The Kenyan authorities took care to give them due precedence in keeping