Beyond champagne chic

• • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• An enticing book takes a revealing peek into Indian diplomacy and its many intricate levels, writes

Indian diplomacy is 50 percent protoco l, 30 percent alcohol and 20 percent TN Kaul

(India's legendary fo r eign secretary in t he l ace sixties), so goes the famous one- liner. Bue it's dearly much more than g lamorous parties and clinki ng champagne glasses as a new book, wh ich stitches together analyses, insights and reminiscences of India's stalwart diplomats, shows.

Titled The A 111bassadon' Clt,b (}forper Collins), the boo k, edited by KV Rajan, a retired diploma t, weaves rare snapshots of lnd ian diplomacy in action at some of the fraught and exhilaracing moments in l.ndia's management of its fo reign relations.

The book bristles w ith revelations and rare in sig h ts into how Indian dip lomacy operates o n the ground amid challenging situation s an d takes you beyond dic hed ofticiaJ formulations and discourses that often hide more than tl1ey say.

AND Haksar's brief bur compelling accounc of an impromptu summit meeting between Pakistan's dictator Z iau l-Haq an d India's the n Prime

M:iniste r l'vlorarji Desai in · airobi in 1978 during the funeral ceremony of Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyarca is o n e sud1 exampl e that will prod read ers to dig deeper into tl1e book In the chapter entitled A Si11g1ilar Ju111mit, Haksar writes : "Bhutto w as executed in the following sw11m er of 1979 by tl1e Z ia gover nm ent despite pleas for d e m ency from many leaders and governments around me wo rld.

O ne which made no such p lea was India, the Desai government taking die view tl1at the m atte r was an intern al affa ir of Pakistan.

\'(fhether or n ot the previo u s summer's smnrnit had any role in this can o n ly be a s ub ject of specul;i tion."

There are also gripping accounts of some of t he country's much -esteem ed re tired diplomats whose stints coincided with hi.srory- changing moments in the countries in whi ch tl1ey were posted

TP Sreenivasan found himself grappling with the a ftermath of a coup in Fiji in 1987 which was aimed at u nd ermining the lndia norigin majority in F iji's affairs. A

Madh avan recalls vividly what it meant to be i n the midst of o n e of the iconic eve n ts of tl1e tim e, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how India i ngeniously built diplomatic b ridges with a remufied Germany.

Jagat S Mehta, the doyen of Indian diplomats and n ow in h is 90s, looks back at his dip lomatic s tin t in China and seem s co question Nehru and his advisers in their judgments of Clunese inten tio ns in the late 1950s and 1960s. Commenting on Mehta's article, KV Rajan , the editor of the book, writes : " Cou ld tbe India- Chin a war have been avoided if ebru had been a better judge, or better advised, and his d evoted and overawed bureauc rats were not convinced d1ar 'Panditji knows best?"

What imparts a unique flavour to the book are first-person accounts lil,e that of The Last Dt?)'S of StilPado,· A llende, the Chilean dictat01; by GJ Malik and Ni ranjan Desai's gripping t ale of his travails in 1972 as an officer on special duty after Ugandan dictator Idi Amin whimsica lly expelled all Asia n s ho lding ci tizen sh ip of

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Britain

To e A t11bassad01:r' CIH/J is probably th e first in a series of anthologies of reflections and reminiscences by Indi:w diplomats as they juggle diverse domains ranging from cli mate change n egotiations to labyr intl1s of WT O talks and fills in on di e drama and atmospherics that are missing from more scliolatly tomes on international relations.

The book s hould be specially u seful co practitioners as well as students of international relations. Above all, it should inspire more young peop le to joi11 the woefully understaffed Indian Foreign Se.rvice.

In a foreword co the book, National Securi ty Advisor

Shivsha nka r Menon recalls how h e recently m et a young ma n who had made it to tl1e IFS, but was bei ng dissuaded by his lAS colleagues and his girlfriend from

MANI SH CHAND

joining i t. Me non says he tried to convince him about me singularity o f the diploma t's job, but in retrospect though t he sho uld just h ave given lu m this book to read to discover the joys an d challenges of Indian diplomacy.

''The book weaves rare snapshots of Indian diplomacy in action at some of the fraught and exhilarating moments in India's management of its fore ign relations. ' '