"Scoop!" by Kuldip Nayar

It was a wrong time to be a teenager.

Socialism, seeded in by lofty intellectuals in pursuit of an utopian dream of equality, was failing to deliver. Yet this failed economic solution was a good political platform to secure a constituency.

Political standards were at their lowest. A son became more important than a country. Democratic traditions were killed. Fundamental rights were suspended and held inferior to State policy. State policy was of course as decided by a small coterie. Opponents were imprisoned. Newspapers were censored. There were a few who were elated because trains ran in time and because there were no strikes. The worst moment was when a sycophant Deb Kant Barua proclaimed: “India is Indira and Indira is India”. The leader was hopeless. The country was without hope.

And then, people spoke. Indira's actions and her coterie were firmly rejected. (She herself was not rejected; she was later able to come back to power).

In that first whiff of freedom, it was fun to rediscover hope in life.

There was an eagerness to understand what went wrong; how did it go wrong and what made everything right. Kuldip Nayar provided the answers in his book “Judgment”.

Kuldip Nayar never disappoints. The young lawyer from Lahore who migrated to India, studied his Masters in Journalism in Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois, returned to be press secretary for G B Pant and later Lal Bahadur Shastri and went on to be editor of Statesman is a well balanced analyst of political events just as they happen.

In “Scoop!” he provides an “inside angle” to events in the subcontinent. Some are thought provoking. Some are a revelation. Some are of no interest beyond the heat of the moment.

Some snippets:

(a) Mountbatten concedes his inept handling of partition caused the death of a million people. However, he claims his net score with his Maker is positive because he saved two and a half million lives in World War II. To imagine this "convoluted thinker" was making policies in ruling a nation is scary!

(b) Radcliffe says that Lahore (with a majority of Hindus/Sikhs at the time of partition) should have come to India and was given to Pakistan because the new nation did not have a big city. Do we hold a plebiscite in Lahore now?

(c) Morarji lost a chance to succeed Nehru because a press interview made him sound ambitious because it reported that “he threw his hat into the ring” and tilted the votes against him in favour of Shastri.

(d) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto concedes that “he started the war with India in 1965” by orchestrating the infiltration!

(e) When Congressman Sardul Singh Kaeshwar wondered whether he should repay a Rs 500 loan that was time barred, Mahatma Gandhi was firm in saying this was not a legal issue and this was a moral issue. Nehru dumped Keshav Dev Malavia because Malavia could not account a political contribution he received for Congress party from a businessman. Moral standards in politics were high. Modern day politicians demand proof of corruption charges in a court of law. That an average adult would have reasons to deduce there was corruption is not sufficient.

(f) Indira Gandhi suspended fundamental rights. Gandhi and Nehru would not have approved. Yet four people did! Justices Ray, Beg, Bhagwati and Chandrachud agreed that suspension of fundamental rights did not imply suspension of rule of law. Ray opined that when there is “public danger” protective law should give way to interests of the state. There was hope however. Justice Khanna dissented. (Khanna was superceded when a junior Beg was appointed Chief Justice. Khanna did not oblige the government by resigning. He stood tall by staying). In my mind, Justice Khanna is a hero.

A good read.

"India's foreign policy 1947-2003" by J N Dixit

We don’t have in India “transparent” debates on public policy by “vested interests” (with opposing views) as they happen in more evolved democracies like the US. Our politicians are yet to appreciate that public policy should contribute to and draw from public opinion. There is very little information available in public forum on the thought processes that lead to evolution and management of public policy. Foreign policy is no exception.

J N Dixit, an erstwhile Foreign Secretary (and later political advisor) with several decades of experience in civil service provides a rare opportunity to get an insight into the evolution of India's foreign policy in this book. The reader is rewarded with informed anlaysis from someone with erudition and a ringside view.

Dixit’s book is enjoyably high on anlaysis and enjoyably low on episodes and anecdotes.

In a democracy any public policy is formed by a judicious mixture of brain (the right move), heart (the right feeling and the right principle) and lips (the right thing to say). Foreign policy, again, is no exception.

The infant India, initially tended to prefer the heart and the lips. Principles were considered more important than interests. We tended to pontificate and made a few mistakes:

(1) In 1947, it was India, not Pakistan, that took Kashmir to the UN in the expectation that the UN would uphold India’s claims on merits. Lt General Kulwant Singh pleaded with Nehru to give him “just a few more days” to free the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistani presence. Nehru did not listen. US and Britain used procedural gimmicks to transform invasion by one member state against territories of another state as a territorial dispute between two member states. India ended up converting Kashmir as a dispute while Tibet, Falklands and Grenada were not.

(2) In the 1950s India promoted “non alignment” as a guiding principle. In truth, India did not practice this principle. India was quick to criticize invasion of Suez Canal but hesitant to criticize invasion of Hungary. India’s credibility was challenged. Indira Gandhi modified this approach by aligning with Soviet Union to protect India’s defense interests cutting across ideology differences.

(3) In the 1950s India missed an opportunity to get the border resolved with China as a quid pro quo for recognizing Tibet as a province of China. Several mistakes were made: Chinese annexation of Tibet was recognized without a quid pro quo; the protests against border intrusions were not firm enough; the military action was silly and adventurous; choosing to open all fronts with China was a tactical error; not using the air force was a tactical error. The military defeat by China was total. It was US intervention that saved India.

(4) In mid 1950s US wanted India to replace China as a permanent member of the Security Council. India declined this offer in view of its friendship with China.

(5) In 1963 US advised India to develop nuclear weapons (as a strategic counter to Soviet and Chinese designs). India declined the offer on grounds of principle.

This tendency to project principles ahead of strategic interests did affect India. However, as the country’s leadership gained a mature understanding of why societies work together or against each other, the precedence to interests prevailed.

Thankfully several of our foreign policy decisions were guided by realpolitik interests and not by “lofty principles” and “moral high ground”:

(1) India got the princely states, especially Hyderabad, to accede to India to form a wholesome territorial entity instead of letting India look like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle of a five year old (only the British could think of such a solution!).

(2) India annexed Goa (after wasting 13 years in negotiating with Portugal’s Salazar) and Sikkim.

(3) India won the support of Kashmir’s ruler Hari Singh and its popular leader Sheikh Abdullah to support accession of Kashmir to India

(4) India’s escalated its response to the 1965 attack by Pakistan by opening all fronts and reaching Sialkot and Lahore unmindful of international opinion against disproportionate response.

(5) India engaged with Pakistan to liberate the eastern wing of Pakistan, unmindful of discouragement from the US, when 9 million refugees poured into India when Pakistan’s army unleashed a reign of terror on its own citizens.

(6) India aligned with the Soviet Union to protect its interests in an “unrepresentative” UN and to protect its defence interests cutting across ideological differences.

(7) India firmly refused to sign multi-national treaties (on nuclear weapons, fissile materials and missile technology) that attempted to prevent proliferation while enshrining a state of permanent competitive advantage for the “early birds”

(8) India exploded nuclear devices in 1974 and 1998, unmindful of international opinion, to firmly establish India as a nuclear weapons state to prevent a few “early birds”, using loftier principles, attempting to enshrine their advantages on a permanent basis.

(9) India dealt with Pakistan in Kargil, unmindful of its nuclear weapons potential, to again send a message that the territorial integrity of India cannot be compromised.

Dixit is substantially pleased with the way Indian foreign policy has been managed.

In a democracy where political leadership changes quite frequently, it is only to be expected that there would be some faux pas. There are a few contenders for the “ugly” moments: Gujral’s embrace with Saddam Hussain in 1989, George Fernandez’s proclamation that India’s nuclear testing was driven by potential threats from China in 1998, Rajesh Pilot and General Krishna Rao pursuing self defined paths instead of working with a larger team while handling Kashmir in 1990s are a few.

In the end the foreign policy establishment seems to have understood one essential tactic. Every country acts in its own interest. Ensuring a friendship with India is in the strategic interest of those who matter is the best way to manage international relationships.

If that can be done without compromising with principles that would be lovely.

"Shameful Flight" by Stanley Wolpert

This book is about the last years of British rule of India – an unwise partition, an incompetent colonial government, and a botched up migration leaving bitter legacies. The author is UCLA’s Professor Emeritus teaching history with several other books about India to his credit.

The book is outstanding for many reasons: It is written in an easy style that would force you to read it one go, quite rarely seen in books covering history. Yet the book has sufficient background research that can only be expected from UCLA’s professor of history. It has a balanced presentation of facts by a scholar far removed by geography and time from the events.
Stanley Wolpert provides some interesting insights:

British rule of India is a tale of incompetence:

In 1943, India produced 50 million tons of food grains – enough to feed its population of 400 million. Yet 1.5 million people died of starvation in Bengal that year primarily due to mismanagement.

Bengal’s governor Herbert and Viceroy Lord Wavell pleaded for food grains. Britain’s war transport minister Baron Frederick James Leathers kept 6 million tons stored in ships in Indian Ocean but did not spare it for the starving. Wavell’s report to an uninterested Prime Minister Churchill says “the famine in Bengal was largely due to ministerial incompetence”.

The incompetence was acknowledged in London as well. Churchill’s Secretary of State for India Leopold Amery confesses in a private letter to the Viceroy Linlithgow “nothing has convinced me more than the Cabinet meetings…. of the fundamental incapacity of a British cabinet to try and govern India”.

Viceroy Wavell condemns Churchill four years later after sitting in one cabinet meeting: “He hates India and everything to do with it. Winston knows as much of the Indian problem as George III did of the American colonies!”


British rule of India is a tale of political insensitivity.

The best example of this insensitivity is Winston Churchill’s peevish telegram to his Viceroy asking “why Gandhi has not died yet?” after releasing the Mahatma from prison because of medical conditions. Not a class-act in international politics.


Partition could have been avoided with greater wisdom in Indian/British leadership.

In 1937 provincial elections the Congress won clear majority in six of the eleven provinces. Jinnah’s Muslim league failed to win a single province. Jinnah appealed to Nehru to agree to a coalition Congress-League ministries in the multicultural provinces. Nehru refused and retorted that there were only two parties left: “the British and the Congress”. Jinnah devoted the next ten years to create Pakistan. If Nehru had pursued an “inclusive style of politics” there would have been no opportunity to “divide and rule”.

1946 offered another opportunity to unite. British Secretary of State, Lord Pethick Lawrence advocated a coalition cabinet (made up of Congress and Muslim League) that decides by consensus (as coalitions normally do) and not by majority vote. Nehru declined to cede parity to Muslim league and share power. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad sadly reflected in his autobiography that “Jawaharlal’s mistake in 1937 had been bad enough. The mistake of 1946 proved even more costly”. This resolved Jinnah to insist on partition.

Britain played the “divide and rule” card to the long term detriment of India. Viceroys were quick to ignore good examples. Chief Ministers Sikandar Hayat Khan and Fazl-i-Husain governed Punjab province by using local patriotism and common language to unify the multi-religious Punjab society. It was the same Punjab that recorded the largest death triggered by inept governing.


British rule had no strategy to deal with partition.

Britain, as a colonial ruler, has a history of shameful behaviour. In 1942, when Britain exited Burma “the civil administration suddenly collapsed and those in charge sought their own safety. Private motor cars were commandeered for the evacuation of Europeans, leaving their owners stranded. …. The city of Rangoon was left at the mercy of …. hardened criminals”. There was no thought for life after British rule.

Months ahead of independence most of the British staff were evacuated to Britain leaving no credible law enforcement mechanism for the infant governments of India and Pakistan to deal with the migration induced violence and death.

Mountbatten was aware of the likely violence and the lack of a plan to deal with this. Though Cyril Radcliffe’s maps with the boundary lines of India and Pakistan were ready earlier, Mountbatten kept it under lock and key until the pageantry, splendor and photo opportunities of the Independence day were over and the British could no more be blamed for the violence or the ineptitude with which it was handled. His reasoning: “the earlier it was published, the more the British would have to bear the responsibility for the disturbances which would undoubtedly result”. Reasonable opportunity to manage the migration was denied for the sake of glory.

Says Bengal Secretary John Dawson Tyson, “Mountbatten’s focus was on withdrawal in fairly peaceful conditions….. the India after 15 August will not be the kind of country I should want to live in”

Rear Admiral Viscount Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor Mountbatten expressed what he thought about the way he had done his job in India to BBC’s John Osmon in 1965. Thirty nine years later Osman says that though he dislikes using vulgar slang, the only honest way of reporting accurately what the last Viceroy said was “I fu….d it up”.

Stanley Wolpert concludes that both India and Pakistan are still saddled with the bitter legacies of Great Britain’s hasty, shameful flight.

Excellent book.

"A Call to Honour: in service of emergent India" by Jaswant Singh

Jaswant Singh is a solider turned Statesman inspired by another soldier turned Statesman: Charles de Gaulle. No wonder the book’s title mimics de Gaulle’s war memoir “The call to honour”.

The first paragraph is erudite; scholastic and a put off. After that the book gets very warm, inviting and enjoyable.

Early days in Jasol and Khuri are described in a vivid Arundathi Roy style. The sense of freedom and joy a young bride (Jaswant's mother) feels when traveling from her in law’s place to her parent’s place; the mild anxiety of a grandfather to get his weekly fix of opium; the anguish of a grandfather whose peace and prosperity is challenged by a mindless partition in 1947 are all conveyed in a style that would win attention.

Jaswant Singh does not waste your time. He moves fast forward from his younger days in Jasol and Khuri to becoming a Minister in Vajpayee’s cabinet.

The reader gets a first person’s account of

(a) India’s explosion of nuclear devices; the philosophy behind the bomb; and the management of the impact the explosion had in India’s relationship with US, G8, China and Pakistan
(b) Blow hot blow cold relationship with Pakistan where people are courteous to each other in person and vitriolic in their public postures
(c) The Kargil war in 1999 and the Military stand off with Pakistan in 2001
(d) The Kandahar hijack incident
(e) Building a relationship with US that is independent of US relationship with Pakistan and
(f) Building a relationship with China.

One gets the comfort that politics is not all that bad in New Delhi:

(a) R Venkatraman, Minister of Defence in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet, takes into confidence Jaswant Singh in the Opposition benches of the cabinet’s decision to explode nuclear devices in 1980 (though the explosion was cancelled in the last minute by Indira Gandhi)

(b) Prime Minister Narasimha Rao while transitioning Government to Prime Minister Vajpayee says “I wanted to explode these devices but could not. Now it is up to you”.

Both incidents point to a deep respect for other players in politics and a willingness to put India ahead of competitive advantage in politics.

Jaswant Singh too displays this maturity. He has strong criticisms against Congress party and Jawaharlal Nehru. However these criticisms seem to stem from anguish and not hatred; does not reduce the respect a reader may have for Congress or Nehru.

The book has some disappointments. Jaswant Singh does not talk about Ayodhya incident or Godhra incident in great detail. He does not talk about divisive politics between Vajpayee and Advani. Or the Tehelka scandal and how his party tried to stifle an investigative reporter. They too were part of India’s history when Jaswant Singh was in the ring and the reader would have had a more balanced understanding of Jaswant’s time.

All said, an outstanding book by an outstanding son of India who served his country well.

His grandfather who told him to “Go to Delhi and tell them that this (partition of India and Pakistan) was wrong” would be very proud of Jaswant Singh.