Successes And Dead-Ends In Manis Time

His latest book, My South Block Years : Memoirs of a foreign secretary comes at a time when memories about Manis stewardship of the foreign office from end-1991 to the beginning of 1994 still remain deliciously/ painfully fresh to his juniors, depending upon who fell on which side. The IFS today, generally, even if grudgingly, accepts that Dixit has been one of Indias best foreign secretaries. He steered the foreign office through some of its most turbulent times : the end of the Cold War, the end of Indias special relationship with the former Soviet Union, the beginning of a brand new dalliance with the US, and more.

 

Notwithstanding all these feathers on his bald pate, Dixits trenchant manner, his reckless ability to play Viceroy whether in Sri Lanka (a term used for him in Colombo during the traumatic IPKF years, which he omits while presenting his historical analysis) or in South Block, has left him with the dubious reputation of having split the service down the middle. His successor, Kris Srinivasan, is said to have tried to restore some of the anonymity to what was a high-profile ministry of external affairs, leaking like a sieve to the delight of journalists.

But the cigar-smoking Dixit continues to be remembered because he oversaw the first changes in policy initiated by former prime minister Narasimha Rao whether it was greater emphasis on economic diplomacy; the signing of a historic agreement with China on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the line of control; new overtures with Japan (with then prime minister Miyazawa admitting that Japan possessed nuclear weapons and nuclear technological capacities); the changing graph of our relations with our neighbours; and other stories.

The book is, in fact, a detailed exposition of Indias foreign policy ventures successes and dead-ends in the time of Mani. Despite the fact that at the outset the author admits to having consulted no official documents in the writing of the book, the result is a voluminous account of those exciting years. Indias skillful skirting of new pressures, whether on nuclear disarmament concerns or at the Gatt negotiations, with prime minister Rao doing a delicate tap dance between domestic compulsions and hegemonic overbearing the desperate need to find new friends in an alien world, even as the coffers at home remain embarrassingly empty is a story with epic dimensions. Dixits book is an interesting starter.

Until someone else comes up with a differing account, or until diligent bookworms go through official records for discrepancies, Dixits me, myself and I version is likely to remain. (On the other hand, hes being disarmingly honest about wanting to become the foreign secretary, or then, picking up the phone and calling the prime minister.)

Unfortunately, it sometimes veers into minute, tiring detail, made worse by the printers devil (Marlyn Albright instead of Madeleine Albright, Zirnovsky instead of Zhirinovsky, to name only two such errors).

One wishes, sometimes, though that Dixit had spiced up his account with more anecdotes about events (for instance, the Indian delegation at a geisha party in Japan!) and people that he had the occasion to meet and work with more on the Bhuttos, for example, especially since he came to the foreign secretaryship from the high commission in Islamabad. And even as Dixit hasnt hesitated to turn the knife into former prime ministers like V P Singh and erstwhile foreign ministers like Eduardo Faleiro, it wouldve been delightful if his artistic freedom had extended to the redoubtable Narasimha Rao himself.

Still, as a student of foreign policy who knew Dixit only obliquely points out, the titles of both Dixits books (the first is called Indo-Pakistan relations : Anatomy of a flawed inheritance) closely resemble the titles of two other books on diplomacy by two well-known authors : Henry Kissingers The White House Years and Alastair Lambs Kashmir : A disputed legacy. Sheer coincidence? Or deliberate strategy? Only Dixit knows.