The Hindu : A legend among diplomats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003

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National

A legend among diplomats

By Muchkund Dubey

Ambassador Samar Sen, a doyen among Indian diplomats and a former member of the Indian Civil Service, passed away in a London hospital on February 16.

He was active till a few months ago when we saw him frequently at the India International Centre bestowing his love and affection with characteristic grace on all those who met him.

Therefore, though he expired at the ripe old age of 89, it is difficult to believe he is no more among us.

He joined the ICS in 1937 and served in the Bengal Cadre till 1946 when he joined the select band of three ICS officers, the others being K.P.S. Menon (Senior) and Girija Shankar Vajpeyi, who were drafted to the Indian Political Service.

His first assignment in this new incarnation was as India's Liaison officer to the newly established United Nations. His subsequent association with the U.N. justifies what one of my French colleagues in the UNDP subsequently wrote on my farewell card before my own separation from that organisation: "on jamais quit l`ONU" (one never quits the United Nations).

Ambassador Sen represented India in U.N. organisations at the European Headquarters of the U.N., when he was India's Consul-General in Geneva. He served the U.N. again as Chairman of the International Control Commission in Laos. Later, from 1969-73, he was India's Permanent Representative to the U.N. in New York. I served under him in the Mission till 1971 when I joined the U.N. Secretariat.

Watching him working as our Permanent Representative to the U.N. was a lesson for any budding diplomat.

He would never get agitated over any event. He would follow each event closely and meticulously, report on it objectively and put forward his recommendations fearlessly.

Unlike other ICS officers I worked with, he never allowed his personality to be projected in anything that he did nor did he seek any personal recognition or glorification.

He was economical in his expression and nearly perfect in his composition. Like a true civil servant of yesteryear, he was in the habit of committing everything to writing. Everything about him was transparent, honest and endearingly simple and innocent.

He was concerned about the welfare of everyone who worked under him and was totally free from rank consciousness. He had the knack of forging personal relationships with even the humblest in the Service.

He had also endeared himself to diplomats of other countries and members of the U.N. Secretariat. It was a measure of his popularity that after retirement he repeatedly got elected to the prestigious U.N. Administrative Tribunal.

He remained a member and was occasionally elected president, of the Tribunal, till the end of his life.

As India's Permanent Representative, he dealt with the Bangladesh issue in the U.N. with extraordinary diligence, perseverance and commitment. His outstanding contribution came in for fulsome praise not only in India but also among Bangladeshis.

He was therefore the logical choice as India's High Commissioner in Dhaka after the premature departure of Subimal Dutt, our first High Commissioner there. Towards the end of his tenure in Dhaka, a murderous attack on his life was made by a misguided Bangladeshi belonging to the extreme left political spectrum.

He also turned down an offer made by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, to send an Indian Air Force plane to evacuate him to Calcutta for treatment saying he had full confidence in the Bangladeshi doctors.

For several months thereafter he discharged his duties from his hospital bed and from home.

Samar Sen was also India's Ambassador to Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Kuwait and Jordan, India's High Commissioner to Australia and New Zealand, High Commissioner to Pakistan and finally the country's Ambassador to Sweden.

In the current context, when one or two of such postings are regarded as a fulfilment in one's diplomatic career, it is really amazing that he encapsulated all these important postings in one career. This is a measure of the confidence the Government of India reposed in him.

When towards the end of his term as Permanent Representative to the U.N. he was offered the post of Foreign Secretary, he turned it down on the ground that he "could not afford it".

This was the only example of this kind in the entire history of the Service. Ambassador Sen led a highly disorganised personal life.

He never planned or saved for the future. He did not own even a small flat in Delhi. Whenever he was in the Capital, he stayed at the Gymkhana Club or in a rented `barsati'.

Ambassador Sen also never felt the necessity of wearing the badge of any ideology. But to those who knew him closely he came out as a liberal, broad-minded person free from all forms of narrowness of mind.

He had a strong social conscience and an egalitarian outlook. He would invariably call me after reading my articles on social justice and secularism and invite me for discussion on how to translate these ideas into action on the ground.

I shall remember Ambassador Sen as a legend among Indian diplomats and a perfect gentleman who remained an ajatashatru till the end.

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