Decades ago, at the Centre for West Asian Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, it was a well-established practice to invite serving and retired diplomats to speak to students and researchers. The writer first met the diplomats he writes about in his new book, Nehru’s First Recruits, at the JNU seminars. One of the “first recruits” was Mirza Rashid Ali Baig who had to plan New Delhi’s welcome to visiting Soviet dignitaries Premier Bulganin and General Secretary Khrushchev in 1955. An edited excerpt:
1955 was the year of Indian diplomacy; it’s when New Delhi emerged as one of the most-visited capitals of the postcolonial world. This was also the year of a turnaround in India-Soviet relations. In June that year, Prime Minister Nehru had visited the Soviet Union for the first time. He had allowed the Soviet Union to open a diplomatic mission in Delhi years ago, but bilateral relations between the two were far from what it could have been because of Joseph Stalin’s sceptical attitude towards India. That year, General Secretary Khrushchev, successor to Stalin, was to visit India along with Premier Bulganin. The Soviets had given a grand welcome to Nehru, and the understanding was that the Indian welcome would have to match that of Moscow.
Bulganin and Khrushchev arrived in New Delhi on November 18, 1955. Photo shows a large gathering of people cheering them as they drive towards Rashtrapati Bhavan. | Photo Credit: PIB
Difficult task
This was a difficult task. India had been hosting big foreign visitors since at least the Asian Relations Conference of 1947, but the visit by Soviet leadership was another matter. Nehru was the first major non-communist leader to visit Moscow and his successful tour proved that Winston Churchill was wrong in saying that the Soviet Union was behind an ‘iron curtain’. The visit of the Soviet leadership to India was therefore going to be a momentous occasion.
The protocol division of the Ministry of External Affairs drew up plans for welcoming official guests. But the division needed to be revitalised to welcome leaders from a superpower. The task of drawing up the hosting plans thus fell on the second head of the protocol division — Mirza Rashid Ali Baig. The challenge before Baig was of a different order. The scale of the welcome often indicated the importance of the visit, and the leader of the Soviet bloc could not just be welcomed through official ceremonies — that would be insufficient. The entire capital of India had to be worked up to a festive spirit to make the effort worthwhile. M.R.A. Baig began planning the visit that would begin a festival.
Tribal and classical show
A major challenge before the Indian hosts was the fact that Indians did not have a unitary culture to showcase. Soviets paid a great deal of emphasis on cultural shows for foreign delegates, and the Indians felt it was necessary to showcase something spectacular to impress the Soviet guests. The problem was, however, that India did not have one form of art, as every part of the country had something unique to offer. The responsibility of planning for the cultural show thus fell on Baig’s wife, Tara.
She chose a spacious part of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, which was not hitherto used, and a large stage was erected for the performance. Earthen lamps were lit, and two performances depicted the dance forms of tribal India and classical Indian dance forms. The performance took place in the backdrop of thousands of diyas, and the atmosphere turned ecstatic as Mrinalini Sarabhai took the stage.
India was a newly independent country, and public enthusiasm was high because of the popularity of the Soviet Union; hundreds of thousands of people lined the roads across the city — from the airport in Palam to the central part of the city in Connaught Circus. People sat on the roads as they waited for the Soviet leaders and threw flowers on the way. This was the first visit to a non-Soviet Asian country by the Soviet leaders, and it was spectacular.
Support on Kashmir
It was during this time that the Protocol Division and the PWD came up with the idea of floral designs to welcome the guests. Among the many ideas was one to create the flags of the guest country with flowers. Gigantic floral flags of India and the USSR were placed on prime roundabouts in the Lutyen’s zone of New Delhi so that the motorcade carrying Khrushchev and Bulganin could see them. The high point of the visit was the public welcome, which was led by PM Nehru at the Ramlila Maidan, the meeting point of Old and New Delhi.
Khrushchev and Bulganin looking at silverware at the State Emporium in Srinagar, during their visit to Kashmir on December 10, 1955. | Photo Credit: The Hindu photo archives
Most importantly, during his stay in India, Khrushchev spent two days in Kashmir, where he declared that Jammu and Kashmir belonged to India. The Kashmir dispute had caused a great deal of embarrassment for India since the beginning, and the support from Khrushchev came at a crucial moment for the Nehru government. If the purpose behind the spectacular hospitality was to impress the Soviet guests and get them to sway to the Indian tune, then Baig had succeeded in achieving his goal.
The protocol division under M.R.A. Baig managed to create a name for the hospitality that the Indian royalties were famous for extending to their guests. Many of the innovations of the time, by M.R.A. Baig, like the floral carpets and portraits carrying flags of guest countries and names of leaders, continue to be in practice even in the twenty-first century as India has moved ahead in time, and this was in evidence at the G20 summit-related events that began earlier in 2023.
As mentioned before, the period of M.R.A. Baig can be credited with laying the foundation of the protocol division, one of the most important divisions of the ministry. But the period of Inder Chopra was also important, as he too had handled incoming visits. The biggest visit that he handled was that of Marshal Tito, who had paid his first India visit in 1954. The real spurt in incoming visits took place in 1955. This spurt was to last for several years. Foreign visits had reduced considerably in the last months of the Nehru era, which fell like a heavy blanket over South Block after the setback in the war of 1962.
Then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru with Khrushchev at a reception held by the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, on November 20, 1955. | Photo Credit: The Hindu photo archives
But in the frenetic activities of the mid-1950s, there were no signs of the setbacks of the future. India was the leader of the decolonised world, and apart from the superpowers, smaller countries also wanted to head to New Delhi. One of the challenges that the incoming guests threw to M.R.A. Baig was that the country had to produce flags of foreign countries. This may appear to be an easy task, but it is never so. Every flag has its distinctive features, and flags of developing countries have more such features. Western flags are mostly rectangular in shape and are designed in simple colours, but flags of Asia, Africa and Latin American countries were often richly adorned. Errors in reproducing these flags could easily create diplomatic embarrassment for the Indian side. Reproducing the design and the shape of the flags on time, therefore, was an important task.
Bulganin and Khrushchev in conversation with President Rajendra Prasad, when they called on him at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, on November 19, 1955. | Photo Credit: The Hindu photo archives
Flags in khadi
Baig, in addition, had a unique demand to meet which came from President Rajendra Prasad, who insisted that khadi fabric should be used to create the flags of incoming guest countries. The first President of India, a veteran Gandhian, had noble intentions in demanding khadi flags, but it was quite a challenge — the khadi unit was not yet competent enough to produce hundreds of flags of complicated shapes and designs. Still, the organisation rose to the occasion, and flags of foreign countries were produced in vast numbers for the protocol division of the Ministry of External Affairs. The flags were used to decorate routes and roundabouts in the capital with the help of the PWD’s engineering and horticultural divisions.
The show put up by the protocol division under M.R.A. Baig was of such quality that the Russian movie cameramen who accompanied Bulganin–Khrushchev requested the Indian officials to send them to Moscow ‘en bloc’ and perform before the Soviet citizens.
Bulganin giving a talk at a banquet hosted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, on November 20, 1955. | Photo Credit: PIB
Singing anthems
Another significant part of the plans to welcome a national level guest was the part of the national anthem, which acquired a special significance with the spurt in new nation states. But the protocol division could not get sufficiently qualified orchestras in India that could play western music. Orchestras solved the challenge in western capitals where national anthems were played for the incoming heads of state or government. Baig came up with the solution that the choir of the Protestant Cathedral in Delhi be used to perform the national anthems. In this venture, he found support from organist and choirmaster Arthur Mahinder who trained and conducted the choir in the mid-’50s. After the visit of Khrushchev, when the singing of the Soviet anthem became a super hit with the Russians, the performance for the visiting guests became a regular feature of the protocol’s tasks.
After the first performance, the Protestant Cathedral’s choir would be asked to perform the national anthems of foreign countries frequently. With the help of the embassies of the countries concerned, Baig used to get the musical notes of the anthem well in advance for the choir. To help with the language, diction and accent, he would ask the diplomats of foreign embassies to come and guide the choir. Buoyed by the success and recognition, Arthur Mahinder converted his choir into the Delhi Choral Society.
Over the years, Arthur Mahinder’s team was replaced by music bands of the Indian armed forces which perform at Rashtrapati Bhavan to welcome the guests.
Nehru’s First Recruits; Kallol Bhattacherjee, HarperCollins, ₹699.
Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins.
