In 1958, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru decided to publish a ‘Statement of Services of Officers of Branches A and B of the Indian Foreign Service’. The responsibility of editing the volume, which contained the biodata of all the diplomats who joined the ministry in the 1940s and the 1950s, fell on KPS Menon Jr. Finally, what emerged was a slim volume of 95 pages containing the details of careers and interesting developments involving many young officials who would shape India’s diplomacy in the subsequent decades. It also shows how Mr. Nehru planned diplomats to be a mix of diverse backgrounds and skills.
The volume is rare to come across and is found only in limited number of libraries and in personal collections. Writing the Preface, Menon acknowledged that he might have left out some colleagues by mistake and requested them to submit relevant details with the Under Secretary (FSP) for inclusion in the next issue. Thus began an annual publication, which gives details of globe-trotting diplomats of India. The document is “Restricted for Official Use Only”. The first volume, however, is unique as it consisted of officials who were hand-picked by Nehru personally for the IFS.
The volume is a mine of information about the policies of the government of that time. At the time of publication, the MEA had Harivansh Rai Bachchan as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) for promotion of Hindi in the works of the ministry. Bachchan, who is known for his literary works as well as for being the father of actor Amitabh Bachchan, was recruited in December 1955. It mentions that Harivansh Rai Bachchan could read, write and speak in Hindi and Urdu. He left a comfortable job at the Allahabad University and was persuaded by Nehru to join the MEA.
The directory also is a proof of the extent of male dominance in Indian diplomacy in the Nehruvian period. The entire volume contains only two women - Mira Ishardas Malik, who joined on May 1, 1954, and Chonira Belliappa Muthamma of 1949 batch of the IFS. Both Muthamma and Malik came through competitive examination. According to former External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, they were the only women diplomats of India during that time apart from Vijaylakshmi Pandit, who served in ambassadorial positions in Washington DC and Moscow by that time.
Among the personal details, it is the section about Ramchandra Dattatraya Sathe that draws attention at a bygone era of Indian diplomacy. Till 1950, India, continuing with imperial practice of the past, maintained a consulate at Kashgar. Sathe, who joined the MEA after serving in the Army, was posted at Kashgar as Consul General in November 1948. Next year, the People’s Republic of China was born, and in 1950, the Communist rulers of Beijing arrived in Tibet. Under the circumstances, Sathe was asked to return and India shut down the consulate.
The volume contains the details of several veterans like Brajesh Mishra, who became the National Security Advisor of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee; Mr. Natwar Singh, who went on to serve as the External Affairs Minister during Manmohan Singh’s premiership; Chinmaya Gharekhan, who shaped India’s diplomacy at the United Nations; and Romesh Bhandari, who served as Foreign Secretary of Indira Gandhi and was involved in courageous anti-hijacking operations. Mr. Singh, Gharekhan, Eric Gonsalves and Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra are a handful of the diplomats who remain active till date.
Dominance of Menons, Nairs
The volume also contains the famous diplomatic families like the Haksars and Menons among a few others. SN Haksar, PN Haksar and Haksar were from the same family and out of the three, PN Haksar went on to serve as a close advisor to Indira Gandhi during the 1971 war. However, the Haksars were overpowered by the Menons and Nairs, who appear to be the most numerous in IFS top order at that time. The directory begins with Kumar Pedma Sivasankara Menon or KPS Menon Sr and contains at least 11 diplomats from the Menons of Kerala. Subimal Dutt, the Foreign Secretary from 1955 who served during the Suez crisis, is on the first page.
It also shows the level of language skills possessed by Indian diplomats during the 1940s and the 1950s. While most people chose Spanish, French and Russian as foreign language, there were a few who spoke Burmese, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian as well. Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya of the 1956 IFS batch, who later became the author of a popular book on Indian foreign policy, specialised in Kishwahili.
The volume was published on September 1, 1958.
