People in their nineties are generally seized by a strange and nagging melancholy. Each new dawn is a blessing. The best is not to be. But a few of us do not brood. We have fond memories of our years in the IFS, but we don’t live in the past.
Of the five, the oldest is V.M.M. Nair. He was born on October 8, 1919. He took degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. He joined the ICS in 1942 and was allotted the Bihar cadre. In August 1946, he was permanently seconded to the Indian Political Service, which was abolished in 1947. He was Under-secretary, External Affairs Department from September 1946 to September 1948. He was inducted into the newly formed Indian Foreign Service in 1947. I succeeded him as Ambassador to Poland in 1974. He retired in 1979. He lives in New Delhi.
Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra was born on September 11, 1924. He did his MA from Panjab University. He was a tutor at the Government College, Lahore from 1944 to 1946, Head of the Department of English, S.A. College for Women, Sialkot, 1946, and Head of the Department of English, Arya College, Ludhiana, 1947. He was appointed to the Punjab Educational Service in March 1948 and as a lecturer in English Government College, Ludhiana in 1948. He was selected for the IFS through the UPSC competitive examination on September 27, 1949.
He served as First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations from 1958 to 1962. There he was attached to V.K. Krishna Menon, who was the leader of the Indian delegation to the annual session of the UN General Assembly. Menon was temperamental, unpredictable, erratic, unbalanced, and a fine debater with spectacular success. He managed to get under the skin of not only Indian delegates but also other delegates to the UN, in particular the U.S. establishment. Menon had been High Commissioner of India to the U.K. from 1947 to 1952 and was largely responsible for India remaining a member of the Commonwealth.
Only M.K. Rasgotra could manage so mercurial, egoistical and brilliant a man. That was no ordinary achievement. Mr. Rasgotra retired in 1984 after becoming Foreign Secretary.
Eric Gonsalves was born on May 9, 1928. He was selected for the IFS on May 25, 1950. He retired as Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs in 1988. He now resides in Chennai along with his charming wife, Rose. Among his important postings were London, Washington and Tokyo. In him, India had a gentleman diplomat, utterly reliable, warm-hearted and a professional of a high order.
Now, I shall commit the final act of immodesty by writing about myself.
K. Natwar Singh was born on May 16, 1929. He was selected for the IFS on April 14, 1953. His first posting was to Peking (not yet Beijing) from 1956 to 1958. He served in the Permanent Mission of India from 1961 to 1966. He worked in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s secretariat as Deputy Secretary, Director and Joint Secretary from 1966 to 1971.
He served as Ambassador to Pakistan from 1980 to 1982 and Secretary-General of the seventh Non-Aligned Summit held in New Delhi in March 1983. He was chief coordinator of the Commonwealth Summit, held in New Delhi in November 1983. He was awarded Padma Bhusan in 1984. He took premature retirement in 1984 to join politics. He served as Minister of State in the Rajiv Gandhi government from 1984 to 1989.
K. Natwar Singh is the author of several books, including his autobiography, One Life is Not Enough .
He was the first IFS officer to become External Affairs Minister. He lives in New Delhi with his wife, Heminder Kumari.
There are two more of us who lived to the nineties but passed away quite recently. One is Kayatyani Shankar Bajpai, who died in New Delhi on August 30 at the age of 92. He was the son of Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, ICS, the first Secretary-General of the Ministry of External Affairs. Shankar Bajpai was born on February 30, 1928. He was selected for the IFS on April 2, 1952. He was the only IFS officer to have been Ambassador to China, Pakistan and the U.S.
Natrajan Krishnan died in Bengaluru on September 15, 2020. He was born on October 6, 1928. He joined the IFS on July 17, 1951. He served with great distinction as Permanent Representative of India at the UN in the mid-1980s. He was an accomplished, self-effacing, low-key diplomat.
knatwarsingh@yahoo.com
