My South Block Years:
Memoirs of a Foreign Secretary
J.N. Dixit
UBS Publishers and Distributors, Delhi, 1996 INR 395, ISBN 81 7476 132 2
Indira Gandhi listened attentively as Henry Kissinger urged her to comply with Washington´s wishes, implying that otherwise US aid to India might be at risk. When he had finished, without a word, she reached for the telephone and spoke to a senior official. "Mr Kissinger has just told me that he has no further need for his aid office in Delhi," she said. "Please arrange for it to be dosed down within 24 hours." She beamed at the Secretary of State. "I think that deals with your problem, Mr Secretary." For once, the great man was reduced to stuttering protest. But another, less elevated, Indian official sitting in the comer of the Prime Minister´s office could scarcely repress a chortle. Years later, he tells the tale with relish. The exercise of power in defence of India´s interests comes very gladly to J. N. Dixit´s heart—and he has had experience of that himself. Not for nothing was he known in Sri Lanka as "The Viceroy" at the time when the Indian Peace-Keeping Force was operating on the island.
After 34 years of service in missions from Washington to Tokyo and all over South Asia, as well as in international organisations, and with an unrivalled reputation in the Indian Foreign Service, Mr Dixit was the natural choise for the top job of Foreign Secretary. This came at a time when the world was in turmoil and India virtually had to create its foreign policy anew, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Cold War certainties.
Now he has published his memoirs, though only for the 26 months that he was Foreign Secretary. All the same, the book is a tour de force; in his preface Mr Dixit says he wrote it entirely from memory, jogged only by his daily engagement diaries. Consulting official documents could have brought him up against the Official Secrets Act. The details he recalls from his hectic schedule and the immense variety of topics, places and people he dealt with is vast—perhaps too vast, and at times repetitive. Thirty-six years as a civil servant, however distinguished, does little for one´s literary style and, except for a few hilarious anecdotes, much of the book reads like a series of official reports. But on hearing how Mr Dixit defended their country´s interests—at least as he and his political masters saw them, with skill, guile and at times the ferocity of a tiger—many Indians will conclude that he was indeed the right man for the job.