India’s First Diplomat

India’s First Diplomat
Author: Vineet Thakur
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2023-06-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1529217679

Though now largely a forgotten figure, V.S. Srinivasa Sastri was a celebrated Indian politician and diplomat in the early 20th Century. This book rehabilitates Sastri and offers a diplomatic biography of his years as India’s roving ambassador in the 1920s.

William Clark

William Clark
Author: Jay H. Buckley
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2012-10-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0806185295

For three decades following the expedition with Meriwether Lewis for which he is best known, William Clark forged a meritorious public career that contributed even more to the opening of the West: from 1807 to 1838 he served as the U.S. government’s most important representative to western Indians. This biography focuses on Clark’s tenure as Indian agent, territorial governor, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. Jay H. Buckley shows that Clark had immense influence on Indian-white relations in the trans-Mississippi region specifically and on federal Indian policy generally. As an agent of American expansion, Clark actively promoted the government factory system and the St. Louis fur trade and favored trade and friendship over military conflict. Clark was responsible for one-tenth of all Indian treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate. His first treaty in 1808 began Indian removal from what became Missouri Territory. His last treaty in 1836 completed the process, divesting Indians of the northwestern corner of Missouri. Although he sympathized with the Indians’ fate and felt compassion for Native peoples, Clark was ultimately responsible for dispossessing more Indians than perhaps any other American. Drawing on treaty documents and Clark’s voluminous papers, Buckley analyzes apparent contradictions in Clark’s relationship with Indians, fellow bureaucrats, and frontier entrepreneurs. He examines the choices Clark and his contemporaries made in formulating and implementing Indian policies and explores how Clark’s paternalism as a slaveholder influenced his approach to dealing with Indians. Buckley also reveals the ambiguities and cross-purposes of Clark’s policy making and his responses to such hostilities as the Black Hawk War. William Clark: Indian Diplomat is the complex story of a sometimes sentimental, yet always pragmatic, imperialist. Buckley gives us a flawed but human hero who, in the realm of Indian affairs, had few equals among American diplomats.

The India Way

The India Way
Author: S. Jaishankar
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-09-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9390163870

The decade from the 2008 global financial crisis to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has seen a real transformation of the world order. The very nature of international relations and its rules are changing before our eyes. For India, this means optimal relationships with all the major powers to best advance its goals. It also requires a bolder and non-reciprocal approach to its neighbourhood. A global footprint is now in the making that leverages India's greater capability and relevance, as well as its unique diaspora. This era of global upheaval entails greater expectations from India, putting it on the path to becoming a leading power. In The India Way, S. Jaishankar, India's Minister of External Affairs, analyses these challenges and spells out possible policy responses. He places this thinking in the context of history and tradition, appropriate for a civilizational power that seeks to reclaim its place on the world stage.

A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo

A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo
Author: N.S. Vinodh
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 8194752094

Amongst the multitude of tombs in the City of the Dead in Cairo, there lies buried a lone Indian — a scholar, writer, debonair statesman and a leader of the freedom movement. Who is he? How did he get there? For a man who used both the lectern and the pen to devastating effect during the Indian Independence movement led by the likes of Gandhi and Nehru, little is known of Syud Hossain. Born to an aristocratic family in Calcutta, he forayed into journalism early in life and became the editor of Motilal Nehru’s nationalist newspaper, The Independent. After a brief elopement with Motilal’s daughter, Sarup (aka Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit), Hossain, under immense pressure from Nehru and Gandhi, annulled the marriage and stayed away from the country. Thus began several years of exile. Eventually, he landed in the United States. Flitting from one place to another, making homes of hotel rooms, he imparted Gandhi’s message across the country. He fought for India’s cause from afar, garnering support in the United States and decrying British oppression. Syud Hossain inspired and irked in equal measure; with every speech he delivered and every editorial he penned, he sent a shiver down the spine of the colonial ruler. In addition, Hossain took on the fight for Indian immigrant rights in the United States, one that successfully culminated in President Truman signing the Luce-Celler Bill into an Act in 1946. Hossain returned to India to witness the triumph of her independence as well as the tragedy of Gandhi’s assassination. Thereafter appointed India’s first ambassador to Egypt, he died while in service and was laid to rest in Cairo. A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo offers an illuminating narrative of Hossain’s life interspersed with historical details that landscapes a vivid political picture of that era. Through primary sources that include Hossain’s private papers, British Intelligence files, and contemporary correspondence and newspapers, N.S. Vinodh brilliantly brings to life a man who has been relegated far too long to the shadows of time.

Comrades against Imperialism

Comrades against Imperialism
Author: Michele L. Louro
Publisher: Global and International Histo
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2018-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1108419305

Examines the emergence of anti-imperialist internationalism during the interwar years from the perspective of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Ambassador's Club

The Ambassador's Club
Author: K. V. Rajan
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2012-05-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9350294729

In 1972, in what appeared a whimsical decision at first, Idi Amin, the dictator of Uganda, declared that all Asians holding citizenship of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or the UK would be expelled from the country within three months. As he put it, mistakenly, 'Asians milked the cow, but did not feed it to yield more milk.' It was the beginning of a nightmarish five months for Niranjan Desai, who had been sent from India as officer on special duty to help tackle the crisis, as he tried to help people leaving possessions and attachments behind for an uncertain future, watched a country in turmoil where people vanished overnight, and was himself declared persona non grata and put at some risk to his life. But as he learnt from the experience, rules and regulations are secondary and merely a guide while helping people in distress. Sometimes, when there is no opportunity for the observance of diplomatic niceties, it is common sense that counts. The role of the Indian diplomat is a varied one, as Desai's and other'S accounts in The Ambassador's Club show, and Krishna V. Rajan, himself a skilful diplomat, has brought together, for the first time, a selection of experiences that shows the Indian Foreign Service in a remarkable new light. With a fine sense of observation and considerable writing skills, the contributions included here show the Indian envoy playing protector, negotiator and guide in places as far away as Chile and Fiji to closer home, in Bhutan and Nepal. Ranged here is the entire gamut of diplomatic duties, from putting forward the Indian viewpoint at tough negotiations on climate change to being the UN secretary-general's special envoy in Iraq in the time leading up to the war there; from being in a sensitive position as envoy in Fiji during a coup to being present as the Shimla Agreement was reached between India and Pakistan. 'It's a boy!' was the excited announcement of that accord. It is that same pleasure of accomplishment that runs through this anthology.

Tracing Indo-Russian Diplomatic History

Tracing Indo-Russian Diplomatic History
Author: Arun Mohanty
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2019-08-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000730042

The India-Russia relationship has been through a number of phases since its formal establishment in April 1947. Prime Minister Nehru’s strategic vision led him to seek diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union (USSR) even before India attained Independence. The enthusiastic Soviet response launched a relationship which has had some unique features in the past seventy-two years. The detailed history of the India-Russia relationship presented in this volume highlights the continued relevance of many of the factors that led to a close India-Russia bonding, even while identifying the slip roads into which the partnership has occasionally drifted. Politics evolves continuously, but geography remains constant. The India-Russia relationship has a mutually-recognized geopolitical logic. They have common concerns in the shared neighbourhood of West and Central Asia. Like India, Russia has had a complex relationship with China. In the quest for a multi-polar world, in which every pole seeks to protect its core interests and promote its aspirations, Russia and India, as this comprehensive volume notes, will remain staunch partners in the foreseeable future. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

The Indian Civil Service and Indian Foreign Policy, 1923–1961

The Indian Civil Service and Indian Foreign Policy, 1923–1961
Author: Amit Das Gupta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 100024458X

This book provides an authoritative account of the first significant overseas diplomatic missions and forays made by Indian civil servants. It recounts the key events in the formative decades of Indian foreign policy and looks at the prominent figures who were at the centre of this decisive period of change. The book explores the history and evolution of the civil and foreign services in India during the last leg of British rule and the following era of post-independence Nehruvian politics. Rich in archival material, it looks at official files, correspondences and diaries documenting the terms served by the pioneers of Indian diplomacy, Girja Shankar Bajpai, K.P.S. Menon and Subimal Dutt, in Africa, China, the USSR and other countries and their relationship with the Indian political leadership. The book also analyses and pieces together the activities, strategies, worldviews and contributions of the first administrators and diplomats who shaped India’s approach to foreign policy and its relationship with other political powers. An essential read for researchers and academics, this book will be a useful resource for students of international relations, foreign policy, political science and modern Indian history, especially those interested in the history of Indian foreign affairs. It will also be of great use to general readers who are interested in the history of politics and diplomacy in India and South Asia. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Diplomat's Dictionary

Diplomat's Dictionary
Author: Charles W. Freeman, Jr.
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 616
Release: 1995-11
Genre:
ISBN: 0788125664

This dictionary grew out of the experiences, readings, & reflections of a career diplomat well versed in the arts of persuasion, diplomacy, & discretion, & tested during times of crisis. An invaluable storehouse for those called upon to serve as mediator, negotiator, governmental officers or business leaders. During his many years of foreign service, the author collected many fragments of classic wisdom, cautionary advice, urbane observations, & witty insights on the art of diplomacy from numerous cultures & eras, often translating them from the original languages himself. Extensive bibliography. Index.

India and the World

India and the World
Author: Surendra Kumar
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9788183283847

If there in anything constant in the world, it is change, especially in today's globalised world. Thirty mandarins of the South Block look at the current changes in different parts of the world, try to connect them with developments of the recent past, analyse and dissect them with experience and understanding spanning decades and strive to foresee what's likely to happen and weigh how that could impact India's relations with the rest of the world. This book is a unique treasure of thoughts and ideas of Indian diplomats who have collectively put in more than 1150 years in Indian Foreign Service, representing three generations: those who joined in 1950s, in the 1960s and the 1970s. While some have shared reflections and reminiscences of their roller coaster journey of diplomatic career, others have focused on India's relations with different countries and regions. A few have set out on a rather philosophical mode wondering whether it's hard power or the soft power or the soul power that serves national interests best and whether the days of quiet diplomacy are numbered. All in all, it's a heady cocktail of reflections and reminiscences, hardnosed analysis and dispassionate interpretation and, of course, some crystal ball gazing. This distinctive study of international relations and contemporary history offers thought-provoking ideas and will not just benefit practitioners and informed students of foreign affairs but the general readers as well.