\n| \n ![\"http:\/\/www.telegraphindia.com\/1130731\/images\/31edittop9.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/f1250.mail.vip.ne1.yahoo.com\/ya\/download?mid=2%5f0%5f0%5f1%5f7531282%5fAKdoimIAAAkoUfngCQAAAIqeaeI&pid=2&fid=Inbox&inline=1&appid=yahoomail\") <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
My favourite Rashtrapati Bhavan story\u00a0 is about a visiting head of state who stayed there, successfully escaped its\u00a0 confines and restrictions, which inevitably come from being a state guest,\u00a0 and was then unsuccessfully shamed by his hosts for having attempted a\u00a0 shocking escapade. This head of state, a hero of his country\u2019s independence\u00a0 movement and a close friend of Jawaharlal Nehru, also had a reputation as an\u00a0 irrepressible womanizer. True to that reputation, on the second night of his\u00a0 stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan, this state guest persuaded his ambassador to\u00a0 smuggle him out in his diplomatic car after his hosts had retired for the\u00a0 night and take him to a woman on G.B. Road, the only red light area of Delhi\u00a0 in those years. An alert member of the guest\u2019s local security detail noticed\u00a0 the visiting president\u2019s departure and within minutes an emergency meeting\u00a0 was called by his higher-ups who were concerned about the guest\u2019s safety.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n After\u00a0 all, the visitor was a global pioneer against anti-imperialism, and decolonization\u00a0 was still a dream for many countries. Moreover, only months earlier, there\u00a0 had been an assassination attempt, which the leader narrowly survived, one of\u00a0 many before and after, plotted by his enemies at home and abroad. Human\u00a0 intelligence at the disposal of the government had no difficulty tracing a\u00a0 diplomatic car parked on G.B. Road, although the ambassador had the\u00a0 discretion not to fly his national flag with his president travelling in the\u00a0 vehicle.<\/p>\n A\u00a0 dynamic, young Indian Police Service officer who was in charge of guest\u2019s\u00a0 security decided that when the ambassador\u2019s car returned to Rashtrapati\u00a0 Bhavan with the visiting president, the lights would go up along the\u00a0 vehicle\u2019s route keeping pace with its advance until the guest alighted in the\u00a0 presidential porch. Moreover, the entire route along Rashtrapati Bhavan would\u00a0 be lined by policemen who would salute the guest at regular intervals like a\u00a0 guard of honour.<\/p>\n The IPS\u00a0 officer, who told me the story also confessed defeat. The state visitor was\u00a0 unfazed and the attempt to shame him was like water off a duck\u2019s back. Many\u00a0 decades later, when I narrated this episode at a party in Moscow, a Russian\u00a0 friend confessed to a similar defeat. The same president, whose identity\u00a0 diplomats of my generation would have no difficulty guessing, was a guest at\u00a0 the Kremlin and the Soviets saw to it that he smuggled a woman into his\u00a0 suite.<\/p>\n The\u00a0 female, a willing Russian spy, and her lover were secretly photographed and\u00a0 the pictures were then shown to the visitor who was acting difficult with the\u00a0 Soviet leadership since he was a nationalist to the core and unwilling to be\u00a0 a satellite in the manner of East Europeans. As in New Delhi, this state\u00a0 guest disarmed his hosts in Moscow when he asked for more of those\u00a0 compromising photos insisting that his stock would go up among friends back\u00a0 home if he flaunted them.<\/p>\n Foreign\u00a0 guests began fleeing Rashtrapati Bhavan in the early 1990s. Russia\u2019s Boris\u00a0 Yeltsin and Britain\u2019s John Major were the last among the big power leaders to\u00a0 spend nights there. The exodus started with Helmut Kohl of Germany, and the\u00a0 process was cemented when Jacques Chirac of France firmly said no to his\u00a0 host, and Bill Clinton followed some years later.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The change\u00a0 had nothing to do at all with restrictions that the hero of my favourite\u00a0 story chafed at. It had everything to do with the deterioration in standards\u00a0 at the president\u2019s estate and the inability of Rashtrapati Bhavan to keep\u00a0 pace with the demands of a 21st-century state house. I recalled my favourite\u00a0 story at this time, however, because one of the less publicized initiatives\u00a0 by Pranab Mukherjee, as he observes his first anniversary as head of state,\u00a0 relates to his interaction on the president\u2019s estate with interlocutors from\u00a0 abroad.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n At\u00a0 embassies in Chanakyapuri, there are many Indophiles who are on their second\u00a0 or third postings in India after intervals spanning many years \u2014 in some\u00a0 cases, several decades. Privately, almost all of them regret the damage which\u00a0 K.R. Narayanan inflicted on the presidency in terms of its diplomatic\u00a0 identity. Ambassadors posted to New Delhi used to look forward to the day\u00a0 they would present their credentials to the president \u2014 until Narayanan\u00a0 stripped the occasion of most of its ceremony and splendour. For envoys from\u00a0 small countries or those with little more than formal ties with India, the\u00a0 pomp of the credentials day, beginning with the grandeur of an individual\u00a0 reception in the Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt, was something to tell their\u00a0 grandchildren and show off with photographs, long after their retirement from\u00a0 the diplomatic service.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n For\u00a0 others with substantive engagement with India, from the Bhutanese in the\u00a0 neighbourhood or the Japanese in the Far East to the Canadians in North\u00a0 America, it was sometimes the only chance for a private chat with the\u00a0 president during their entire tenure in Chanakyapuri. Narayanan destroyed the\u00a0 diplomatic sanctity of the\u00a0tete-\u00e0-tete<\/i>. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had\u00a0 other priorities in office and Pratibha Patil had no interest in doing\u00a0 anything to correct it. Indeed, she had little interest in any substantive\u00a0 aspect of statecraft or was incapable of dealing with such issues.<\/p>\n Mukherjee,\u00a0 it is clear at the end of a year in Rashtrapati Bhavan, remains a diplomat at\u00a0 heart. Two stints as external affairs minister aside, among India\u2019s defence\u00a0 ministers he had the most globalized vision of all. Even as finance minister,\u00a0 Mukherjee brought to the job a high level of international outreach, bringing\u00a0 about unprecedented changes in North Block\u2019s engagement of international\u00a0 financial institutions.<\/p>\n Yet, his\u00a0 personality militates against any drastic\u00a0perestroika\u00a0<\/i>\u2014\u00a0\u00a0 restructuring \u2014 in Rashtrapati Bhavan\u2019s foreign outreach, lest it be\u00a0 interpreted as an attempt to denigrate his predecessors even as he gingerly\u00a0 introduces a diplomatic\u00a0glasnost<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 openness \u2014 within the\u00a0 presidency. Mukherjee has decided, for now, to continue the practice of\u00a0 ambassadors presenting their credentials to him in groups in a single day\u00a0 with each envoy walking up to him individually to hand over the letter of\u00a0 credence. But thereafter, Mukherjee has made time for each ambassador or high\u00a0 commissioner to meet him individually and have a private conversation. The\u00a0 worst change that Narayanan brought about, which his two successors did\u00a0 nothing to remedy, was to have several envoys presenting their credentials on\u00a0 a single day and then also call on him in a group.<\/p>\n That\u00a0 arrangement discomfited everyone and left a bad taste in the mouths of new\u00a0 envoys, for whom it was one of the biggest days of their posting to be with\u00a0 the host country\u2019s head of state. Understandably, Pakistan\u2019s high\u00a0 commissioner may not want to say something to the president within earshot of\u00a0 his counterpart from Bangladesh, or the Japanese ambassador would not confide\u00a0 in anyone in the presence of his Russian counterpart. Throughout New Delhi\u2019s\u00a0 sprawling diplomatic enclave, the change initiated by Mukherjee has been\u00a0 widely appreciated and it has restored much of the meaning of the\u00a0 credentialing occasion in Rashtrapati Bhavan.<\/p>\n It is still a far cry from the\u00a0 practice in Beijing, where presentation of credentials is like a huge\u00a0 celebration: an entire embassy turns up, along with the ambassador, to meet\u00a0 the president. After all it may be the only time they may meet China\u2019s head\u00a0 of state in such proximity during a three-year tenure. Hopefully, Mukherjee\u00a0 will gradually restore the bar that was set for such occasions by Jawaharlal\u00a0 Nehru and Rajendra Prasad. If that happens and his plans to inject efficiency\u00a0 into the functioning of Rashtrapati Bhavan by a programme of modernization\u00a0 and optimum utilization of resources bear fruit, a time may come when state\u00a0 guests once again look forward to staying on Raisina Hill instead of checking\u00a0 into hotels, a practice which robs state visits of some of their camaraderie\u00a0 and tradition.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u0930\u093e\u0937\u094d\u091f\u094d\u0930\u092a\u0924\u093f \u092d\u0935\u0928 \u0915\u0947 \u0905\u0935\u092e\u0942\u0932\u094d\u092f\u0928 \u0915\u093e \u0907\u0924\u093f\u0939\u093e\u0938 \u092c\u0939\u0941\u0924 \u092a\u0941\u0930\u093e\u0928\u093e \u0939\u0948. \u090f\u0915 \u092c\u093e\u0930 \u090f\u0915 \u092e\u093f\u0924\u094d\u0930 \u0926\u0947\u0936 \u0915\u0947… more »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2763,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions\/2763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriotsforumindia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |
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