A very poignant and heartfelt thank you by Nandita Haksar (herself a very accomplished Human Rights Lawyer) for the much belated but wonderful recognition Bangladesh bestowed upon her father and other foreign friends of Bangladesh. The late PN Haksar who played a very crucial role in helping Bangaldesh early in the dark days of March and April 1971. Many Bengalis of my generation and after me dont know who Mr Haksar was and what an exceptional and special person he was. So for their convenience I have attached iadditional articles about him.
Mainstream, VOL L, No 17, April 14, 2012
The Importance of Remembering
Nandita Haksar
http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3396.html
The author is a human rights lawyer and writer. She is also the daughter of the late P.N. Haksar who was the Principal Secretary to PM Indira Gandhi in 1971 and played a seminal role in assisting Bangladesh's liberation from Pakistani yoke.
The Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi phoned to inform me that Bangladesh had decided to recognise my father, Parmeshwar Narain Haksar's contribution to the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. Would I accept their invitation to go to Dhaka and accept the Friends of Liberation War Honour as his daughter?
I asked for two days' time to think over. I had just returned from a gruelling 105-day trip of the North-East region of India where the problem of influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh loomed in the background for the whole trip. Hundreds of communities with unique cultures and languages are threatened with cultural extinction because of this influx fuelling insurgency and armed resistance. Memories of 1971 had faded and I felt the effort of going to Dhaka was too much. I was about to politely refuse the invitation. But that night the memories of 1971 came flooding in, keeping me awake and wondering how I could have even thought of not accepting the invitation of the Bangladesh Government. I read the letter of invitation sent by e-mail. It was from Dr Dipu Moni, the Foreign Minister, writing in her capacity of Convenor of the National Committee to Honour Foreign Friends of Bangladesh Liberation War.
The letter said: "We are cognisant of the fact that our decision to formally recognise your father's contribution has come forty years since our achieving independence; but that omission today is set right forever for our posterity and for the world."
At the Dhaka airport we were greeted with beautiful bouquets of roses with "welcome to Bangladesh" embossed on the petals.
Earlier in July the Bangladesh Government had conferred its highest award for foreign nationals, the Bangladesh Swadhinata Sammanona (Bangladesh Freedom Honour), on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi had accepted the award on her behalf and praised Mrs Gandhi's firm and principled stand.
It was only when I arrived in Dhaka on March 24 that I discovered that the Bangladesh Committee had put in two years of research to make a list of foreign friends who had contributed their time, money, resources and talent to making the national liberation war a success. It was not an easy task to trace their addresses and search for the relatives of those who had died. The story of the search in India has been documented by the Bangladeshi film-maker, Shahriar Kabir, in his film, A Friend in Difficult Times, in which he introduces the Indian friends of Bangladesh.1 Bangladesh did not only search for the famous or well-known people such as the Army officers involved in training the Mukti Bahini or in the surrender of the Pakistan Army. They searched for ordinary soldiers who laid down their lives in the course of the liberation war. More than 17,000 Indian soldiers died in the course of the nine-month liberation struggle.
The film documents the story of one soldier, Shaheed Lance Naik Albert Ekka, Param Vir Chakra, who was from a small Oraon village in Jharkhand. His wife related that she lost her husband only two years after their wedding. Albert Ekka was honoured along with late Lt-General Jagjit Singh Aurora and Lt Gen Jack Fredrick Ralph Jacob and late Field Marshal S.A.M. Manekshaw. All of them had fought bravely and with courage against the ruthless Pakistan Army.
There was a message already waiting for me: an invitation for dinner from my father's friends at the famous Gymkhana Club. They had also invited an American couple, David Weisbrod and his wife. Weisbrod is tall with spectacles and looks every inch a businessman. I was told he had been a hippie with long hair in 1971 and had successfully lobbied for Bangladesh in the United States. He was successful in getting a resolution in favour of the Bangladesh war in the US Senate at a time when the US was opposing the struggle of the people of Bangladesh and supporting the massacres of citizens in what can only be called genocide.
On March 25 we were taken to the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi. This was the house where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman lived with his family. It was here at this house on August 15, 1975 that the Father of Bangladesh, along with his wife and children, including ten-year-old Russel, was assassinated. Martial law was promulgated and a law was passed giving impunity to the assassins.
We walked around the house and I noticed the old-fashioned furniture, simple and comfortable. It must have been full of love, warmth and laughter. I did not want to think of the murders, the screams and the bloody scene… but the memory of the murder of Indira Gandhi forced itself and I suddenly felt dizzy and went out to breathe. It was in 1975 when martial law was declared in Bangladesh, the year that Indira Gandhi declared Emergency in India. Both leaders were accused of being authoritarian; Sheikh Mujib switched to the presidential system and Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency; both leaders had become authoritarian; both were assassinated…
Even more disturbing has been the steady rise of relgious communalism and fundamentalism in India and Bangladesh. But in 1971 there was no communalism on the question of Bangladesh. The Indian people had responded ever so generously to the suffering of the ten million Bangladeshi refugees who came across our borders. I remember going around Delhi with Ruma Guha Thakurta and her Calcutta Youth Choir. My mother and I hopped down from the truck to collect money in our sari pullavs stretched out. People on the streets gave money without any persuasion or explanation.
I could hear her Bolo Bolo Bolo Sabe and Ek Din Surjyer Bhor in the museum. I remembered a beggar taking out money from his bowl and putting it in my sari. Looking back it was remarkable that the wife of my father, a senior bureaucrat, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, should go around the streets collecting money and clothes for the refugees. My father had encouraged the entire family to join in the national effort.
And Bangladesh was going to honour the people of India with the Friends of Liberation War Honour.
•
WE are taken for a drive through Dhaka. The Friends are in several buses, an ambulance and police cars. There are stickers on the windshields proclaiming us as Friends of the Liberation War but I notice very few people wave at us. Bengalis are demonstrative people and this lack of enthusiasm makes me sad. I see a small mosaic of Radha Krishna and later an image of Durga. A Hindu woman in sindoor waves at us with a weak smile.
We reach Postagala through the cantonment for a river cruise. I am excited because I remember the photographs my father took of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a boat cruise. Arundhuti Ghosh, the former First Secretary in the Indian High Commi-ssion, tells me that she was there also. But the boat was open. I see a small boat with armed Armymen next to our boat. I ask one of the Armymen whether there is a security threat and he says: "Our government does not want to take any chances." The Jamat-e-Islami has always condemned the Bangladesh War of Liberation as a conspiracy of India to break Pakistan. In the years after the assassination of Sheikh Sahib the memory of the national liberation struggle was sought to be wiped out.
I do not remember one instance when we in our family rejoiced about the break-up of Pakistan. Even when the Pakistan Army surrendered the overwhelming emotion was of relief that the murders and atrocities would stop. My father had even given me poems by Pakistani prisoners of war written in detention which reflected their dilemmas and sadness. He was criticised for insisting that the prisoners of war be sent back and not used for bargaining with Pakistan at the time of the Shimla Agreement signed in 1972. He did not believe in triumphalism or humiliating one's opponent.
As we enter the boat, uniformed Armymen hand us white Rajnigandha flowers. There are tables set for us and on the first floor there is a cultural programme. I remark to no one in particular that the water of the river is dark, polluted and depleted. Someone retorts: "It's because of you." He is not smiling and I keep walking. I know he is referring to the resentment Bangladesh has over river water sharing. This resentment goes back to the time when the Farakka Barrage on the Ganges river was commissioned by India in 1971-72. The flow of water into Bangladesh was totally dependent on India and this was done without any agreement with Bangladesh. Although an ad hoc agreement was signed with Sheikh Mujib and subsequently there have been attempts at a negotiated agreement, Bangladesh has complained that India has not kept its promise. There is also resentment about the Tipaimukh dam built on the border of Manipur and Mizoram on the Barak river. Bangladesh was not even informed although the lower riparian consequences were known.2
In the evening we all go to the Shikha Chirontoni which is an eternal flame. General Jacob explains that this was the spot where on a small table and two chairs the Surrender Treaty was signed and Pakistani General Niazi surrendered to the Mukti Bahini and Indian Army. Now it is called the Suhrawardy Uddyan.
For the Islamic fundamentalists this represented the humiliation of a Muslim state, to Hindu communalists it was a moment of triumph. There are more than a hundred Islamic militant groups in Bangladesh, many of them operating in North-East India; there are 23 Islamic groups in North-East India and both of them give the other succour and solidarity.
But for people like my father, the Bangladesh liberation struggle was a national liberation war of Bengalis for their language and culture.
Bengali nationalism is alive even in the names of our hotels where we are staying: Rupashi Bangla. Rupashi Bangla was a poem written by Jibanan-anda Das (1899-1954). The national anthem of Bangladesh was written by Tagore and the green flag signifies the lush green of their paddy fields. Everything seemed to bring back memories of times in which religion and nationalism were not antagonistic to each other.
March 26 is of course the celebration of Independence Day when the President and Prime Minister of the country lay wreaths at the National Martyrs Memorial at Savar. The stories of these martyrs are still being written, the quiet heroism of a people pitted not only against the ruthless Pakistani Army but an Army supported by the most powerful state in the world, the United States of America.
But there were those Americans like late Joseph Garst, a renowned orthopedic surgeon who helped in the rehabilitation of the freedom fighters and refugees. And there was Richard K. Taylor who tried to stop shipment of arms from the USA to Pakistan and was arrested. And there was Senator Wiliam B. Saxbe who raised the issue of the Bangladesh liberation war at Senate meetings and did succeed in stopping the USA from sending more arms to Pakistan. Bangladesh remembered all these people and was preparing to honour each of them.
In the evening we were invited to the Independence Day reception at Bangabhaban or the President's Residence. Both President Zillur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met each of the awardees and talked to us individually. There were hundreds of other invitees lined up to welcome us. Several burkha-clad women shook hands with some of us and a few smiled. But on the whole it lacked warmth. I wondered whether the men in the wheel chairs were the freedom fighters who had lost their limbs during the liberation war.
•
THE award ceremony was on March 27 at the Bangabandhu International Conference Hall. The President and Prime Minister of Bangladesh handed the award and the citation to 83 men and women after the Cabinet Secretary had read out the citations. Eight heads of state were given the Bangladesh Liberation War Honour. These inclu-ded H.E., Dr Ram Baran Yadav, the President of Nepal, who in 1971 was a medical student studying in the Calcutta Medical College and had offered medical assistance to the refugees in the camps. The others included three leaders of the former USSR and the President of former Yugo-slavia, Joseph Tito. Vijay Dhar is there to represent his father D.P. Dhar. We exchange smiles, knowing that our fathers had much to do in persuading the Soviet Union to support Bangladesh. We know the whole story of the backstage negotiations would not be out but it is good that Bangladesh had not for-gotten to honour the Soviet Union and Yugo-slavia, even if they had been wiped out of the map. Bangladesh had not forgotten to mention the name of a young Soviet sailor who lost his life while trying to make the Chittagong port operational.
The citations for the Friends of Liberation War Honour are a celebration of friendship and solidarity across the globe in an era when people believed they could change the world and the people of Bangladesh certainly did change their destiny.
There were many who had campaigned for Bangladesh in their respective countries to change public opinions and some of them had been remarkably successful. Archer K. Blood, the US Consul in East Pakistan during 1971, was the first diplomat to communicate to the US policy-makers about the genocide in Bangladesh. His widow was there to receive the award. The audience showed its appreciation for the journalists who had risked their lives so that they could tell the world about the savagery of the Pakistani Army: Simon Dring, the British journalist, Lear Levin, the American film-maker, late Naoki Usui, the Japanese journalist who travelled to battlefields to collect information first hand.
Bangladesh is a country full of singers and artists and that is perhaps why singers and artists were remembered so vividly: late Angshu-man Roy whose song Shuno Ekti Mujiborer Theke was broadcast on the Aakash Bani and late Debdulal Bandyopadhyay who kept alive the hope of millions of Bangladeshis with his daily news programmes. The All India Radio was also given the award. Biman Mullick, who decided to design and issue stamps on behalf of the Government of Mujibnagar, was not forgotten on this day of remembrance.
Ustad Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and George Harrison were remembered for their Concert for Bangladesh and Bhupen Hazarika for his songs in support of the freedom fighters. Many of us remembered Joan Baez singing 'Bangladesh' and wished she was present to sing the song on this occasion. She may not have been in the Concert but it was her voice that reached many millions of people.
The Bangladesh Government also honoured several Christian priests: Rev Eugine Homerich, who saved 90 Hindu women by giving them shelter in his church, Fr Richard Willian Timm, who sent secret reports of the human rights violations, and Fr William P. Evans, who provided shelter to both refugees and freedom fighters. He was killed by the Pakistani Army.
As I sat on the dias I felt the real heroes were the peoples of North-East India and I was so happy to see the honours list included so many people from Tripura and Meghalaya.
Bangladesh remembered the remarkable gesture of solidarity by Maharani Bibhu Kumari Devi of Tripura. She opened her palace grounds and donated land for the refugees who came to her State. Later I met the Maharani, so full of grace and elegance which comes with royalty. She had no anger or bitterness about the fact that the refugee population had changed the demographic profile of Tripura and made the tribal commu-nities a minority.
There were many people from Tripura and Meghalaya: late Dasharath Dev Barma, an adivasi leader who helped the Mukti Bahini, Purno Agitok Sangma, who created volunteer groups to help the freedom fighters, and late Rawshanare Begum Sangma, who donated land for the refugees and supported the Mukti Bahini. I wondered whether the memories of 1971 could help the people of North-East India come to grips with the influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh, victims of poverty and climate change.
Perhaps there is no other country in the world which has honoured its friends in such a meaningful way. Even the most cynical were moved by the graciousness of the new leaders. The gesture had already resulted in winning a new generation of friends for Bangladesh from amongst all of us who were representing our parents, and in some cases our grandparents.
The Committee is still searching for friends of Bangladesh and will continue to honour them as and when they trace the people who stood by them in those difficult days. The Ministry of Liberation War Affairs is also documenting the stories of the freedom fighters, their tales of sacrifice, suffering and heroism. More importantly, the process of remembering was also a way of affirming shared values which seemed even more relevant than they were in 1971, both in Bangladesh and in India. The sad part is that the media and Indians did not realise the importance of this remembering. It took several days before the Indian Government formally thanked the Bangladesh Government for preserving the memories of those times by felicitating Indians.
FOOTNOTES
1. I was a little upset to see that the photograph of my father was of someone else.
2. Krishnan Srinivasan, The Jamdani Revolution, Kolkata: 2008, Dhaka: 2009.
In Commemoration of P.N. Haksar, a Friend of Bangladesh
Monaem Sarker
P. N. Haksar
I feel humble to commemorate a distinguished son of India, Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar, diplomat, statesman, architect of the Simla Agreement 1972, an Indian from Kashmir but truly a citizen of the world. Above all, he was great friend of Bangladesh. Ever since the death of Mr. P.N. Hakser on 27 November 1998, I have continued to suffer from a sense of personal loss. I have also felt that it has been a national loss to Bangladesh too. Mr. Haksar was a symbol of humanism. His humane approach brought him the admiration, respect and reverence of every Bangalee who came in contact with him during our liberation war and after.
We have heard time and again from our first Prime Minister Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed and those who worked with him from April to December 1971. They spoke very high of Mr. P.N. Haksar's special role as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India in the inner councils of decision-making. He fashioned Mrs. Gandhi's decision about the timing and level of support to be given by India to our liberation struggle. The manner the Bangladesh freedom fighters who had crossed over to India in the face of the West Pakistani military atrocities & wanton massacres unleashed on 25 March 1971 were treated as well as the warmth of India's relations with the Government set up in Mujibnagar in April 1971 are recognized to reflect the India's finest hour. India's political leadership had succeeded in uniting the country to support Bangladesh Liberation struggle. The diplomacy conducted by India in a world still riven by the cold war had achieved extraordinary success. Mr. Haksar's contribution to that success in widely acknowledged. The wisdom of his counsel, which had urged that unified and co-ordinated efforts by all the pro-liberation forces was essential for victory. Under Indira Gandhi and P.N. Haksar's active guidance Mr. D.P. Dhar played a vital role during the formative stage of our cabinet consultative committee in exile.
D.P. Dhar, India's Ambassador in Moscow was summoned to Delhi in June 1971, and Haksar gave him the brief to reach an agreement on the treaty incorporating the amendments acceptable to the Soviet side but covering the security contingencies India might be facing. PNH followed it up all the way down till it was presented to get the approval of the political affairs committee, a committee of cabinet members, where PNH, P N Dhar and D P Dhar were present just to assist them if required!
In 1971 on 9 August, the Indo-Soviet Treaty for Friendship and Cooperation was signed in New Delhi, which Kissinger subsequently termed as a 'bombshell' in his memoirs. Indeed, the treaty, by agreeing to have joint consultation in the event of a threat from a third party and to take appropriate action to restore peace and security, decisively changed the course of subsequent events. As the reconstruction of history goes on, some writers in recent years play down the threat of collusion perceived by us to the level that the US was using the Pakistani channel to open up to China for its own geopolitical interest. That might well be, but, in addition, there was a darker aspect of that opening too, as Richard Nixon made it clear in his memoirs: "The Chinese played a very cautious role in this period. They had troops poised on the Indian border, but they would not take the risk of coming to the aid of Pakistan by attacking India, because they understandably feared that the Soviet might use this action as an excuse for attacking China.
Mr. P.N. Hakser's knowledge was encyclopedic. Those who disagreed with him could not fail to admire his deep understanding of complex and complicated issues. During my four years of "exile:" in India from 1975 to 1979. I was very close to him. He advised me to form a Caucus of Friends of Bangladesh in Delhi. Friends of Bangladesh Includes- Sri Manmatha Nath Gupta (Chairman), Prof. Dilip Chakravarty, M.P., Sri Sachindralal Singh, M.P., Sri R. K. Mishra, M.P., Sri K. R. Ganesh, Sri P. N. Haksar, Sri Shashi Bhushan, Sri Ganesh Shukta, Sri Sadhan Mukerjee, Sri Abani Lahiri, Sri D. R. Goyal, Sri Subrata Banerjee (Convenor). First condolence meeting on Bangabandhu was organized by that committee in Gandhi Memorial Hall in New Delhi on 15th August 1976. Many people said to me personally, that the time spent with him had been so rewarding, that one could not get through books & journals. I would like to mention here two letters out of many letters written to me by P.N. Hakser which will depict his respect, love and concern about Bangladesh one in July 14, 1997 & another in 18th March 1998.
Phone : 4673545, 6886149
P. N. HAKSAR
4/9, Shanti Niketan New Delhi- 110 021
Date: July 14, 1997
Dearest Bakul:
The memory of your two visits to my home still remains with me. I was hoping to see you in Dhaka last year, but it was not to be.
I was very deeply, deeply touched when Abdus Samd Saheb insisted on visiting me in my home in Delhi when he first came here in his capacity as the Foreign Minister in the Government led by Sheikh Hasinaji as the Prime Minister. When she assumed the office after such a long and courageous struggle, I wrote to her a letter. Naturally, I did not expect her to reply, but I am anxious to know only whether she received it or not.
All the heros of Bangladesh liberation have strutted about on the stage of history and now the curtain has fallen. We can now contemplate the true historical reality when a character called Monaem Sarker acted the part of Bakul.
Are you planning to visit Delhi in the near future? Please do come. I am going to be 84 years old which is 25 years more than the average expectation of life in India.
It breaks my heart when I hear the people of Bangladesh suffer during monsoons, typhoons and cyclones.
Please do convey my warmest regards and best wishes to Sheikh Hasinaji when you meet her as well as to Abdus Samad Saheb.
With my blessings and love.
Yours affectionately,
P.N. Haksar
Mr. Monaem Sarker
...................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Phone : 4673545, 6886149
P. N. HAKSAR
4/9, Shanti Niketan
New Delhi- 110 021
Dated: March 18, 1998
Dearest Monaem:
Today is the 18th of March, 1998. On this day, I should be air-borne and moving towards Dhaka and stepping on the sacred soil of Bangladesh. I was so full of excitement of visiting Dhaka after a I apse of more than ¼ of a century. You had made arrangements for my visit with great love and care. But alas!, I find myself grounded in 4/9 Shanti Niketan. I hope that our High Commissioner in Dhaka has explained to you my painful predicament.
Friends of Bangladesh had organised a public meeting yesterday on the occasion of Bangabandhu's 78th birthday. I could not even attend that. I hope that you will understand the depth of my anguish.
With my blessings and best wishes to you,
Yours affectionately,
P.N. Haksar
Mr. Monaem Sarker
Director General
Bangladesh Foundation for Development Research
23 Chamelibagh, Dhaka – 1217, Bangladesh
P.N. Haksar, born in 1913, has been called the most distinguished public servant of his generation. After a spell as a barrister at the Allahabad high court (1943-8), he was drawn into the Foreign Service by Nehru. Subsequently, he directed the course of government policies at home and abroad as High Commissioner, Secretary and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi (1967-73). Later, as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and Vice-Chairman of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, he was executive head of the country's planning and R & D structures (1974-7). He continues to be actively associated with institutions concerned with the advancement of knowledge, including the Indian Statistical Institute and several centres of research in the social sciences. P.N. Haksar recreates in India of the 20th century & deftly fashions its flavors and charm and its first stirring under Nehru & Indira Gandhi.
The then Prime Minister I. K. Gujral writes in his articles on P.N. Hakser: Governance with social purpose:
"Indira Gandhi had known P.N. Haksar her London days. She discussed his name with some of us in the 'Kitchen Cabinet' as it was called. We did not know Haksar personally since he had spent most of his time serving in the diplomatic missions abroad but we endorsed her choice, when she told us of his political affiliations with the Nehru family. Haksar, as you would know, made his presence felt very soon after entering the high office. He turned, the PM's Secretariat into a power centre and made it a fountainhead of ideas and policies. By then Indira Gandhi had shed off her shyness and uncertain demeanor, while Haksar radicalized her socio-economic policies and centralized authority around her. This was the beginning of a new style of governance that bore close resemblance to the Presidential system. Perhaps this was inevitable, since the political circumstances were radically different than in the Nehruvian era. Nehru, all through the 17 years of his rule did not set up a PM's Secretariat or even a PMO. He was assisted by one secretary, though he occasionally used the senior officials in the MEA for co-ordination. Panditji had several advantages that were unique. His Cabinet comprised of eminent persons who were his comrades in the freedom struggle. They had similar views regarding the socio-economic purpose of governance. Men like Sardar Patel did not require any guidelines from the PMO nor would Maulana Azad, Pant, Kidwai or Ambedkar seek policy directions from any secretary. They were men of colossal dimensions who were masters of their domains. The Cabinet meetings were friendly and harmonious; in a way, these were the replicas of the Congress Working Committee meetings of the past. The style and purpose of governance was to speedily reach the promised destination, since they were conscious of the brevity of the time available to them."
The then President A.P.J. Abul Kalam writes in his article: Developed Nation: the vision:
"I am indeed delighted to give the First P N Haksar Memorial lecture. Despite his great stature in the national scene, I was fortunate to come in contact with him when he was a member of the space commission and visited the satellite launch vehicle integration lab at Thumba, with smoke coming out of his pipe, and with a smiling face, he asked an important question; In satellite launch vehicle programme where does India stand? I looked at Professor Satish Dhawan, the then Chairman, ISRO, and then quickly responded to him saying that when the Rohini Satellite injected SLV-III in earth orbit, we will be the fifth country! "Oh my Nation when you will be the first?". His words - "when my nation will be the first" reverberates in my mind even after nearly 20 years."
Vol. 15: No. 26
Dec. 19, 1998 - Jan. 01, 1999
FRONTLINE
PRAFUL BIDWAI
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1526/15261180.htm
The last of the Nehruvians
P.N. Haksar embodied the best of the Nehruvian tradition coupled with the foresight of the institution-building bureaucrat.
PARAMESHWAR NARAIN HAKSAR, who died at age 85 on November 27, was perhaps the last survivor of the cadre of policy-planners, diplomatic strate- gists and administrators ass-ociated with Jawaharlal Nehru's early nation-building project. He died a disillusioned man, pained at the questioning of the main premises - democracy, secularism, socialism and non-alignment - of that project. Haksar was not just an individual, nor a powerful ex-bureaucrat. He was an institution. His life and career hold many lessons about India and the world, and about the strengths and weaknesses of the Nehruvian legacy.
Haksar was among an elite crop of well-educated youth who were personally inspired and influenced by Nehru. He switched from a promising career as a barrister at the Allahabad High Court to the foreign service, at Nehru's instance. Those were the heady days of non-alignment. Haksar played no mean role in crafting some of the details of India's foreign policy. Non-alignment was not an easy posture to adopt for a country then subject to the intense pressure of bloc rivalry, in particular pressure from the West under whose domination India's entire administration had been shaped for over a century. Non-alignment became viable only because of Nehru's distrust of free-market capitalism, a certain commitment to equality, an admiration for state planning, and, globally, the existence of the Soviet Union as a countervailing force to the Western bloc.
Non-alignment had a dual aspect: at the doctrinal level, it advocated autonomy from both East and West; at another level, it connoted the independent foreign policy of a newly liberated state in the vanguard of the decolonisation process, which sought to reform an unequal global order. India's foreign policy complemented the Nehruvian attempt to pursue a relatively autonomous path of development: "socialism" or a "mixed economy", combining private property and regulated capitalism, with a measure of distributive justice. This coherence was unique.
Haksar was schooled in policy-planning derived from this coherence within a milieu of institution-building based on the Nehruvian vision. In the first quarter-century following Indepen-dence, India gave birth to myriad institutions - in administration, science and technology, the arts, academics, trade, industry and agriculture. These institutions, some of the world's best, and most unmatched in the Third World, formed the powerhouse of nation-building. If India was to have state planning, it had to create not only its own Planning Commission, but also other institutions such as the Indian Statistical Institute (P.C. Mahalanobis' alma mater) and the Delhi School of Economics (V.K.R.V. Rao's creation, at one time truly outstanding), to service it. To achieve food self-sufficiency, India would build not only the Sindri fertilizer plant; it would also create the wherewithal to design, build and equip such factories.
It was not enough to allocate funds to new public sector companies; it was necessary to create a cadre of managers too. Industry promotion had to be accompanied by term-lending credit institutions, for example, the Industrial Development Bank of India, the Industrial Credit and Investment Corpo-ration of India (now ICICI), and so on. The planning was meticulously detailed to the point of creating windows to handle foreign currency loans to industry which, it was recognised, would need to import capital goods. In this institutional flowering figured the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Indian Council of Medical Research; the five Indian Institutes of Technology; the Indian Institutes of Management; the chain of Councils of Social Science, Historical and Philosophical Research; the Sahitya, Lalit Kala and Sangeet Natak Akademis; and companies in fields as diverse as electronics, earth-moving equipment, railway construction, silicon chips and machine tools. Associated with them were pioneers and institution-builders, from Visvesvaraya to Lovraj Kumar, from S.S. Bhatnagar to H.T. Parekh, from D.S. Kothari to K.D. Malaviya. These were people with foresight. For instance, without Malaviya - and his remarkable understanding of the importance of hydrocarbons - the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (now Corporation) could not have come into being, Bombay High would not have happened, and India would have been devastated by the oil shocks of the 1970s.
FORESIGHT was crucial to Haksar's understanding of power, foreign policy and nation-building. He was acutely aware that a good section of the Indian establishment refused to acknowledge the need for holistic thinking and institutionalisation. Twenty years ago, he wrote: "There is... insufficient... coordination between the political elements of our foreign policy and the economic, commercial and security aspects... Our (Foreign) Ministry is particularly weak in institutionalising forward thinking... And, from time to time, one discerns display of egotism... which is not only fatal in diplomacy but is destructive of institutional arrangements. I have always felt that a group of earnest men working together are preferable to a genius... Lack of teamwork is our weakness. Our diplomacy, therefore, falls short of optimal results." ("India's Foreign Policy and its Problems", Patriot, 1989). Similar views are to be found in his Premonitions and his autobiographical One More Life.
Haksar won laurels not so much in the Foreign Office as in strategising the abolition of privy purses, the nationalisation of banks, insurance and foreign oil companies, the liberation of Bangladesh, the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty, and the Shimla accord with Pakistan. In the period 1967-73, he was Indira Gandhi's most important adviser. He understood, better than perhaps any of her other advisers, that a Left-leaning pro-poor orientation would be critical to her success. He also actively promoted a foreign policy stance critical of Western hegemonism.
Haksar never claimed credit for India's policy of supporting the Bangladesh liberation movement to the point of waging war with Pakistan. But he was its real architect. As he was of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of the Cabinet Secretariat, the Shimla accord, and many administrative arrangements and procedures. It is easy to understand the rationale of the Haksar strategy vis-a-vis Bangladesh: the West Pakistan establishment was incapable of accommodating East Pakistan's legitimate demand for equality and autonomy; the country had to split. It is not so easy to appreciate the logic of Haksar's advocacy of the Shimla accord after India had decisively trounced Pakistan in 1971. Haksar himself explained the rationale pithily:
"The most painful and difficult moment in our mutual relationship was reached in December 1971. Pakistan lay shattered. Several of its tehsils were under occupation of our army, resulting in displacement of nearly a million people; 93,000 prisoners of war were in our custody affecting several lakhs of families in Pakistan...'Negotiating from strength' has been made part of diplomatic coinage. But to negotiate with someone who is manifestly weak is even more difficult... The Simla negotiations were thus full of difficulties... If these... were successfully concluded it was due, in large measure, to the correctness of our approach to Pakistan as it emerged out of the trauma of its partition and to the overwhelming support which the country gave to that approach.
"What were the essential elements of that approach? First, a recognition that Pakistan continued to have an unresolved crisis of its national identity... Only a resumption of the interplay of political processes could possibly resolve the crisis and lead to Pakistan's normal political, economic, social and cultural evolution. India must not do anything which would impede this process... Secondly, the common people of Pakistan must know of India's interest in maintaining the integrity of Pakistan.
"Thirdly, India must not, under any circumstances, add to the stock of political capital of diverse elements in Pakistan's military, civilian establishments and among the motley combination of political adventurers who play upon Indophobia-mixed Islamic atavism... And finally, the moment of defeat must never be converted into a moment of humiliation."
It is rare to see this kind of insight among our present policymakers. (Indeed, the BJP's ideologues malign the Shimla agreement as a "betrayal".) Haksar had a refined understanding of foreign relations. He repudiated the thesis that strength derives from military force - an idea that is bandied about today as obvious wisdom in defence of Pokhran-II. In a lucid passage, Haksar debunks this: "The very concept of force as the basis of state policy has become a kind of fetish.... The West cannot think of dialogue unless it is based on force. President Reagan, for one, says: 'The only way to negotiate for peace is from a position of strength'..." But "it should be clear to anybody that negotiations 'from a position of strength' cannot by their very nature be constructive, since they are intended to impose one's will... on one's partner. They rule out the possibility of achieving mutually acceptable, balanced results." Such mature understanding and refined thinking is rare today.
Haksar was badly humiliated by Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency and shunted off to the Planning Commission from his powerful position as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Later he bowed out of office altogether. One may or may not approve of his reluctance to condemn Indira Gandhi: "I will not comment on (her)... She's no more. She's part of history. Historians will judge her by what she's done." But Haksar was extraordinarily dignified in the way he dealt with the dilemmas in whose creation he had himself played a part: for example, the over-centralisation of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which led to its potential for authoritarian misuse, reliance on intelligence, which was proving less and less trustworthy, the failure of a number of institutions such as RAW to deliver.
In his later years, Haksar often acknowledged the limitations of his approach, indeed that of his generation of institution-builders. The approach was a top-down one, to which administrative instruments are central. It never took popular participation as necessary or vital to official programmes. It was gender-blind, insensitive to environmental considerations, and often uncomprehending of micro-level realities. Thus, its grand visions often ended up in un-implementable programmes.
Haksar bitterly complained 20 years ago: "Life demands constant renewal. And our country is crying for renewal - political, economic, cultural and spiritual. Without such a renewal, our diplomats... might be reduced to... seller(s) of anti-earthquake pills of Lisbon. This would be amusing but not edifying... in recent years, both the institution of the Foreign Office as well as the foreign service are being eroded. Wisdom would require halting and reversing the process." This never happened.
In his later years, Haksar did try to rethink the top-down approach. For instance, he associated himself with the Delhi Science Forum and initiatives on human rights, secularism, opposition to mindless neo-liberal policies. He also produced an excellent report on the functioning of the three cultural Akademis. This had an incisive analysis of their failures, frailties, and patronage-driven character, and made many thoughtful recommendations for reform. (Needless to say, these are yet to be implemented.)
Despite his limitations, Haksar remained a committed believer in democracy and the freedom of expression. It is well known that he criticised the suspension of fundamental rights during the Emergency. But few people know that he had to plead Satyajit Ray's case to Nehru. Ray's classic, Pather Panchali, was initially banned from being screened abroad. "My wife and I happened to see this film and we were both struck by its beauty. We felt it was the kind of film which should be entered at one of the international film festivals... I was informed that as the film showed India's poverty, it was not suitable for being entered in foreign film festivals. A great battle ensued to have the order banning the film removed." Haksar approached Nehru, who was furious: "What is wrong about showing India's poverty? Everyone knows that we are a poor country. The question is: are we Indians sensitive to our poverty or insensitive to it? Satyajit Ray has shown it with an extraordinary sense of beauty and sensitiveness."
Haksar's world was far from cheerful in the evening of his life. Indeed, it got dark after he lost his eyesight more than 10 years ago. And it became even darker after Hindu communalism's recrudescence, and increasing loss of the integrity and sense of purpose of the Indian state. It is no poetic justice that Haksar should have passed away just as Hindutva's ascendancy is giving way to decline after the comprehensive setback the Bharatiya Janata Party received in the latest Assembly elections in three States.
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