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.
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 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.
"Here is...one of the most important books in modern times on Indian-white relations." ---Western Historical Quarterly "Dr. Viola has...provided us with what will undoubtedly be the last word on the topic." ---American Indian Quarterly "Diplomats in Buckskins is loaded with historical fact, but this does not make it dry reading. Beyond being extremely entertained we can be educated by a work that tells us a lot more about ourselves as a nation. We are a people of so many origins. It gives perspective to know that a part of us once negotiated with another part as separate and soverign nations." ---Minnesota History "This volume is a soundly-represented and imaginative study of the delegations of tribal representatives who visited Washington largely between 1800 and 1900....The diligence with which Dr. Viola pursued his research has enabled him to write a most rewarding book which captures the agonies and pleasures, successes and defeats, and humor and pathos of the delegates as they conferred with Washington's sympathetic bur mostly patronizing and diffident bureaucracy." ---Journal of the West
Examines the emergence of anti-imperialist internationalism during the interwar years from the perspective of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
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.
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.
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.
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
From the revolt of 1857 and the freedom movement to duels on the cricket pitch, India and the United Kingdom have been on opposing sides on numerous occasions. A less known instance when this dynamic played out was the 2017 election for a seat on the International Court of Justice. Unwilling at first, India was prompted to enter the ring in the wake of the Kulbhushan Jadhav case. The contest that followed proved to be a 'second war of Independence' in the words of then foreign minister Sushma Swaraj - and a David-and-Goliath fight against the permanent members of the Security Council, who all put their might behind the UK. Syed Akbaruddin, India's Permanent Representative to the UN at the time, presents a behind-the-scenes account of India's coming-of-age in world affairs through the prism of this momentous election.