A Practitioner’s Account of Managing Relations With our Western Neighbor
The Defence Colony (WA) Club hosted a book reading session organized by the Gracious Living Foundation (GLF) to discuss Anger Management, a book written by Ajay Bisaria, India’s former High Commissioner to Pakistan. The audience was treated to a rare first-hand account of defining contemporary events that led to Ambassador Bisaria’s expulsion from Pakistan to an exhaustively-researched insider’s perspective of the historical anger and frustration that has shaped this rocky relationship since 1947. Captain Rajesh Sethi navigated the whole nine yards adroitly with probing questions. An easy and free flowing exchange was the hallmark of the fireside chat that left the audience so mesmerized that they did not want the Q&A session to end!
Apart from Ajay’s first-hand and anecdotal experience from a distinguished career in the Indian Foreign Service, Anger Management is the product of meticulously researched citations from written records, personal interviews with colleagues, former senior colleagues who were posted in Pakistan and Ministers running the External Affairs Ministry. Shri Bisaria’s responses focused the diplomatic lens on everything from the ill-conceived, bloody and highly contested partition in 1947 (that Ajay argued only served the British interest in stopping the expansion of the Communist Soviet Union into South Asia), the subsequent wars between the two countries, the return of territories won by India, failure of accords to manage the relationship, use of terrorism as tool of State Policy, the failure of the Agra summit, the surgical strikes, Pulwama, Balakot Air strikes, Abhinandan walking tall across Wagah, based on India’s readiness to fire missiles on strategic Pakistani assets and the abrogation of Article 370 that led to High Commissioner Bisaria’s expulsion.
What emerged was a nuanced insight into: (a) the paradoxes in the professional and personal lives of diplomats serving in Pakistan; (b) the caliber of Indian diplomats serving India’s interests in hostile environments around the World, and (c) the challenge in dealing with a nuclear armed neighbor searching its identity 77 years after independence
Shri Bisaria ended on a positive note. He informed that Pakistan’s focus on India as her primary enemy has shifted and India now comes third among her enemies with the first two being on Pakistan’s Western borders. Further, Shri Bisaria concluded that seeds of serious misgivings within the Pakistani establishment had taken root and the failure of her Armed Forces in managing Pakistan’s economy, security and politics was now a commonly held belief. He was hopeful of positive developments in 2024.
Finally, this piece would be incomplete without recording the appreciation voiced by the audience for the Gracious Living Foundation for bringing the best and brightest to the Defence Colony Club for many such memorable sessions over the years. the chorus from the audience was Yeh dil maange more!
