Synopsis
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Jagat Singh Mehta looks back on an eventful career which began on the day after India s independence. His life started in feudalism but tough boarding schools emancipated him. The Tryst Betrayed gives an insider s view of policy making. In his lucid and informative style Mehta sheds light on Jawaharlal Nehru s prophetic assertion of ideological agnosticism (named Non-alignment in 1946) and its distortion by the accidental overlap of decolonization with the Cold War. Partition, decades of tensions, four wars and underdevelopment have been the consequences. In marked departure from other memoirs, Mehta pulls no punches. He argues that Nehru was naïve on China, wishful on the Soviet Union and prejudiced on America. The civil servants were hypnotized by what he refers to as the Panditji knows best syndrome. Mehta illustrates that Nehru s bark was no doubt frightening but his bite not vicious. Mehta s career is marked by his innovative approach to all his several diplomatic assignments and though not in office, he forewarned against unprincipled attitudes on Afghanistan. After retirement Mehta chose academia and voluntarism at Harvard, the Woodrow Wilson Centre for scholars and he was for fifteen years a visiting professor at the University of Texas in Austin. He remains engaged with the voluntary sector through the Udaipur-based Seva Mandir (working for development in 600 villages), Vidya Bhawan (sixteen educational institutes) and the Jheel Sanrakshan Samiti (for the protection of Udaipur s lakes). The book gives a fascinating insight into the workings of the NGO sector and the critical importance of the actions of unselfish voluntary effort to ensuring a just democracy.
About the Author
Jagat S. Mehta was born in Udaipur in 1922 into one of the then princely state s most prominent families. After degrees from Allahabad and Cambridge universities, he joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1947. He was chargé d'affaires in China between 1963-66, launched the foreign ministry s policy planning division in 1966, was high commissioner in Tanzania between 1970-74, becoming Foreign Secretary in 1976, a post he held till 1979. During his career he led the ministry s negotiations on many issues of critical importance including the Sino-Indian boundary question (1960), the financial compensation for Indians expelled from Uganda (1975), the comprehensive normalization of India-Pakistan relations (1976), the Salal Hydel project in Kashmir (1976), securing the withdrawal of the Farakka item from the UN (1976), the Farakka Agreement with Bangladesh (1977), the Separate Trade and Transit Treaties with Nepal (1978) and preventing the militarization of Pakistan after the Saur Revolution in Afghanistan (1978). He was a Fellow at Harvard between 969-70 and again in 1980-81. He was at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC in 1981-82 and was the Tom Slick Professor for World Peace at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin, from 1983-1985. He later held the post of visiting professor at the university from 1986-1995. Jagat S. Mehta is the author of Militarization in the Third World (1985); The March of Folly in Afghanistan (2002); Negotiating for India (2006); and Rescuing the Future (2008). He has also published articles inter alia on diplomatic negotiations; democracy and South-Asian security; world politics after the Cold War; international riparian problems; Non-Alignment and relations with China, Pakistan, and Nepal. He remains associated with voluntary organizations in Udaipur. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2002.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
