In Service of Emergent India: A Call to Honor

by Jaswant Singh, Strobe Talbott (Foreword by)

Overview

In Service of Emergent India is an evocative insider's account of a crucial period in India's history. It provides an in-depth look at events that changed the way the world perceived India, and a unique view of Indian statecraft. As Minister of External Affairs, Defense, and Finance in the BJP-led governments of 1996 and 1998-2004, Jaswant Singh was the main foreign policy spokesman for the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, the hijacking to Kandahar, Afghanistan, of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, and the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, as well as other key events. In an account that is part memoir, part analysis of India's past and future prospects, Singh reflects on his childhood in rural Rajasthan at the end of the colonial period, his schooling and military training, and memories of Indian Independence and the Partition of India and Pakistan. He analyzes the first four decades of Indian nationhood under Congress Party rule, ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan, Sino-Indian relations, and post-9/11 U.S.-Indian relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253028006
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	12/22/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	417
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jaswant Singh is an authority on Indian foreign policy and national security. He is among the most respected names in the country's public life, and in the world of diplomacy. A former officer in the Indian Army, he has served seven terms in India's Parliament and is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Parliament's Upper House. He lives in New Delhi, India.

Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control (1984); At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (1993), written with Michael Beschloss; The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (2002); and The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation (2008). A former Time columnist and Washington bureau chief, Talbott served as deputy secretary of state for seven years and was the architect of the Clinton administration’s policy toward Russia and the other states of the former Soviet Union. He translated and edited two volumes of Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs in the early 1970s and founded the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization in 2001. Talbott currently lives in Washington, DC.
 

Read an Excerpt

In Service of Emergent India

A Call to Honor

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By Jaswant Singh

Indiana University Press

Copyright © 2007 Jaswant Singh
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02800-6

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CHAPTER 1

Memories of a Sunlit Land

When I was stuck at the very start by that immobilizing query — where do I begin? — I found greatly reassuring a reference to Pascal's admission that he too faced similar difficulties. I sought shelter then in memory, letting it wander free. But is it merely an occasional glimpse of the past, this memory? Or is it more a spatial re-creation of past events that reappear randomly but in all their vivid, unfragmented entirety? Memory, this depthless pool into which life keeps pouring endlessly, until the stream itself dries up — is this "drying up" in death an event of such ultimate finality that from this "black hole," this "shunya," this limitless void of "non-being," there is no returning, ever? And if in recollecting past events we travel back in time, why then can we not go forward, too?

I often reflected thus upon life and death and the universe, perhaps hearing echoes of some earlier preconscious as I slept in the open, next to my mother. I did not think in exactly those words — of course not — but I know that even infants think, that thought precedes language; indeed, thought is the modulator of language, its employer. On some clear nights, the starlit sky would descend until it was almost close enough to touch, and so densely packed with stars as I have not again seen. "Am I but a speck in this great dome of the firmament?" I would wonder. Lying awake, looking skyward, as my mother breathed softly and gently in sleep, I watched the slow pirouette of the stars, as the reassuringly constant "Saptarishi" carried their celestial hoe across the heavens. To till which field of creation? Why is only the Pole Star fixed, and not the others? Did these questions arise then, or are they today's embroidery on yesterday's memory? A bit of both, perhaps; the language is today's, the memory certainly yesterday's.

I was born in 1938, in Jasol, a village that lies directly west of and more than 100 kilometers from present-day Jodhpur. It is the principal village of a large tract known by the traditional name of Mallani, now also called Barmer District. India's westernmost district, it adjoins Sindh in Pakistan. My paternal grandfather, Zorawar Singhji, was the Rawal Sahib of Jasol. He is succinctly, even if somewhat colorlessly, described in the district gazetteers of that period in this fashion: "Rawal Zorawar Singhjee of Jasol, Marwar, was born in Samvat 1938. He is the head of the Mallani Jagirdars and represents the senior line of the Rathores. In the words of Major C. K. M. Walter, Resident of Jodhpur state, 'Mallani justly claims the cradle of the Rathore Race in the West.'" Rawal, as a title, is older than other titles in India and is not limited to the feudal establishment alone. On visiting Jasol, some friends of the Maharajah of Jodhpur from his Oxford days inquired of my uncle, Rawal Amar Singhji, who had by then succeeded and inherited the title, as to what Rawal meant. He reflected for a bit, being of an extremely judicial mind, and replied with characteristic succinctness: "It is partly regal, partly ecclesiastical." And that is what the title is, for it is used only in parts of West Rajasthan as a hereditary title, denoting the heads of certain large estates, some of which are larger than princely states in the rest of India. In South India it is used to denote the heads of "maths" in large temples.

Rawal Zorawar Singh was the head of the Mallani Jagirdars, there being only four others, all cadet branches. Jasol actually covered the entire stretch of desert lying between Sindh and Kutch; it was not a dependency of the state of Jodhpur. On the contrary, Jasol is the home of the senior branch of the ancient and valiant warrior clan known as the Rathores, for it was the younger brother who (as is still the custom), receiving a very small inheritance, branched off and created or carved out his own domain. Thus was created Jodhpur, and in turn Bikaner, and so on, so many others: what was one later became several.

The second but equally integral part of my identity is Khuri, a village some distance away from Jaisalmer, which was then an independent state, adjoining Sindh, which was in British India, and Bhawalpur, which is now part of Pakistan. Back then, Jaisalmer had no rail, road, or any other connections with the rest of the world. The ruler at the time frowned upon all such conveniences as "ruinous modernity." Khuri is my maternal home, my mother's village. Her father, my maternal grandfather, was Thakur Mool Singhji. This village lies about fifty kilometers west of Jaisalmer, and of course had no access road.

In Jasol, we lived in the "House." And here I mean more than just a dwelling, a structure; our House encompassed our family line, our family name. It had been built by time, not by any one person. It was a construct of episodes, for it had grown with events, absorbing them as it evolved. But this continual evolution had a central identity, though not any central architectural design, and around that central identity various sections had been added to the House. Some that were of earlier vintage grew tired and were hardly lived in; some that had been neglected felt abandoned and over time simply collapsed. The House, by its sheer continuity, began to epitomize the authority of age and ancientness. In that lay the essence of its identity, its acceptance by all. Yet it never got fully built, for the House is accompanied by a belief: that "the sound of a stonemason's hammer and chisel must always be heard in the House." In reality, what that counsel meant was: "Keep building, keep moving, keep growing — always." As my grandfather, in any case, had also always advised, "If an animal doesn't move, how will it graze?"

What was transferred to us, even as fledglings, was this sense of the prestige and standing of the House when we arrived, as we grew up in its shadow, and when we moved out to get on with our lives — without, however, ever bidding goodbye to the House. For it had become a part of us, our first identity, permanently urging: "Keep moving, keep building." And wherever we went, one single injunction accompanied us, as a task and a responsibility: "It is the name of this House — remember!"

No other detailed code, and no elaborate do's or don'ts, accompanied that injunction, for it had said it all. The task, the code, and the path to be taken were clear; if thereafter one did not instinctively grasp the essence, then it could not be taught anyway. We filled in the details individually, to meet a contingency, a responsibility, or a challenge that this stream of life always brought forth. Through all this, those early injunctive words always echoed: "Honor, Courage, Loyalty, Faith." Very hesitantly do I even write these now, for in today's cynical world, they sound contrived. Our world now mocks such notions, and yet it is this code that once, not so long ago, was the standard. The wealth of our name was the sum total of our wealth, and if, heaven forbid, we ever lost that, then we lost "izzat": respect, regard, honor, reputation. And what is left after izzat is gone?

But I have to come to specifics, not dwell on these horary messages. It was in this House in Jasol that I was born. According to the Gregorian calendar, the year of my birth was 1938. At home, however, at the direction of my grandfather, the year was recorded by the family pundit and astrologer — as all records and activities were then — in the calendar that is our standard, the Vikram Samvat. I know this because the subsequent conversion of that date to the Gregorian equivalent, for filling out various forms, certificates, entrance to school, and so on, required a "modernization" of sorts. That "janam kundli" (birth chart) became a reference point. The manuscript — an attractively calligraphed scroll containing diagrams, calculations, and determinations that I found totally incomprehensible — was rolled into a tube, then tied with auspicious Moli thread, and left in the care of my mother. It was taken out annually, and after due ritual and observances, the learned man known as a punditji would read the "varsh-phal," that year's predictions. But all of that I learned much later. This fragment of memory surfaced even as I wrote, not in any sequence of events, but more like a collage, clamoring to exit from that closet of the past to reemerge as memory.

From that period of my life, I have no memory of my father; nothing comes back at all. For one thing, in accordance with convention and etiquette, fathers never acknowledged the presence of their sons in public. Daughters, perhaps — but sons? That was forbidden. It was an unforgivable breach for a father to publicly display affection, tenderness, caring, or any other such feeling toward a male child; he would be seen as rearing a weakling. For another thing, my father was a soldier. He carried the commission of the Jodhpur State Forces and served in the Jodhpur Lancers. War was imminent — so I understood many years later — and Father went, I was informed, first to Basra in Iraq, and subsequently to other theaters of the Second World War. The first time I met him, having been told by my mother in advance to expect him, was when he returned to the village — around 1946, I think. But he had to leave again very soon thereafter.

In consequence, my paternal and maternal grandfathers brought me up — with great but undemonstrative love and care. It was they who taught me speech and deportment; about horses and camels and animals and birds of the desert, migratory and resident; about guns and rifles and swords; about the meaning of duty, task, responsibility, and appropriate conduct; about our land and history; and about the sky and the wind and the signals that nature is always sending. My grandfathers belonged to a different century altogether; they did not grasp what was suddenly happening in the twentieth. After all, their world had always had a certain completeness, a self-assured certitude. That was all disappearing now, in front of their very eyes, with bewildering speed. For the first time in their lives, they were unable to influence events, let alone alter them. So they imparted all that they had inherited, all that they had learned while growing up in the previous century, to the three of us — my two cousins and I, the youngest. It was this trio who lived and grew up in the village. But I had a bonus: I had a maternal grandfather who had decided that I must fully imbibe the code of the desert.

The House I was born and grew up in gave the appearance of being glued to the side of a hill, about halfway up the slope, overlooking the village sprawled haphazardly below. The nearest railway station is some distance away. Between the village and the railway station is a river, Luni by name. The Luni is not a perennially flowing river, so its dry, sandy bed lies there quietly most of the time. When it does decide to flow — which may not be every monsoon, and may not happen during the full four months of the rainy season — it is an eccentric, unpredictable, and self-willed thing, not possessed of much charm. Collecting the overflow of several nullahs and desert streams from its catchment area, the Luni then meanders through the desert, emptying out in the Rann of Kutch. The Hindi word "luni" means "salt-bitter," so the river's name is entirely appropriate; it does not contain saltwater when it flows, but the region's subsoil water is so bitter that not even camels will drink from it.

Although I was born in Jasol, I live now in a tiny hamlet nearby. This hamlet, little more than a cluster of huts, was established after we left the House, in accordance with the unyielding dictates of primogeniture, which still governed inheritance back then. I spent my years from infancy to childhood in Jasol, and thereafter in the hamlet, spending half of the year in my "nanihal," my mother's home village of Khuri. Khuri was a dream desert village then, a fair distance away from Jaisalmer, toward Sindh. In Khuri, I lived with my maternal grandfather.

Khuri was everything that people find picturesque in a desert village — towering sand dunes; thatched huts with unmatched shades of ocher and unique yellows adorning their walls; camels and color; arrestingly beautiful women and stalwart men; and haunting desert music. But it was also where searing heat of unimaginable ferocity visited us every year, as did great, darkly menacing sandstorms that blanked out the sun, with the wind howling in vengeful anger. Why do I say that it "was" rather than "is" a dream village? Because of the development that brought a road and later a railway station to Jaisalmer. Admittedly that is some distance away from Khuri, but now there is even a seasonal airport adjacent to Jaisalmer.

In Jasol, the section of the House where I was born and lived the early years of my life has now collapsed. Many years after I left, I tried to learn which room I was born in. I was shown an airless room in one corner of the zenana, the separate women's quarters where the village midwife had attended to my mother. Eventually, this part of the House must simply have given up; it was, after all, the oldest part of the zenana, once my grandmother's "zenani-deodhi" — her personal domain. This entire wing of the zenana was enclosed by a high wall, more for privacy than protection, for none dared enter there uninvited. This area was strictly for women and children; only some of the male servants had entry.

At the entrance to this old wing were a few steps, then a doorway of exquisitely carved sandstone, with two ancient brass-studded wooden doors that creaked and groaned when moved, as if in agonizing pain. Inevitably, those doors became the objects of play and torture for all the children in the zenana — and their numbers, God be praised, abounded. The children would attempt to swing the doors, which would groan complainingly in response, evoking shouts from the courtyard inside asking them not to — but when (and where?) have children ever obeyed instantly? Persistence was rewarded with a cuff or two, followed by some howling and some crying — but after a while, it was "torture the doors" again!

Just inside was a kind of waiting area — a covered verandah with a privy in one corner, which was for my grandmother's use only. Then there was another arched doorway, through which you entered the zenana proper. A large courtyard was open to the skies, full of light and air, enclosed by a row of open kitchens to one side, and some pantries and rooms opposite. (Alas! I never did go inside.) Directly opposite the entrance was a large room, frescoed with wall paintings, and some more strong rooms inside. This was my grandmother's preserve. I was among the very few allowed in there, at any time of the day or night.

On one side of this courtyard there was a stone staircase with no railings. It led to the roof, around which ran a low wall and then a covered verandah, and beyond that was a large, open room without doors and then another room with doors, a privy nearby — and a balcony, again with exquisite sandstone carving. This balcony opened out to a corner of the village, and then to the desert that lay beyond — an unimpeded view all the way to the horizon. These were my mother's apartments, the most beautiful part of the House. My father was away most of the time, and in any event men were not to be in the zenana during the daylight hours; their place was in the "mardana" — the male section. Most of the year we slept on the roof; and when cold weather came, we moved to the room with the balcony. All this has left me with an indelible sense of space, an enduring need to live in openness, but also an ease and comfort in being by myself, on my own. My mother, her maids, and I were the only occupants of this space; but when the House was full to capacity, so too was the zenana.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from In Service of Emergent India by Jaswant Singh. Copyright © 2007 Jaswant Singh. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Strobe Talbott
Preface: Prelude to Honor
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

Part I. A Look Back
1. Memories of a Sunlit Land
2. Born of the Same Womb: Pakistan
3. India: The Journey from Nation to Statehood

Part II. Challenge and Response
4. Pokhran II: The Implosion of Nuclear Apartheid
5. Pokhran Looks East
6. The Asian Two: India and China

Part III. Statecraft Is a Cruel Business
7. Troubled Neighbor, Turbulent Times: 1999
8. Troubled Neighbor, Turbulent Times: 2001
9. Engaging the Natural Ally
10. The Republican Innings
11. Some Afterwords

Appendixes
Glossary
Index

What People are Saying About This

Sir V.S. Naipaul

"This book tells Singh's fascinating personal story and gives his no less fascinating account of what as an emerging power India has had-and still has-to live through: the big-power politics and the small-power politics. It is an education."

Sir V. S. Naipaul

This book tells Singh's fascinating personal story and gives his no less fascinating account of what as an emerging power India has had—and still has—to live through: the big—power politics and the small—power politics. It is an education.

V. S. Naipaul

This book tells Singh's fascinating personal story and gives his no less fascinating account of what as an emerging power India has had—and still has—to live through: the big—power politics and the small—power politics. It is an education.

Strobe Talbott

Jaswant Singh is a man of parts—a soldier, politician, statesman, and elegant writer. He tells more than the story of his life, though that is quite a tale in itself. His memoir captures much of the experience of his country as it moved from the Raj to independence to its emergence as a major power. This is a book that should be read by anyone who cares about India's importance—and that should be everyone.

Editorial Reviews

". . . Singh's anecdotal memoirs are worthwhile for scholars of India and South Asian diplomacy. . . . Recommended."—Choice

"This book tells Singh's fascinating personal story and gives his no less fascinating account of what as an emerging power India has had—and still has—to live through: the big—power politics and the small—power politics. It is an education."—Sir V. S. Naipaul

"Jaswant Singh is a man of parts—a soldier, politician, statesman, and elegant writer. He tells more than the story of his life, though that is quite a tale in itself. His memoir captures much of the experience of his country as it moved from the Raj to independence to its emergence as a major power. This is a book that should be read by anyone who cares about India's importance—and that should be everyone."—Strobe Talbott

From the Publisher

. . . Singh's anecdotal memoirs are worthwhile for scholars of India and South Asian diplomacy. . . . Recommended.

Choice