Revolving doors in India House  

The London high commissioner’s position has plummeted from being the most important posting in the Indian Foreign Service at the dawn of Indian independence to a dump-yard for retiring personnel. Over the decades the choice of candidates has also metamorphosed from being mainly a political nominee to predominantly a position for career diplomats.

In the first 51 years after India’s Independence, Apa Pant was the only appointee from the Foreign Service. V K Krishna Menon, a friend and confidante of Jawaharlal Nehru, was selected as the first high commissioner. A Londoner and Labour party activist, he was well suited to deal with a Labour government.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, had reservations; and MI6 suspected he was a communist in cahoots with the Soviet Union! To his credit, he shrewdly acquired invaluable properties at reasonable prices for the high commission, which have stood India in good stead.

However, the “high expenses” of the mission perceived by an economy committee of the government, resulted in Subimal Dutt, then Commonwealth Secretary in the MEA, being sent to London to investigate. His report, wrote Dutt’s biographer Amit Das Gupta, “described the mission as chaotically grown, extremely poorly run and inefficient, under an authoritarian head deliberately ignoring virtually all rules the Government of India had established, and wasting money on a large scale”.

Nehru is reported to have said “how embarrassed” he was by the indictment. But he accepted it, later even rebuked Menon. Dutt in turn was elevated to the post of foreign secretary and enjoyed a record six-year tenure. Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit served seven years as high commissioner - the longest ever. She was attractive and possessed of social skills. In an era when diplomacy was often conducted in drawing rooms, she was fit for the purpose.

She lunched with ministers, dined with royalty and dealt with the public, while her deputy high commissioner (DHC) ran the administration of India’s biggest mission in terms of manpower and handled the nitty gritty with the British foreign office. In this respect Azim Hussain enjoyed her fullest confidence; but in due course, he felt overburdened.

Therefore, he requested the prime minister for a transfer. Pandit was not amused. All the same, Hussain moved to Egypt as ambassador.

Khushwant Singh, who was press officer at the high commission under Menon, narrated how Pandit tended to overspend; and Nehru was once constrained to request the industrialist G D Birla to settle an unpaid Harrods bill. When in 1961 Nehru decided to declare her innings, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy in India, asked him to reconsider. But prime minister was not to be persuaded.

Many distinguished personalities followed; among them, M C Chagla, later external affairs minister, S S Dhawan, subsequently governor of West Bengal, B K Nehru, who was offered the post of secretary-general of the UN in 1951, but declined, P C Alexander, previously principal secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and M K Rasgotra, who had earlier been foreign secretary.

Dr L M Singhvi conjured a sixyear stint. He was criticised for promoting himself rather than the country. K V Rajan, who worked as deputy high commissioner with him, commented: “While the self-promotion aspect did attract comment, there was also appreciation for the energy and time that went into unifying the (Indian) community’s diverse components on themes of interest and importance to India.”

It is generally argued that three years is a minimum period of posting for a head of mission to render justice. In the past 22 years, however, only Kamlesh Sharma, appointed after he retired from the IFS, was granted this luxury.

The fortunes of others have ranged from nine months (for Navtej Sarna) to a couple of years - at least six incumbents have been denied even this. In short, the post of high commissioner to the UK has suffered from a revolving door syndrome, arguably, to India’s disadvantage. Economic affairs, a key element in the relationship, has predictably tanked.

Prakash Mehrotra in the mid-1980s was probably the worst high commissioner ever. He lasted a motley four months, although it was his son’s alleged misdemeanours that cut short his stay.

The last two high commissioners have, however, appeared to succumb to the ruling dispensation in India, forgetting their code of conduct bound them to represent the country, not any political persuasion. Moreover, while admittedly she was unfortunate in that her term coincided with the British government being preoccupied with Brexit and latterly the Coronavirus epidemic, the outgoing high commissioner didn’t seem to progress beyond an outreach to the Indian diaspora.

The only British cabinet minister who spared time to receive her was the Indianorigin home secretary, Priti Patel. Where in the past even an acting high commissioner, Rajesh Prasad, managed to secure the presence of cabinet ministers when it is critical to do so - at India’s Republic Day reception - recent high commissioners have failed to transcend above ministers of state.

Sometimes, weaknesses of high commissioners have been compensated by strengths of their deputies. This is underlined by the fact that six DHCs were of a calibre to eventually become foreign secretary – Y D Gundevia, T N Kaul, Kewal Singh, Rasgotra, Salman Haidar and Ranjan Mathai.

But in this category, too, standards have suddenly collapsed. Perhaps never in the history of the Indian high commission in the UK has a combination of HC and DHC been as nondescript as in the past 16 months. If resumption of flights permits her to cross the North Sea in good time, Gaitri Kumar will have a mere two years to retrieve much lost ground, especially on diplomatic and economic fronts and with indigenous Britons.