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From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Jan 6, 2005 0:24pm Subject: J.N. Dixit - a tribute By Gopal Gandhi J.N. Dixit - a tribute By Gopal Gandhi SAN-Feature Service: "I will come and call on you at Banga Bhavan, Gopal," he said when I spoke to J.N. Dixit a fortnight ago, "protocol is protocol." It was inconceivable that Mani should motor to where I was staying and not the other way round. In order to prevent him from that inconvenience and to save myself the resultant embarrassment, I did not trouble him with my dates in Delhi and lost my last chance of meeting a man I admired enormously. As with all strong personalities Mani was admired. But he was also feared, resented and, mostly in his absence, criticised for his famous manner. There was a Dixit way of doing things which included the use of mental biceps leading him to be called Mr. Fixit. It is a pity that Mani was known better for his style than for the extraordinary substance of his work. Between the puffs of his famous pipe, Mani could form opinions and decide on steps ­ important and irreversible steps. His mind worked overtime, aided by an unrelenting and unforgiving memory. He remembered what many would have liked him to forget. But latterly he did not let his past lumber his thoughts; he tried to see things afresh. "You see," he told Norwegian peace-makers working on Sri Lanka, "I remember too much to expect certain people to change but if you think some change is taking place, let me wish your optimism the best of luck." Mani could make friends by the dozen. He also alienated people by the double dozen. If you were his friend it was because he saw something in you that he valued, not because of your position. I know many "ordinary" people who regarded themselves as Mani's friends and they were not imagining this. Mani used his positions to help several simple people, indigent scribes, marginalised musicians, students, with no expectation of anything other than personal satisfaction. Mani was, paradoxically, egotistical and egoless. He was a hedonist and austere, scorching and affectionate. Born to one culture and fostered by another, Mani could think like a Keralite and speak like an Allahabadi. He could cerebrate as one from the south of the Vindhyas and articulate as one from the Gangetic plains. Mani knew that an office ­ any office ­ had a certain weight to it. And he used that weight with ?©clat. Because many do not do so, either out of a sense of personal modesty or uncertainty, he seemed to them to be arrogant. Mani had two formidable attributes. First, he worked as if he was 10 men with 10 equally quicksilver brains. Second, the national interest was for him both a professional ideal and a personal passion. His last words: "I want to make my country proud" says it all. His work as our High Commissioner in Bangladesh and Pakistan and as our Ambassador in Afghanistan, as Foreign Secretary and then as the National Security Adviser will be analysed. As one of his successors in the High Commission of India in Colombo, I would like to say a word about his role as India's envoy in Sri Lanka. It was common to the point of being trite to say that Mani was not the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo but Viceroy. What lay behind the characterisation was not a resentment against Dixit but a misunderstanding of India's intent. What India tried to do in Sri Lanka during Rajiv Gandhi's Prime Ministership and in terms of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord has often been termed as a mistake. And Mani is presented with the biggest garland of blame for that "mistake." Unsuccess is one thing, a mistake quite another. India wanted to help Sri Lanka find a just peace for itself. Two things Sri Lanka needed at that point to usher peace were (a) uniformed manpower and (b) political will. India stepped in to provide the first; it could not have provided the second. Mani, as the man on the spot, had to fill leadership gaps. He would not do more than was expected of him as the High Commissioner for India in Colombo. He would certainly not do any less. If duty and effectiveness required him to do it, nothing was too big or too small to be done by him as High Commissioner. This made him unconventional, unique. It is not sufficiently understood that when it comes to "our own region," what an Indian diplomat does not only impacts on our bilateral relations with the host country, but also on India's security. If there was anyone who knew that axiomatically, it was Mani Dixit. The caprice of personal destiny did not spare Mani. I had missed the news of his son's suicide three years ago. And so when I met him in his South Block office a few months ago, I asked how Dhruv was. "You don't know?" Mani asked. And then the bereft father's voice choked and his eyes went moist. "He took his life." I could only respond with a pained embrace. This was India's national security officer, a figure of formidable strength, shaken like any father would, by the hand of fate. I would like to remember Mani by his laughter which would give his face a child's glow. Particularly the laugh which accompanied his recollection of "friends" he was re-discovering after his return to office. When he was appointed National Security Adviser, a wag said, "Mani has been made NSA so that he stops writing." This was a typically New Delhi comment. Mani's written word, his analyses of events in the region, will be invaluable in the future. We could have done with many more of such books from his pen. As a diplomat, Mani was in a class out of the ordinary. He will be remembered and talked about in terms that are reserved for the highest diplomatic lore. [Gopal Gandhi is the Governor of West Bengal --------------------------------------------------------------- INDIA THINKRS NET quote "The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people." : Justice Hugo L. Black - (1886-1971) US Supreme Court Justice - Source: New York Times v. Unites States (Pentagon Papers) 1971 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
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January07, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]CHRO updates >> |
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