The last of the ICS Greats

The first item on the agenda was the distribution of prizes won by Belgian school-children in a Shankar’s Weekly competition. Also on the agenda was responding to public outrage at TV pictures showing a detachment of Indian Gorkha soldiers with the UN Peacekeeping Force in the Congo mowing down by mistake a group of frightened Belgian settlers. K.B. devoted exactly as much attention to the Shankar’s Weekly children as he did to the incident in the Congo. It was my first exposure to his greatest characteristic — fascination with everything and equal attention to all matters, trivial and profound.

My first diplomatic assignment was to establish the Friendship Association between India and Luxembourg — to the slogan, ‘Friendship between the world’s largest and smallest democracies’’. Came the afternoon when I was to drive down to Luxembourg to deliver President Radhakrishnan’s message to the Luxembourg press. But the President’s message had still not been received. I went into the Ambassador’s room with my problem. K.B. listened gravely, then said there was a message. ‘‘Can I have it, Sir?’’ I exclaimed. And he said, ‘‘No, because you are still to write it!’’ Astonished, I started spluttering, to which he replied, ‘‘Aakhir, tumhare jaisa babu hi tho wahan bhi likh raha hoga. Tho tum hi likh dalo!’’

Next morning, as I was contemplating my handiwork boxed on the front page of every Luxembourg newspaper, my immediate boss, the infuriated First Secretary, called to say, ‘‘Look at the mess you’ve got us into. The Rashtrapati’s message has just arrived.’’ Panic-stricken, I rang Lall to ask what to do. Calmly, he said, ‘‘We’ll read it at the inauguration. Let Luxembourg know that we attach such importance to them that the Rashtrapati has sent two messages!’’ How could I not love him after that?

K.B. then became Commerce Secretary and I fetched up in the Economic Division of External Affairs. No one did more than K.B. to integrate external policy with external economic policy and so he did what no one has before or since been able to achieve: a symbiosis between the IAS and the IFS.

I carried him an early draft on some UN Development Decade matter. K.B. asked me to see him next day. Returning to his presence, I was devastated at his saying the draft was no good and I would have to give him an alternative version. Reaching out to collect my rejected draft, he clung to the paper, saying he wanted to read it. ‘‘But, Sir,’’ I said, now almost in tears, ‘‘you said it was useless.’’ ‘‘Of course,’’ retorted K.B., ‘‘it must be useless. What makes you think you’d be at your best the first time round? Do me another draft and I will read both together — and then let’s see how much better you are than even you think you are.’’

Promoted First Secretary a decade after I had first encountered him, I returned to Brussels — this time in our mission to the European Economic Community — where K.B. Lall was reposted after his brilliant showing as Principal Secretary, Defence, in the 1971 war. K.B. threw the whole of the EEC Commission into a tizzy, insisting there was nothing exclusively ‘‘commercial’’ about the proposed India-EEC commercial cooperation agreement because the agreement must recognise India as a democracy — a claim which our chief commercial rival, China, could not make, thus giving us a political edge over the obvious fascination in Europe about economic ties with China. The diplomatic battle was long and arduous, but eventually we had to settle for ‘‘democracy’’ not figuring in the agreement.

An opportunity to retrieve lost ground came when the secretariat of the European Parliament asked me to help them draft the European Parliament’s opinion on the agreement. I brought in everything we had lost out on. Having sewn up the secretariat, the remaining task was to persuade the French parliamentarian chairing the relevant committee to endorse my alternative draft.

I waited a whole day to meet the man and get his approval, but after many postponements, he finally sent a message saying he would not be able to see me as immediately after his meeting he was leaving for Paris by the 6 pm Trans-European Express. Chagrined, I returned totally dejected to the Chancery and as my tale of woe reached its climax about the MP leaving for Paris by the TEE, Ambassador Lall interrupted me, saying, ‘‘And so are you!’’ I rushed to the station, jumped on to the TEE and between Brussels and Paris got the French MP to sign on the dotted line. That was the kind of boss one could only dream of.

So when I was being a bit pompous with my daughter who was complaining about her initial career problems by bringing up the problems I had faced at her age, she snapped back, ‘‘Ah, but I don’t have K.B. Lall as my boss!’’

I think the army of acolytes that K.B. Lall mustered — among them External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, Planning Commission member N.K. Singh, GATT specialist Anwar Hoda, former cabinet secretary Surendra Singh, and a myriad others — would have no hesitation in accepting that we were indeed the blessed ones. In recognition of his services to the nation, K.B. Lall was eventually awarded the Padma Vibhushan a full three decades after he retired from active service. It is the one act of the Vajpayee government I wholeheartedly applaud.