Kallol Bhattacherjee has penned a fascinating and colourful account, replete with engaging anecdotes, about the first generation of Indian diplomats who were inducted into the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister. More than any other government service, the IFS personnel have been prolific in publishing their memoirs and reminiscences. Yet, Bhattacherjee’s narration is of value as it concerns a large number of Independent India’s first diplomatic practitioners, many of whom have not recorded their experiences and about whom little is known outside the IFS fraternity.
Rightly regarded as the architect of the Indian foreign policy, Jawaharlal Nehru, soon after taking charge as the head of the Interim Government in September 1946, conceived the IFS as an integrated service to take care of all Indian missions and posts abroad, ‘whether diplomatic, consular, or commercial’. To get the Ministry of External Affairs going, Nehru tapped into a diverse pool for selecting the early recruits: many of them were from the Indian Civil Service, some from the armed forces, a few ex-Indian National Army, media men, employees of Indian royalty, and at least one lawyer, PN Haksar (see pp. 1-53).