The Iranian polymath Al Beruni famously decried the lack of a sense of history among Indians. And it is true that right upto 15th century AD the civilization that was India continued weak in historiography. Even thereafter, looking at our external relations, the weakness persisted.
AS Bhasin’s work fills, and remarkably well, a large gap in the history of our external relations. He served in the Historical Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, retired as Director and has, over the last thirty-one years since then, systematically collected and published documents on India’s external relations, particularly with its neighbours, the agreements arrived at, the exchanges that led up to them, and how they were implemented.
In this volume he takes up five important agreements for study and analysis of the skill with which they were negotiated, and how effectively the final product served India’s interests.