Hardeep Singh Puri retired in 2003 as our Permanent Rep at the UN. His book released in June this year has invited rave reviews ."Perilous Interventions-The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos" is claimed to be one of the best books on the decision making process of the security council.
FICCI-FLO at their LITFEST event at Pune,on 14 Jan, invited him to talk about " Flawed Decisions which gave rise to ISIS". My introduction of Hardeep as the moderator of this session, is placed below. Link to the one hour session is still awaited.
Ladies and Gentlemen, for this session which discusses
"Flawed policies that gave rise to ISIS" we have amidst us a diplomat,
who after 39 years in the foreign service of India, to which you can add three
more with the International Peace Institute, has in Jun 2016,authored a book
titled "PERILOUS INTERVENTIONS-THE SECURITY COUNCIL AND THE POLITICS OF
CHAOS" Why did this book become an instant success? Ambassador Hardeep
Singh Puri's last assignment was the permanent representative of India at the
United nations in New York from 2009 to
2013. This quintessential second generation diplomat(son of an Indian Diplomat) had served as a young officer in Japan and Sri lanka, as DCM at London, in Geneva as a permanent rep of India and in Brazil as our Ambassador. Educated in Delhi, he taught at St Stephans before
joining the foreign service.
I first heard of this dynamic young Puri,when he was at
Colombo at a crucial period of the Indo-Sri Lankan peace accord of 1987, when Mr Mani Dixit was the High Commissioner and I was
the Naval Advisor to Mr SK Singh at
Islamabad in 1985-88. There was much discussions on the LTTE and their possible
linkages with the ISI of Pakistan. We exchanged some interesting information without having met anywhere. No
social media ,no Google, no pictures. We were faceless diplomats.
Fast forward and in 1995, Hardeep lands up as Joint sec at
MOD when I was steering the naval plans and budget. We hit it off from day one.
Being a quintessential diplomat he had mastered the art of occasionally telling me to go to hell, so convincingly,
that I had begun to look forward to that trip. But as a seasoned sailor, I too had a few tricks up my sleeve,
albeit shorn of all diplomacy, but filled with nautical gems. This then solidified
our friendship.
More than a decade
later, in 2011, we both met at Geneva at the annual conference of the
International Institute for strategic studies He was by then our permanent rep
at New York and I had superannuated . He
spoke at a plenary session on the future of UN and I, on Rising military powers
in Asia. This Indian pair had done it
again. There were rumblings among the predominantly western experts in the
audience. But, we celebrated the rumblings with a quick drink at a popular bar
which was perhaps a wee bit cheaper that the Manhattan bars that is frequented
by senior UN functionaries at New York.
On a serious note, Hardeep's tenure at the UN, 2009-2013, was eventful, as India returned to the famous
horse shoe table of the security council as a non permanent member after a lapse of 17 years. That was a significant election. 187 of the 190 member
countries voted in favour of India. Even Pakistan voted in our favour. That was
Hardeep's moment to savour, for, India had lost the elections badly 17 years
ago.
He then held the post of the
President of the council twice and chairman of its counter terrorism committee
for two years. That is when he saw the ugly under belly of the decision making process of the Security
council consisting of 5 permanent members, USA, UK,France,China and Russia and
ten elected members .
As Robert Bolono once said, "People see what they
want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the
truth."
To enlighten us this
evening, Ladies and gentlemen put your hands together to welcome Ambassador
Hardeep Puri .
