Flawed Policies that gave rise to ISIS

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 .