An Indian diplomat’s Karachi diaries

Karachi Halwa, anyone? No, I am not referring to the very sweet and calorie-laden dessert relished by South Asians. It’s the title of former Indian diplomat Prabhu Dayal’s latest book, a compilation of anecdotes and personal experiences, written in a light and breezy manner with a generous sprinkling of humour.

Dayal reminisces about his posting in Karachi as Indian consul general from 1981 to 1985 in Zia-ul-Haq’s Pakistan, which was going through major political upheavals that set the stage for religious extremism in a country whose destiny has been controlled as much by military dictators as by feudal dynasties.

Dayal served in various diplomatic positions in Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN at Geneva; he was appointed India’s consul general in Dubai (1994-1998), followed by ambassadorial stints in Kuwait (1998-2001) and Morocco (2004-2008). From 2008 until his retirement in 2013, he was India’s consul general in New York.

The book offers some interesting insights into the Pakistani attitude, particularly among the so-called “establishment” people — the military and government — who nurse deep-rooted distrust and suspicion bordering on paranoia against India. Dayal cites several instances of this, but the one that evokes amusement was his encounter with two Pakistani counter-intelligence agents tasked with shadowing his movements. “If I went into a shop, they would also come in and stand quite close to me. If I went to a restaurant, they would come inside to see who I was meeting there ... If I went to anybody’s house, they would stand outside the gate. Later, they would go inside the house to inquire why I had come there,” Dayal writes.

But Dayal’s presence of mind served him well. He recalls an incident when his car broke down with a flat tyre. The diplomat then approached them — an act they had not anticipated. He told them that he did not know how to change the tyre and asked if they could lend a hand, otherwise the three of them would be stuck there. Confused, the two helped out before resuming their duty. “Surprisingly, they became a bit friendlier and less intimidating after this incident. The ice had been broken ... I would smile when I saw them, and they would smile back,” Dayal says.

The announcement of Dayal’s Karachi posting has some melancholic yet comical undertones. After his Cairo stint, he had expected to get a posting either to Europe or America. “I started daydreaming about all those wonderful places I might be headed to,” Dayal says. “On one such day, a colleague walked into my office with a broad grin and a telex in his hand. ‘Great news!’ he proclaimed. Trembling with excitement, I asked him: ‘Washington? London?’ He handed me the telex. ‘Karachi?’ I screamed in disbelief, as his grin grew even broader. Not even in my worst nightmares had I seen myself being packed off to Karachi from Cairo.”

Dayal had presupposed that Pakistanis would be hostile to him. “Our two countries had fought wars in 1948, 1965 and 1971 ... and in the last among these, we had achieved a decisive victory that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh,” he says. “I stayed in Cairo for a few weeks more, agonising each day over how fate had dealt me such a cruel blow. I was so dejected that I could have well written my own obituary.”

Later, during a brief stay in Delhi on his way to Karachi, he met the then Additional Secretary S.K. Singh. “It was his ‘moving finger’ that had decided to send me to Karachi, for he was the all-powerful head of administration at the Ministry of External Affairs. Some years later, he would become the Foreign Secretary and move his finger with even greater authority to decide the fate of his colleagues — even the most senior ones. ‘We are sending you to a challenging assignment,’ he told me. I interpreted this to mean that it was an assignment for which there were no takers,” Dayal writes. “We had a chat about Karachi and the tasks for the Consulate. In a lighter vein, he remarked: ‘I love Karachi halwa. It’s delicious, though it often gives me indigestion’.”

Although its origin is Arabic, halwa is widely available in a variety of forms and colours in the subcontinent, and Karachi halwa enjoys a privileged place among South Asians.

Despite his initial misgivings, the Pakistan posting turned out to be unforgettable, with Dayal admitting that “nowhere else in my diplomatic career did I feel such an overpowering sense of a common heritage as I did in Pakistan”.

“In both countries, the issues in focus are those that divide us. This is of course unfortunate since present-day India and Pakistan have existed under similar influences for millennia and have remarkable similarities in a number of areas such as language, literature, art and architecture. I found that there was something rather unique about the experience of living amid my colonial cousins. The warmth and affection I sometimes received remain etched in my memory,” he says.

On one occasion, he wanted to buy a camel-skin lamp and found a shop that had what he was looking for. “As I was paying the bill, the elderly shopkeeper somehow figured out that I was from India, and asked me which city I hailed from. When I told him that I was from Allahabad, he refused to take any money as his wife was also from there. Finally, he agreed to let me pay as long as I would accept two lamps for the price of one.”

Dayal also had opportunities to interact with people who were the “very embodiment of sophistication and refinement. Remnants of the legendary Nawabi era, they were a charming blend of wealth and culture — poignant reminders of an age fast receding into the past”.

Dayal provides a window showcasing the harshness of Pakistani realpolitik, which he juxtaposes with the warmth and affection of the common people; it is what he calls the “unabashed lying and duplicity” which Pakistani leaders have developed into a “fine art”.

“Their pronouncements were often at such variance with ground realities that they were difficult to digest. My posting in Pakistan turned out to be so much like Karachi halwa.”

One of the leading exponents of this “art”, writes Dayal, was Zia-ul-Haq whose friendly demeanour vis-à-vis the then Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai was attributed to the two men’s common dislike of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Concealing his deviousness behind a veneer of charm, Zia would even talk to Desai about the latter’s urine therapy to win over his confidence, cleverly frustrating in the process any hostile designs on Pakistan’s nuclear facility. Years later, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated, sparking celebrations in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan, Dayal recalls the presence of Zia-ul-Haq — “who never seemed to run out of crocodile tears” — in Delhi to attend her funeral. When he returned to The Ashok hotel, Zia-ul-Haq preferred to climb five floors to his suite than take the lift.

When a member of his entourage suggested that he take the lift, Zia-ul-Haq replied in a low voice, assuming that everyone around him was Pakistani. What he did not know was that one of them was an Indian protocol official and a friend of Dayal. “You can never imagine what Zia said ... almost in a whisper. He said, ‘Aaj to hum paanch manzil bhi charh jayenge’ (‘Today I will climb even five floors’). Such was his sense of elation,” writes Dayal.

Dayal also recounts a conversation in Karachi with the official spokesperson of the Pakistani armed forces. After downing a couple of drinks, the military expert, Brigadier A.R. Siddiqui, told him: “Mr Dayal, very soon you will not be able to recognise the map of your country.” Clearly, he was hinting that Punjab was going to break away from India and become Khalistan.

Dayal writes that the remarks “were an indication of how military analysts and strategic thinkers in Pakistan viewed the developments across the border in India. They were convinced that India was going to break up as their own country had done a decade earlier. Zia’s government had done everything possible to fan the flames of separatism, and people such as Siddiqui were sure that these efforts were going to bear fruit soon. It was not difficult to understand that this was something they were hungering for; they simply wanted revenge for Bangladesh”.

Dayal says his analysis of Pakistan was as “relevant as I said in the book that the past, present and future are in one continuous motion”, adding that his experiences in Zia-ul-Haq’s Pakistan extend their “long shadow” not only over the present but also the future.

So what’s next on Dayal’s mind? “I have written a few articles since my retirement, but I find more fulfilment in writing books as they have a longer shelf life. I am now writing another book, and have not set any deadline for it,” he says.

Manik Mehta is a writer based in New York.