T.N. KAUL

T.N. Kaul had a most unusual and eventful career in India's diplomatic service. Even before he was formally inducted into the Foreign Service in 1948 he had a foretaste of the problems faced by the young state organisation in measuring up to the challenges of international power politics. As a very young officer he participated in the selection of candidates from the officers of the Armed Services for post- War civilian duties. Quite a number of them were taken into the Foreign Service and worked under him.

He himself began at a junior level as the First Secretary in the embassies in Moscow and Peking. It was a most exacting time : India's credentials as a genuinely independent country were being questioned by the communist states and it fell to men like Kaul to convey our desire and ability to chart out a new course in the post-colonial world. His innings in China as the First Secretary and Counsellor was at an important stage in India-China relations, with India's emerging importance in Cold War diplomacy in Korea and Indo-China. Returning to India as the head of the China Division in the MEA in 1953 he played the decisive role in working out the India-China agreement of 1954 on Tibet. He went on to Indo-China as a pioneer in India's mediatory and facilitating diplomacy in the International Control Commission, alongwith G. Parthasarathi. He had a useful tenure, his first as an Ambassador, in Iran and went on to become the Deputy...