An authentic hero — MIAF Arjan Singh

By K. Natwar Singh

Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh, DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross), was an authentic hero. After retiring from the Air Force, he served as India’s High Commissioner to Kenya and Ambassador to Switzerland. Then he became a philanthropist. He was 98 at the time of his death on September 16. He was cremated with full military honours.

With one exception his obituaries were banal. The exception was the Editor-in-Chief of this newspaper. Writing obituaries is literary undertaking. Most of our writers come up with hagiographies. 

One disagreeable memory sticks in my mind. Some years back the Marshal was to receive an award from President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Arjan Singh then was in his mid-nineties. He walked slowly, supported by an IAF officer. He had also acquired a stoop. Half way to the President, he stopped to catch his breath. The Rashtrapati kept sitting on his Presidential throne and did not move. A more imaginative man would have walked up to the Marshal to pin the Padma Vibushan on his chest. Shri Mukerjee for once slipped and slipped badly. 

Rajmata Mohinder Kaur passed away in July in Patiala at the age of 96. The time has now come to perpetuate her memory. Here I give my suggestions. The road in front of Moti Bagh Place should be named after her. A competent and impartial biographer should be located to write her biography. I am too old to do so. An orphanage, a school or college be named after her.

Last week, US President Donald Trump addressed the United Assembly on the opening day of the current session. As usual, he minced no words. The UN is financially sick, hugely over staffed and grossly inefficient. On all accounts I agree with the US President, who is normally error-prone. 

I spent nearly five years with the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations in New York (1961-66). The membership then was a little over 100. Now it is 193. In my time, the UN was taken seriously. Its de-colonisation record is exemplary. Its special agencies — WHO, ILO, FAO and UNICEF — still do splendid work. The most important branch of the UN is the Security Council. Its five permanent members are the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. These five have veto power. The non-permanent members do not. Each non-permanent member has a two-year term. We have been trying for a permanent membership for many years. No luck. China is permanent stumbling block. The UN is a good place to enjoy life, have affairs, make friends, go on UN jaunts, get to know the world and rub shoulders with the mighty.  If the UN did not exist, would it have been necessary to invent it? Perhaps.

The freshman Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaid Khaqan Abbasi, had the misfortune of being interviewed by the rigorously merciless Christian Amunpour. He came out both bruised and mauled. Pakistan has a monumental inferiority complex vis-à-vis India. The swan song is “Kashmir is the core issue”. It is not for us. The absurd threat of use of nuclear weapons indicates his ignorance of the foreign policy and defence realities. India is an existential threat, he said. The Oxford Dictionary describe existential as, “a philosophical theory which emphasises the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of will.” How long the nominated Abbasi will last is an interesting speculative pastime. I wish Pakistan well. It has not been fortunate in most of its leaders.

On February, 21, 1967, I sent Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a note quoting a comment on nuclear powers by a West German (still not united) and Christian Democrat MP: “Non-proliferation is like a club of notorious boozers who demand a written agreement from teetotallers that they will never take alcohol and won’t touch a drop when a glass is offered to them. And then after the pact is signed, these drinkers not only sit together and booze it up again, but throw empty bottles at the teetotallers.” The Prime Minister was duly amused.

Nayantara Sahgal is in her 90th year. She is defying old age. The other day an animated discussion was held at the India International Centre at the launch of her latest novel, “When the Moon Shines by Day”. What an attractive title. Someone mentioned dynasties. Tara said she was against dynasties. She belonged to no dynasty. “I am a Pandit. My father’s name was Ranjit Sitaram Pandit.”

Who is the richest woman in the World? Liliane Bettencourt (net worth $44.8 billion). Who is the richest man in India? Mukesh Ambani (net worth 37.9 billion). If you need a loan, ask him. He is a generous man.