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Holbrooke and India: When irresistible force met immovable object

The man who died of a ruptured aorta was famously credited with bursting blood vessels of many a player in the world diplomatic community. Richard Holbrooke, who passed away on Monday in Washington DC at the age of 69 from complications following a heart surgery, was variously described as feisty, abrasive, and high-octane by admirers and critics alike. His in-your-face style earned him the nickname " Raging Bull." Henry Kissinger, his forbear in the world of aggressive diplomacy, once advised someone, "If Richard calls you and asks you for something, just say yes. If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful." But in the solid, stolid Indian government, Holbrooke, the irresistible force, met the immovable object. "New Delhi must have caused the ruptured aorta," was the feeble joke in the Indian analysts' community, as news of the death of this much-admired and often-feared man trickled through the diplomatic world. Some mandarins compared him to J.N.Dixit, India's former foreign secretary, who died less than a year into his role as the National Security Advisor, before he could leave his imprint on India's foreign policy, born from a capacious intellect and ceaseless learning. Like "Mani" Dixit in South Block, Holbrooke too fell just short of the policy making pinnacle in Foggy Bottom. A life-long Democrat, friend and acolyte of the Clintons, he was tipped to be Secretary of State if Hillary reached the White House in 2008. But Obama went on to become president, and in a political masterstroke, he offered the job to Hillary, leaving Holbrooke short of a career goal that began when he signed up for the U.S foreign service in the early 60s. In a sparkling career that lasted nearly half century, Holbrooke held almost every important job in Washington's diplomatic world, from serving as the U.S Permanent Representative to U.N to ambassador to Germany to two stints as assistant secretary. In between, during Republican dispensations, he was variously an investment banker, a magazine editor, and simply, a public intellectual. An internationalist, his expansive interests covered the globe, except for a small patch of geography that involved the sub-continent, although Indian mandarins had a few run-ins with him in Turtle Bay. President Obama plugged that gap that when he appointed Holbrooke a special envoy to the Af-Pak region. The scuttlebutt in Washington was that Holbrooke wanted India, including the vexing Kashmir issue, in his brief. The "Raging Bull" aka Bulldozer was famously credited with hammering together the Dayton peace accord (which his admirers felt should have earned him the Nobel Peace Prize). He believed that resolving the Afghan situation was linked to ending the tensions Pakistan had with India, and at the end of that rainbow (according to his fan club), lay a Nobel Prize. But New Delhi, questioning the line of argument linking Af-Pak to Kashmir, balked. The Obama administration was persuaded to keep Holbrooke's mandate restricted to Af-Pak, with the assurance that India would be happy to informally discuss its views on the region with him. For several months thereafter, Holbrooke tried to visit New Delhi, but there was always "scheduling problems" and the two sides struggled to find "mutually acceptable dates" – diplospeak for "you are not welcome just now." In the meantime, private efforts were made to bring Holbrooke up to speed on regional history and its nuances. A fair-minded man of formidable intellect and voracious reading habits, he devoured books and films on the region – and the job was pretty much done. When New Delhi finally consented to receive him in January this year, it was not the lion it expected, but a lamb. As Ambassador Timothy Roemer reported in his cable to Washington DC (disclosed by Wikileaks), Holbrooke, in his meeting with India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, "noted that he comes with a clear vision of the centrality of India to the strategic landscape in the region... He reiterated that his portfolio explicitly excludes India...Holbrooke assured Rao that he is in favor of Indian assistance programs in Afghanistan and is not influenced by what he hears in Islamabad."

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