PV Narasimha Rao was the only Indian prime minister to establish a personal rapport with the world’s longest reigning monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, who died on Thursday. For all that he was styled King Rama IX, and his kingdom called itself Ayuthya when it wasn’t Suvarnabhumi, the American-born, Swiss-educated, jazz-playing 88-year-old monarch was one of the few Asian leaders never to set foot in this country.
His daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, with a degree in Oriental epigraphy, learned in Sanskrit and Pali, made up for it. She is a regular visitor. I met her first at Nurul Hasan’s lavish dinner table at Calcutta’s Raj Bhavan. Later, chatting in the Chitralada Palace in Bangkok, she warned that South-east Asia prefers the neutral adjective “Indic” to Indian to denote its cultural borrowings from India. The debt isn’t always gracefully acknowledged, and she added laughing that many Thais believe the Buddha was born in Thailand.
At one time she seemed likely to succeed her father as monarch. He altered Thailand’s constitution in 1974 to permit female rulers. Three years later, he granted her the Maha Chakri title, which meant protocol parity with her brother, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. But Bangkok speculated that since the princess never married, if she did inherit, the throne would eventually go to her brother or his children. It was also gossiped that like another mother nearer home, Queen Sirikit wanted her not particularly bright or popular son to be king.
King Adulyadej symbolised stability. He also ensured the monarchy’s continuance. The future may be uncertain on both counts without him.
Despite ancient linkages, Thailand’s relations with India weren’t always friendly. Bangkok gave Narasimha Rao a chilly reception in 1981 when he was returning from Vietnam as external affairs minister. Being staunch US allies, Thais accused Indira Gandhi of condoning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and supporting, at Moscow’s bidding, Vietnam’s 1978 invasion of Cambodia. The Vietnamese overthrew Cambodia’s ugly Khmer Rouge regime, and installed Heng Samrin’s government. “We were almost not on speaking terms,” Narasimha Rao told me. “Meetings with Thai officials were cold and correct.”
Ashok Gokhale, India’s ambassador, advised him against holding a press conference, but the Thais had arranged one and he was not going to shirk it even though the ambassador was “shivering and sweating”. Narasimha Rao took all the questions and because they went on for so long, asked Gokhale to hold up the plane and send for his cases so that he could drive straight to the airport. Everyone shook hands and congratulated him at the end on his courage, though they did not agree with India’s position on Cambodia or Afghanistan.
The visit’s real bonus was a meeting with King Adulyadej, which he developed further when he returned as prime minister 12 years later. Scheduled to last 30 minutes, the audience went on for two hours as the two men discussed the king’s efforts to introduce Thais to the computer keyboard and compared Thai and Telugu writing.
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India still wasn’t the flavour of the month, but Narasimha Rao’s waiver of visa fees for monks on pilgrimage was popular in a profoundly Buddhist society. The coldness that had set in after the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge was established following Rabindranath Tagore’s visit thawed further when Narasimha Rao inaugurated an India Studies Centre at Thailand’s Thammasat University. An ambitious trade target was set and a political dialogue belatedly started.
Thais revered their monarch, who was as influential as he was rich. Forbes estimated his fortune at $30 billion. But it always seemed an unnecessary modern affectation to me to plead he was above politics and had no power. He steered his 70-year reign through military coups, revolutionary changes and bloody riots. A nod from the king sufficed to exalt a politician to office. His silence meant disgrace for a leader. His frown quelled rioters. Army generals grovelled on the carpet at his feet. He needed no constitutional authority or even Thailand’s stringent lèse-majesté laws to be the ruler everyone loved to obey.
There won’t be another like him. His successor has visited India several times as crown prince but the only Thai monarch ever to do so was King Chulalongkorn, Rama V. He landed in Calcutta in 1872 wearing a sampot — the knee-length South-east Asian variant of our dhoti — and spent 47 days touring the country. Another kingly visit is long overdue when Thailand’s year of mourning is over and King Maha Vajiralongkorn has re-established the monarchy.