 "Navtej Sarna")
Navtej Sarna ('Nattu' to friends) has been named India's ambassador to the United States. In doing so, he has joined the august ranks of the likes of Vijayalakshmi Pandit, LK Jha and TN Kaul, to name just a few of the country's brightest. Where Sarna will be different from the previous incumbents will be his accessibility to reporters.
As Joint Secretary (external publicity) from 2002 to 2008, he was the Ministry of External Affairs' face for the media, the one-point stop for all queries relating to the conduct of foreign policy - from the sublime to the ridiculous. But Sarna handled all of them with equanimity and amiability. So Indian reporters know that if they ever go to Massachusetts Avenue, and drop in at the ambassador's office, he will engage them with a cup of tea if he is free.
His empathy for the media is not surprising. Sarna did not study at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, which has given many foreign service officers to India; nor did he go to St Stephen's college. He was a product of the Sri Ram College of Commerce and there, he reported on the Delhi University's North Campus for The Hindustan Times, graduating to writing feature stories.
He began his career in the Indian Foreign Service in 1980, but much of his diplomatic career was spent among reporters. From 1983 to 85, he was officer on special duty (press relations). These were the years when Sikh insurgency was at its height and press relations was an important component of diplomacy. The year India lifted the World Cup, Sarna was in Shastri Bhavan, helping negotiate India's place in the world. He was witness from Delhi to Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi's assassination and diplomacy by a government with 400 MPs in Parliament.
From 1998 to 2002, he was posted in Washington, again to handle the media as minister/counsellar. Those were the years of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and serious hostility to India following the nuclear tests. While secretary of state Madeleine Albright predicted that India had dug itself in a hole it would never be able to climb out from, Sarna worked quietly - but effectively- on sensitive issues relating to India's image abroad. Vajpayee's first visit to the US as India's Prime Minister saw Sarna handle the press - and when the 9/11 attacks took place, it was Sarna who briefed reporters in Washington in the absence of Lalit Man Singh, then ambassador, who was stuck in New York because all bridges and roads were closed and the airport shut down.
Sarna lives a double life - diplomat by day and raconteur in his off hours. He has written several books, both fiction and non-fiction. His first book, We Weren't Lovers Like That (Penguin India), was moderately successful but it was his later book on Duleep Singh, the son of the 'lion king' of Punjab, Ranjit Singh, who was made to sign away his kingdom to the British before he was 10, that became really popular.
In an effort to make this 'perfect Indian prince' loyal to the British court, Duleep was separated from his mother Jind Kaur and family, taken away to England, and brought up as a member of the English nobility. Sarna's book, The Exile, describes the life of this tragic prince who became a favourite of Queen Victoria, later falling from grace and turned away from the British Empire. Sarna researched the book thoroughly, even visiting the hotel in Paris where Duleep died alone, unsung and unloved, neither of the British, nor of the Punjabis. Sarna is quite proud of his book-writing career and told an interviewer that his count of rejection slips was considerable. "I even have one from The New Yorker," he said.
He owes his literary gene to his parents: his father, the late MS Sarna, an Indian Audit and Account Service officer, was a respected name in Punjabi literature while his mother Surjit Sarna, has established herself as a well-known translator. Sarna grew up on Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham as well as Punjabi literature.
Now, as he approaches the pinnacle of his career, some things are patently clear. Sarna still has nearly 18 months to go in service. The present Foreign Secretary, S Jaishankar, retires in January 2017. Rather than make Sarna foreign secretary, the government has opted to send him to Washington. This means a strong possibility that Jaishankar will get an extension.
But more than that, it is Sarna who will oversee US-India relations as the US gets a new president. If it is Donald Trump, Sarna could have a challenge on his hands. All told, he is set to see more excitement ahead.
