SUB Hamburg

A/600041

WALKING

WITH

LIONS

Tales from a Diplomatic Past

K. NATWAR SINGH

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HarperCollins Publishers India
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Contents

A Prefatory Note

An Ill-tempered PM

A Spat with Morarji Desai

3 " A Progressive Conservative

4

Frontier Gandhi: The Forgotten Hero

A False Alarm

A Teddy Bear and a Slipped Disc

An Encounter with Robert Mugabe

Dr Zakir Hussains Death and Beyond

Princes, Privileges and Privy Purses

10 The Legacy of Nehru

11 Nehru's Sisters
12 A Tale of Three Stephanians
13 The Gentleman Politician
14 Lord Mountbattens Obsession
15 How PV Became PM

viii

CONTENTS

16 The Born Dissenter

67

17 Fenner, JP and the Emergency

71

18 The Perils of Diplomacy

75

19 A Tale of an IFS Probationer

78

20 President Ronald Reagan Stymied

82

21 Gandhi and the Eiffel Tower

86

22 A White House Invitation That Never Was

90

23 Castro and the New Afghan Government

95

24 Cambodia and Its King

99

25 General Vo Nguyen Giap: A Master Militarist

103

26 Hastings Banda and Diplomatic Protocol

107

27 High-level Municipal Diplomacy

111

28 His Imperial Majesty and His Quadrupeds

115

29 The King of Nepal and I

120

30 The Road to Mandalay

124

31 The Forgotten Cause Celebre

127

32 Instant Diplomacy at Harare

131

33 The Wrong Road

135

34 The Sardar Outwits Bhutto

139

35 High Diplomatic Tantrum

144

36 In and Out of the Stone Age

149

37 Radhakrishnan Surprises Mao

154

CONTENTS

38 A Rendezvous with Nelson Mandela

39 A Distraught Begum
40 In Russia with Sonia Gandhi and President Putin
41 Margaret Thatcher, Chandraswami and I
42 The Ubiquitous Swami
43 A Medium Called Albert Best
44 An Encounter with Qi Baishi
45 The Dalai Lama Arrives in India
46 A Brief Rendezvous with Don Bradman
47 Nehru and Gordimer
48 Husain the Genius
49 All's Well That Ends Well
50 Remembering Dev Anand