In the old days a diplomat was known as a plenipotentiary, the very term suggesting gravity and pomposity. Much of that has lingered even in today’s egalitarian age. A clear exception is Walter J. Lindner, former German ambassador to India, who had become quite the talk of New Delhi at one time with his red Ambassador car, long hair and informal ways. His connection with India seemed pre-ordained almost — first as a young backpacker making his way through a strange bewildering subcontinent, then as an envoy representing his country in India.
Lindner, as his book amply illustrates, seems to have retained the curiosity of a backpacker even as he occupied the high ambassadorial office of a major world power. This makes his book on his days and observations on India a delightful as well as an insightful read.
Lindner clearly did not stand on a pedestal: “…the more we get to know about the rest of the world, the greater our humility and modesty must become — one which demands us to ask why the differences exist, instead of justifying our own dominance. Arrogance and condescension are based on ignorance and limited horizons.”
He decries the hauteur common to diplomacy: “Rhetorical phrases and a verbal cocoon of diplomatic language indeed are useful in maintaining the distance between what has been said and the people out in the real world.”
As a diplomat, he encouraged his “colleagues to visit the project sites themselves, to see people’s everyday lives and get a first-hand impression. They needed to get dust on their shoes, and return to the office sweaty and impressed by what they had seen”. This in his view was the only way to close the offending distances of hierarchy and separateness.
Lindner also demonstrates an acute sensitivity to global geopolitical changes. “With around 750 million citizens, only around nine per cent of the world’s population lives in Europe… Non-European countries’ view of the world therefore characterises over 90 per cent of the planet’s population,” he points out. “As a result, anyone who engages in German or European navel-gazing is falling short. We often succumb to a Eurocentrism that is not well received in many countries of the Global South.”
Just how true this is can be gauged by how India reacted to European criticism of its refusal to toe the Western line on Russia sanctions. He quotes Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s famous riposte: “Europe needs to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” Even though Lindner’s and Germany’s official position on the Ukraine war and Russia’s role in it differed from India’s, he once again displays an ability to empathise with the counter-view and admit: “It can be said that the West has double standards!” His candour and empathy has produced a work that will serve as an eyeopener to people wishing to understand India a little better.
What the West Should Learn from India
Walter J. Lindner
Juggernaut
pp. 279: Rs 799
