ABSTRACT
Against the declared intention of the Nehru administration, its foreign policy was strongly influenced by Western approaches to foreign affairs. British trained officers of the Indian Civil Service dominated the newly established Indian Foreign Service, and they took up their new tasks with worldviews formed in the interwar period. These were, most prominently, decades-long experiences with the issue of Indians overseas, taken care for by the Department of Education, Health and Lands. Girja Shankar Bajpai as the key official in that department and as Secretary-General of the new Ministry of External Affairs and de facto Foreign Minister between 1947 and 1952 very much shaped the Foreign Service according to his conceptions, mostly realism and anti-communism; Subimal Dutt as India’s longest serving Foreign Secretary paid tribute to them until 1961. In addition, with K.P.S. Menon, India’s top diplomat from 1929, aspects of the political thinking of the Foreign and Political Department survived. Focusing rather on personalities than ideologies, he helped to close the gap between Delhi and Moscow and the establishment of a lasting political partnership.
