Ian Talbot - The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan

This book is the first account of the British diplomatic mission in Pakistan from its foundation at the end of the Raj in 1947 to the War on Terror.

Drawing on original documents and interviews with participants, this book highlights key events and personalities as well as the influence and perspectives of individual diplomats previously not explored. The book demonstrates that the period witnessed immense changes in Britains standing in the world and in the international history of South Asia to show that Britain maintained a diplomatic influence out of proportion to its economic and military strength. The author suggests that Britains impact stemmed from colonial-era ties of influence with bureaucrats, politicians and army heads which were sustained by the growth of a Pakistani Diaspora in Britain. Additionally, the book illustrates that Americas relationship with Pakistan was transactional as opposed to Britains, which was based on ties of sentiment as, from the mid-1950s, the United States was more able than Britain to give Pakistan the financial, military and diplomatic support it desired.

A unique and timely analysis of the British diplomatic mission in Pakistan in the decades after independence, this book will be of interest to academics working in the fields of South Asian History and Politics, International Relations, British and American Diplomacy and Security Studies, Cold War Politics and History and Area Studies.

Ian Talbot is a professor of Modern South Asian History at the University of Southampton, UK. His recent Routledge publications include the edited books India and World War I (co-edited with Roger Long, 2018) and State and Nation-Building in Pakistan (co-edited with Roger Long, Gurharpal Singh, and Yunas Samad, 2015).

Edited by Subrata K. Mitra

Heidelberg University, Germany and Rani Mullen College of William and Mary, USA

South Asia, with its burgeoning, ethnically diverse population, soaring economies and nuclear weapons, is an increasingly important region in the global context. The series, which builds on this complex, dynamic and volatile area, features innovative and original research on the region as a whole or on the countries. Its scope extends to scholarly works drawing on history, politics, development studies, sociology and economics of individual countries from the region as well those that take an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the area as a whole or to a comparison of two or more countries from this region. In terms of theory and method, rather than basing itself on any one orthodoxy, the series draws broadly on the insights germane to area studies, as well as the tool kit of the social sciences in general, emphasising comparison, the analysis of the structure and processes, and the application of qualitative and quantitative methods. The series welcomes submissions from established authors in the field as well as from young authors who have recently completed their doctoral dissertations.

URL: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-South-Asian-Studies/book-series/RASAS

38. Radicalization in Pakistan
A Critical Perspective
Edited by Muhammad Shoaib Pervez

39. Society, Resistance and Civil Nuclear Policy in India
Nuclearising the State
Varigonda Kesava Chandra

For a full list of titles, please see: https://www.routledge.com/asianstudies/series/RASAS

Ian Talbot

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Ian Talbot

The right of Ian Talbot to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-53613-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-08838-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by MPS Limited, Dehradun

PART I:
The Formative Phase

1 Partition and the Establishment of a British Diplomatic Mission in Karachi

2 A Corner of a Foreign Field: The British Deputy High Commissions in Pakistan 19471958

3 Contrasting Personalities: Laurence Grafftey-Smith and Gilbert Laithwaite, British High Commissioners 19471954

4 Diplomats and their Wives: Alec and Dodo Symon in Karachi, 19541961

PART II:
From High Commission to Embassy

5 Sir Morrice James: Kashmir and War

6 The Diplomatic Mission in Crisis 19701971

7 The Embassy Years 19721989

PART III:
The Contemporary High Commission

8 Twenty-First Century Diplomatic Challenges and Tools

9 The High Commission in a Decade of Turmoil 19982008

5.1 Page 102 High Commission Staff Housing under construction 1973 courtesy of historic England

5.2 Page 103 High Commission Completed offices courtesy of historic England

8.1 Page 181 High Commission Chancery courtesy of Mark Bertram.

9.1 Page 202 High Commission Residency from Garden Courtesy of Mark Bertram.

I am delighted and honoured to write the foreword for Ian Talbots latest book, which seems to me to be a book that only he could write. The title of the book and its primary subject a history of British diplomacy with Pakistan, as seen through the various activities and functions of the United Kingdoms Embassy/High Commission in Pakistan, and mainly through the eyes and memories of the many excellent British diplomats who served in them may strike a casual reader as narrowly conceived. But, in fact, the opposite is true; Talbot uses his description of the history of British diplomacy with Pakistan, to tell the story of Pakistans history, as seen from different vantage points. To use a musical analogy, he manages faultlessly a polythematic score relating a complex story which would seem at first glance to be monothematic. He does so by using descriptions of how various embassy functions, from political reporting and analysis to consular requirements, to social activities, come into play as embassies work to further their national interests in a specific country. In this book, the principal theme, or melody, is how British embassies work through the wide range of embassy functions to further UK interests in the specific case of Pakistan. But, as in any good polythematic score, one hears or in this case reads a second theme, or melody, clearly audible as a countersubject, which is the history of Pakistan itself-its ups and downs, wars and rivalries, democratic and autocratic periods, times in the international diplomatic doghouse and times of international diplomatic acclaim. Like its relations with the West in general, Pakistans history is a roller coaster ride.