Bob McNamara was a phenomenon, and a complex one at that. Also, he was a phenomenon of my generation. In the mid-’60s, in College America, he was a hate figure. A former president of Ford — when it was still a real company — he was the epitome of ruthless efficiency as US defence secretary, of saturation and carpet bombing to destroy the “sanctuaries” of the Viet Cong. As the idealism of the Kennedy period gave in to the cynicism of the Johnson era, he was at the centre of protest. That the first sit-in was at Berkeley is a myth of history. It was at College Hall at the University of Pennsylvania; and, as the vice-president of the Foreign Students Association, I was there. So, of course, were many of my teachers. But it was a genteel world. Penn was the Iviest of the Ivies; the Quakers were horrified at the charge that they didn’t defend the leftist India-specialist Daniel Thorner from McCarthy and went to any lengths to prove that Daniel left on his own. And, in the genteel protests in old coffee houses and mahogany-tiled college lounges, McNamara was very much there in spirit.

Of course, my generation would give all of that up and come home. A few years later, I was in the Planning Commission, building the first real plan for food self-reliance on orders from Indira Gandhi, the first one.

McNamara was now in his second — or third? — role and was visiting India as head of the World Bank. The same no-nonsense efficiency, the same missionary zeal, and the belief in his own infallibility. Now the objective was a little more noble: abolishing poverty. The finance ministry adored him. But when he asked to go to the Planning Commission, things were different. Sukhomoy Chakravarti was in Holland at the time, and so my boss was the one and only P.N. Haksar and he would ask me to join when royalty visited.

... contd.