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Nice Guys Finish Second, Memoirs
Memoirs of an Indian civil servant.
663 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
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December 17, 2025
When Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish economist and diplomat was killed in an aircrash in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) while serving as the Secretary General of the United Nations in 1961, one name doing the rounds to succeed him at the UN was Braj Kumar Nehru. That the Indian Civil Servant refused, or rather his position of strength was manipulated out of contention was erroneous, either way by his own admission or by the anti-hero, V Krishna Menon, the episode did cost India a coveted position, when at least the UN had teeth that sunk, contrary to what it has become today. The prolixity of BK Nehru's (BK, hereafter) memoirs might appear offish, it undoubtedly is engrossing, quite literally embroidering a rich tapestry of life intercoursed with some of the biggest personalities of post-independent India and a global who's who at the height of the cold war.
BK, Jawaharlal Nehru's nephew and Indira Gandhi's cousin burst on to the scene with quite a lot of cultural capital few could match. Not too studious, he managed to clear his ICS in his third and final attempt, while a student at the London School of Economics under the tutelary guidance of the luminous political theorist, Harold Laski. He later enrolled at the Balliol College, Oxford, where he was trained in civil services. Thereafter he moved to India and married his sweetheart, Fori, a Hungarian Jew, a constant companion to the Diplomat on his scores of calls of duty.
Born in 1909 in Allahabad, the memoirs talk of his formative years in Anand Bhavan, Allahabad, which was purchased by Motilal Nehru. This section has interesting titbits on the personalities of Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru. The former, though of a warm personality bordered on conservatism and played the role of the patriarch to the fullest, despite softening on Gandhian philosophy of simplicity off and on. The latter, Jawaharlal Nehru, who would shape his career in more ways than one was an idealist early on, and who shunned material life much to the dismay of Motilal and was focused on nation building by spending a lot of time in the company of the disadvantaged. Though, shortcomings of India's first Prime Minister are mentioned, specially his temperament, his distant engagement with matters of import, BK never doubted the intellectual and committal integrity of Jawaharlal Nehru. Though, he does question the Prime Minister's poor judgement of people, especially his gaffe in reading Zhou Enlai and closer home his fondness for V Krishna Menon.
Nehru’s very special relationship with Krishna Menon defies all known administrative norms. It was with utmost reluctance that he accepted Menon’s resignation as Defence Minister even after the man had heaped on his mentor’s head the worst humiliation of his life which the 1962 debacle against China indeed was. BK mentions Vijaylakshmi Pandit’s explanation for Nehru’s fondness for Menon. According to her, Menon was the only one in his Cabinet of mediocrities (whom, incidentally, he himself had selected) that Nehru could relate to. “Both were ‘Englishmen’” Seemingly, no other contemporary of his was intellectually developed enough to share Nehru’s perceptions of national and international issues. So Menon took the place of Edwina Mountbatten and after him there was an irreparable void in the man’s life. BK devotes several pages to Menon, his behaviour and conduct and, more significantly, “the extraordinary hold Krishna Menon had on Jawaharlal Nehru”. Menon was a “favourite student of Harold Laski” — which meant a great deal in those days. And like all politically minded students he chose to stay on in England and established the Indian League which played a significant role in propagating the cause of India’s independence.
BK traces Jawaharlal-Krishna Menon friendship back to 1935. It was Menon who introduced Jawaharlal to leading lights of the Labour Party. Those were the days of the Spanish civil war when left-wing views were intellectually de rigueur. Leftist political thinking, in all likelihood, was the bond between Jawaharlal and his new-found friend. Over the years, this association blossomed into close friendship and Jawaharlal began to “rely on Menon for advice on international matters and use him, as it were, as Ambassador of the Congress to the supporters in Europe of Indian independence”. It must be mentioned in Menon’s defense that he was an extremely well-read and well-informed man who could, at the drop of a hat, rattle off facts and figures about any subject under discussion. Menon still holds the record for the longest speech in the UN, lasting 9 hours, a speech that BK hasn't mentioned very favorably upon.
After returning back from England, his first posting was in Hisar, from where the book begins the life of a diplomat, which in those days of pre-independence wasn't smooth sailing in the least. He shuffled thereafter to Dharamshala and stayed put in positions in the North for a substantial time. Two years after independence, he was chosen as the Executive Director in the World Bank. Shortly thereafter, the negotiations for the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty had begun and the World Bank under Eugene Black mediated between the two countries in regards to sharing the waters of the Indus and its tributaries. After a lot of back and forth the Treaty was signed between Jawaharlal Nehru and Ayub Khan. It fell upon BK to convince Rajendra Prasad, the first President of independent India the viability of the treaty. It was after going international that BK's stature began to inflate. His network began to grow wide and deep. As an Economic Minister in Washington, D.C., Nehru was India's key negotiator in the protracted post-war conferences and discussions regarding the transfer and settlement of the large sterling balances accumulated by India during the war. The sterling balances represented the money owed by Britain to India for the goods and services supplied by India to the British war effort. India accumulated a substantial amount, about a third of the total global sterling balances by mid-1945. In the mid-1950s, a rapid expansion of imports led to a sharp decline in the balances, which B.K. Nehru described as a "hemorrhage in our foreign exchange resources". This foreign exchange crisis eventually led to the government imposing strict import controls to safeguard its currency reserves and channel foreign exchange towards capital goods for the Second Five-Year Plan. He acquired a reputation as an expert in managing external finance and foreign exchange, which led to his continued involvement in this area throughout his career in government.
Three chapters measure the contours of India-US relations, in which the role of BK cannot be underestimated. The professional and personal relations between BK and the Kennedys went so deep that the memoirs actually make it sound like India mattered most crucially to the US, and that BK had the easiest of access to the White House. The relations blossomed despite ideological differences, and India's not too hidden affinity towards the Soviets. After JFK was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson became the President, and initially there wasn't the rapport that BK had with LBJ's predecessor. But it gradually changed, and the warmth between LJB and BK quite surprised others in the political circles. It must, however, be noted that BK as was the case with India didn't support LJB's stance on Vietnam.
When Nixon took over, Indira was already India's Prime Minister succeeding Lal Bahadur Shastri, about whose integrity, BK writes an eulogy in his memoirs. It was in 1971, when East Pakistan was carved out as Bangladesh, a new country that India has helped borne. This was a low in the relationship between India and the US, and also a test of Indira Gandhi's strength and determination, which she most successfully portrayed to the entire world.
While BK was an ambassador to the US, Indira enforced emergency. To begin with, BK was a staunch supporter of the measure and defended it before realising that emergency had gone a bit too far and it somehow have birth to the madness that Sanjay Gandhi unleashed. In the ensuing elections Indira Gandhi lost and India saw its first non-Congress Government headed by Morarji Desai, with whom BK shared and extremely warm and friendly relation. The terms between BK and Indira Gandhi weren't always cordially, but constitutionality ruled the roost for the Diplomat.
BK was the Governor of Assam when he inaugurated the first Agency Council in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in 1969, marking a significant step towards self-governance and democracy in the region, which later became Arunachal Pradesh, a role he played as a key figure in establishing local legislative power within NEFA's evolving administrative structure. He chaired the first session of NEFA's Agency Council on December 3, 1969, marking a milestone for local political growth. He emphasized that this council empowered the people of NEFA to manage their internal affairs, fostering a new phase of constitutional advancement. His involvement was part of India's broader vision for NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh), focusing on development within traditional frameworks and tribal identity, as guided by figures like Verrier Elwin.
He was once again posted on an international assignment getting the position of High Commissioner's in London. England had ceased to be a power post WW2, and rarely counted as a serious contender to disrupt the global equation, except for adding its weight to the US' policy decrees.
As Governor of Kashmir, BK refused New Delhi's demand to oust Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, creating a political crisis and ultimately leading to his transfer out of J&K in 1984. He felt replacing Abdullah for political expediency (to install a Congress-backed leader) was wrong for the sensitive state, even though Abdullah was seen as unreliable and mismanaging the state by some. BK's last official position before retiring to the quaint hill station of Kasauli was as the Governor of Gujarat. The official residence had changed from Shah Jahan's palace to the Raj Bhawan. Interestingly, the diplomat felt not much to do in that state, where the common man on the street was more interested in earning his livelihood and politically the state didn't really have many challenges on offer, a stark contrast to what it is today.
The esteemed career of the diplomat is wittily written, or rather dictated due to his failing eyesight, and reiterated how standing by the constitution is an integral part of the civil service, be it in direct defiance of whatsoever or whosoever rules or are the powers that be. This fact has been numerously recognized throughout the text when he left no stone unturned to express his dissent with the authorities. BK Nehru breathed his last on the last day of October 2001, and despite his atheist incline, last rites were performed scripturally. A definitive read for everyone who gives an in-depth glance into diplomacy and/or bureaucracy.
BK, Jawaharlal Nehru's nephew and Indira Gandhi's cousin burst on to the scene with quite a lot of cultural capital few could match. Not too studious, he managed to clear his ICS in his third and final attempt, while a student at the London School of Economics under the tutelary guidance of the luminous political theorist, Harold Laski. He later enrolled at the Balliol College, Oxford, where he was trained in civil services. Thereafter he moved to India and married his sweetheart, Fori, a Hungarian Jew, a constant companion to the Diplomat on his scores of calls of duty.
Born in 1909 in Allahabad, the memoirs talk of his formative years in Anand Bhavan, Allahabad, which was purchased by Motilal Nehru. This section has interesting titbits on the personalities of Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru. The former, though of a warm personality bordered on conservatism and played the role of the patriarch to the fullest, despite softening on Gandhian philosophy of simplicity off and on. The latter, Jawaharlal Nehru, who would shape his career in more ways than one was an idealist early on, and who shunned material life much to the dismay of Motilal and was focused on nation building by spending a lot of time in the company of the disadvantaged. Though, shortcomings of India's first Prime Minister are mentioned, specially his temperament, his distant engagement with matters of import, BK never doubted the intellectual and committal integrity of Jawaharlal Nehru. Though, he does question the Prime Minister's poor judgement of people, especially his gaffe in reading Zhou Enlai and closer home his fondness for V Krishna Menon.
Nehru’s very special relationship with Krishna Menon defies all known administrative norms. It was with utmost reluctance that he accepted Menon’s resignation as Defence Minister even after the man had heaped on his mentor’s head the worst humiliation of his life which the 1962 debacle against China indeed was. BK mentions Vijaylakshmi Pandit’s explanation for Nehru’s fondness for Menon. According to her, Menon was the only one in his Cabinet of mediocrities (whom, incidentally, he himself had selected) that Nehru could relate to. “Both were ‘Englishmen’” Seemingly, no other contemporary of his was intellectually developed enough to share Nehru’s perceptions of national and international issues. So Menon took the place of Edwina Mountbatten and after him there was an irreparable void in the man’s life. BK devotes several pages to Menon, his behaviour and conduct and, more significantly, “the extraordinary hold Krishna Menon had on Jawaharlal Nehru”. Menon was a “favourite student of Harold Laski” — which meant a great deal in those days. And like all politically minded students he chose to stay on in England and established the Indian League which played a significant role in propagating the cause of India’s independence.
BK traces Jawaharlal-Krishna Menon friendship back to 1935. It was Menon who introduced Jawaharlal to leading lights of the Labour Party. Those were the days of the Spanish civil war when left-wing views were intellectually de rigueur. Leftist political thinking, in all likelihood, was the bond between Jawaharlal and his new-found friend. Over the years, this association blossomed into close friendship and Jawaharlal began to “rely on Menon for advice on international matters and use him, as it were, as Ambassador of the Congress to the supporters in Europe of Indian independence”. It must be mentioned in Menon’s defense that he was an extremely well-read and well-informed man who could, at the drop of a hat, rattle off facts and figures about any subject under discussion. Menon still holds the record for the longest speech in the UN, lasting 9 hours, a speech that BK hasn't mentioned very favorably upon.
After returning back from England, his first posting was in Hisar, from where the book begins the life of a diplomat, which in those days of pre-independence wasn't smooth sailing in the least. He shuffled thereafter to Dharamshala and stayed put in positions in the North for a substantial time. Two years after independence, he was chosen as the Executive Director in the World Bank. Shortly thereafter, the negotiations for the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty had begun and the World Bank under Eugene Black mediated between the two countries in regards to sharing the waters of the Indus and its tributaries. After a lot of back and forth the Treaty was signed between Jawaharlal Nehru and Ayub Khan. It fell upon BK to convince Rajendra Prasad, the first President of independent India the viability of the treaty. It was after going international that BK's stature began to inflate. His network began to grow wide and deep. As an Economic Minister in Washington, D.C., Nehru was India's key negotiator in the protracted post-war conferences and discussions regarding the transfer and settlement of the large sterling balances accumulated by India during the war. The sterling balances represented the money owed by Britain to India for the goods and services supplied by India to the British war effort. India accumulated a substantial amount, about a third of the total global sterling balances by mid-1945. In the mid-1950s, a rapid expansion of imports led to a sharp decline in the balances, which B.K. Nehru described as a "hemorrhage in our foreign exchange resources". This foreign exchange crisis eventually led to the government imposing strict import controls to safeguard its currency reserves and channel foreign exchange towards capital goods for the Second Five-Year Plan. He acquired a reputation as an expert in managing external finance and foreign exchange, which led to his continued involvement in this area throughout his career in government.
Three chapters measure the contours of India-US relations, in which the role of BK cannot be underestimated. The professional and personal relations between BK and the Kennedys went so deep that the memoirs actually make it sound like India mattered most crucially to the US, and that BK had the easiest of access to the White House. The relations blossomed despite ideological differences, and India's not too hidden affinity towards the Soviets. After JFK was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson became the President, and initially there wasn't the rapport that BK had with LBJ's predecessor. But it gradually changed, and the warmth between LJB and BK quite surprised others in the political circles. It must, however, be noted that BK as was the case with India didn't support LJB's stance on Vietnam.
When Nixon took over, Indira was already India's Prime Minister succeeding Lal Bahadur Shastri, about whose integrity, BK writes an eulogy in his memoirs. It was in 1971, when East Pakistan was carved out as Bangladesh, a new country that India has helped borne. This was a low in the relationship between India and the US, and also a test of Indira Gandhi's strength and determination, which she most successfully portrayed to the entire world.
While BK was an ambassador to the US, Indira enforced emergency. To begin with, BK was a staunch supporter of the measure and defended it before realising that emergency had gone a bit too far and it somehow have birth to the madness that Sanjay Gandhi unleashed. In the ensuing elections Indira Gandhi lost and India saw its first non-Congress Government headed by Morarji Desai, with whom BK shared and extremely warm and friendly relation. The terms between BK and Indira Gandhi weren't always cordially, but constitutionality ruled the roost for the Diplomat.
BK was the Governor of Assam when he inaugurated the first Agency Council in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in 1969, marking a significant step towards self-governance and democracy in the region, which later became Arunachal Pradesh, a role he played as a key figure in establishing local legislative power within NEFA's evolving administrative structure. He chaired the first session of NEFA's Agency Council on December 3, 1969, marking a milestone for local political growth. He emphasized that this council empowered the people of NEFA to manage their internal affairs, fostering a new phase of constitutional advancement. His involvement was part of India's broader vision for NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh), focusing on development within traditional frameworks and tribal identity, as guided by figures like Verrier Elwin.
He was once again posted on an international assignment getting the position of High Commissioner's in London. England had ceased to be a power post WW2, and rarely counted as a serious contender to disrupt the global equation, except for adding its weight to the US' policy decrees.
As Governor of Kashmir, BK refused New Delhi's demand to oust Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, creating a political crisis and ultimately leading to his transfer out of J&K in 1984. He felt replacing Abdullah for political expediency (to install a Congress-backed leader) was wrong for the sensitive state, even though Abdullah was seen as unreliable and mismanaging the state by some. BK's last official position before retiring to the quaint hill station of Kasauli was as the Governor of Gujarat. The official residence had changed from Shah Jahan's palace to the Raj Bhawan. Interestingly, the diplomat felt not much to do in that state, where the common man on the street was more interested in earning his livelihood and politically the state didn't really have many challenges on offer, a stark contrast to what it is today.
The esteemed career of the diplomat is wittily written, or rather dictated due to his failing eyesight, and reiterated how standing by the constitution is an integral part of the civil service, be it in direct defiance of whatsoever or whosoever rules or are the powers that be. This fact has been numerously recognized throughout the text when he left no stone unturned to express his dissent with the authorities. BK Nehru breathed his last on the last day of October 2001, and despite his atheist incline, last rites were performed scripturally. A definitive read for everyone who gives an in-depth glance into diplomacy and/or bureaucracy.
April 2, 2017
brings out many unknown truths and trivias
1. in olden days ICS had a culture where seniors used to treat juniors like younger brotehr but no longer
2. nepotism was prevalent, being cousing to powerful Pt Nehru meant he got plum postings from very beginning
3. same family which was benefitting from british system became ruling family of india later
4. set of 56 ics officers who ruled indai in 1947 were unaccountable lot
5. BK was personal friend of Kennedy and Johnson, we had good reputation and relations with USA which was frittered away by socialist and commuist minded leadership later
6. Pt Nehru used to depend on Pant for approval in later years
7. Nagaland problem was messed up because it was handled via MEA
8. Jagmohan played a very dubious role in destabilisng kashmir by toppling farookh abdullah govt
9. assam cm challiah was a nationalist
10. madhav singh solanki's cynical KHAM alliance cost gujarat a lot
11. period of importing wheat was really humiliating
1. in olden days ICS had a culture where seniors used to treat juniors like younger brotehr but no longer
2. nepotism was prevalent, being cousing to powerful Pt Nehru meant he got plum postings from very beginning
3. same family which was benefitting from british system became ruling family of india later
4. set of 56 ics officers who ruled indai in 1947 were unaccountable lot
5. BK was personal friend of Kennedy and Johnson, we had good reputation and relations with USA which was frittered away by socialist and commuist minded leadership later
6. Pt Nehru used to depend on Pant for approval in later years
7. Nagaland problem was messed up because it was handled via MEA
8. Jagmohan played a very dubious role in destabilisng kashmir by toppling farookh abdullah govt
9. assam cm challiah was a nationalist
10. madhav singh solanki's cynical KHAM alliance cost gujarat a lot
11. period of importing wheat was really humiliating
September 16, 2020
Nice Guys Finish Second (Hardcover) by Braj Kumar Nehru has written in detail about his childhood, education and in public service as an ICS officer. I liked the Book because I could relate to struggle for independence of India from British yoke. Second his posting as US ambassador- he has written about Aid India club and how he endeavored to organise it. His work with United Nations and Nehru's visit to USA. How Nehru worked untiring and his respect for Parliament- He always attended Parliament and never considered his health as a constraint. B K Nehru was not given much importance by Indira Gandhi after the death of Nehru but he took everything in good spirit and decided not to live in Delhi but live in Himachal Pradesh. His wife has complemented him well and his children have done their bit. Role of his wife after independence and her part in official duty as wife of an important dignitary are impressive. Friends of his children could always come to her and seek help and guidance. His children have always been connected to the larger Nehru family- the children of Nehru's sisters and other relatives. All this could be possible because of values inculcated by parents.
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