Fidel Castro's death: Hug that saved Indira's face

New Delhi, Nov. 26: Indira Gandhi had at least two reasons to be grateful to Fidel Castro when she hosted the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Delhi in March 1983. One, the Cuban leader clasped her in a bear hug whose pictures offset the bad press Indira was receiving over farcical Assembly elections in Assam and the accompanying massacre of 2,000-odd immigrants in one night over their voting rights. Two, he saved her face by bullying and cajoling a tantrum-throwing Yasser Arafat not to leave the summit midway in a huff.

When the summit opened on March 7, the delegates had been greeted with pictures of the murdered and mutilated children of the "Nellie massacre" on the cover of a leading Indian news magazine. But when Castro handed the NAM chairpersonship to "sister" Indira, pictures of the hug in which he held her dominated the media across the world. Former foreign minister K. Natwar Singh, who was NAM secretary-general at the time, has described in his autobiography how Castro defused a brewing crisis on the summit's opening day. "S.K. Lambah, the deputy secretary-general, came to me during the lunch break," the career diplomat turned politician writes in One Life is Not Enough. "Sir, we have a hell of a problem on our hands (Lambah said). Mr Yasser Arafat is most upset - he says he felt insulted by being asked to address the opening plenary session after the leader of the Jordanian delegation. Mr Arafat has already alerted the crew of his aircraft and will leave New Delhi this evening." Describing Arafat as a prima donna, Natwar says Indira requested Castro to tackle the situation. "To watch the Cuban leader handle the temperamental PLO leader was an education. Mr Arafat reached Vigyan Bhavan in record time. Mr Castro asked him if he was a friend of Indira Gandhi," Natwar writes. "The response was something on these lines: 'Friend, friend, she is my elder sister and I will do anything for her.' Next, Castro told Arafat, 'Then behave like a younger brother and attend the afternoon session.' It was over in two minutes. Arafat did as he was told." Natwar says that during the summit, Castro requested a viewing of Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, which was apparently not available in Cuba because of the US embargo. In Walking With Lions: Tales from A Diplomatic Past, Natwar writes that when he had met Castro in Havana in late 1982 as a diplomat, the Cuban President had asked him: "Who are the Gurkhas and what were they doing in the Falkland Islands?" The "7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles" regiment was part of the British task force sent to repel the Argentine invasion of the Falklands. Media reports had credited the Gurkhas with slitting the throats of 40 Argentine soldiers and jumping into enemy foxholes with live grenades. Natwar said he narrated a short history of the Gurkhas and their British connections. Castro then said he had been reading French mountaineer Maurice Herzog's book Annapurna, which frequently mentioned the Gurkhas. Castro told Natwar how he had met Jawaharlal Nehru for the first time in New York in 1960. "No hotel in New York would put him (Castro) up. He even told UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold that he would put up a tent in the UN compound. Finally, he stayed in a Harlem hotel," Natwar writes. The first world leader who came to see him was Nehru. "I can never forget his magnificent gesture. I was 34 years of age, not widely known. I was tense. Nehru boosted my morale. My tension disappeared," Castro told Natwar. In September 1961, when Nehru attended the first NAM summit in Belgrade, "I was then private secretary to R.K. Nehru, secretary-general of the ministry of external affairs," Natwar writes. "I was present at a meeting at which his Belgrade programme was being worked out." Natwar quotes Nehru as saying with a twinkle: "If Castro attends, I will have to spend an extra day in Belgrade. Castro will as usual make a six-hour speech." Rajiv Gandhi had a six-hour meeting in Havana with Castro in 1988. Natwar, who was at the meeting, writes: "Castro placed before us his weltanschauung (worldview) in soaring language and passion that made a lasting impression on Rajiv." Natwar adds: "It was a stunning tuition on the most intractable international issues. Granted it was a one-sided view, but Castro made a convincing case of it." When Natwar visited Havana in 1987, Castro told him: "I had been elected chairman of NAM in October 1979. In December 1979 the Soviets marched into Afghanistan. They did not even inform me - what do you think it did to my NAM chairmanship? All but destroyed it. They sent to Kabul a government in a suitcase." Castro was alluding to the pro-Soviet Afghan leader Babrak Karmal, who was sent to Kabul from Moscow to take over as Afghanistan's President, Natwar writes. -The Telegraph Calcutta