My preparations for the new assignment comprised briefings at the Army HQ, visits to various defence and industrial installations, and language training. The Army HQ insisted that I relearn Arabic, whereas we were told that in Algeria, French was more commonly spoken. We left for Algiers in December 1987. For me and our children, Vivek and Sonia, it was the first time we had left the shores of India. Rohini had lived in Afghanistan and France, where her father had been posted as a defence attaché, and had even travelled all over Europe and UK. Besides, she spoke French fluently and taught me as well. So she was our French teacher, guide and interpreter during the initial period of our stay in Algeria. Later, I joined the Alliance Francaise and took the French language course. Within a few months, I began to speak and write reasonably well; well enough to read Le Monde.
Our ambassador, Vijay Nambiar, was an outstanding diplomat. He and his wife, Malini, were very warm towards us and helped me to start the defence wing in our mission in Algiers. My task was to represent the armed forces of our country and build bridges of friendship between the two militaries. It is the second largest country in Africa and one of the most beautiful. It extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the middle of the Sahara desert. I got an opportunity to visit the length and breadth of this country and also some of its defence formations and establishments. Since they had mostly Soviet-origin equipment like T 72 tanks, Mig 21 aircraft and naval ships and submarines, they were keen to collaborate with us, particularly in the repairs, maintenance and overhaul of such equipment. Unfortunately, we could not help them much because of the shortage of spare parts. I was able to work out an official visit of our air chief but it had to be cancelled at the last minute due to tension with Pakistan along our western border in the early part of 1990. I had convinced the Algerians to ask for an Indian Air Force training team to train them in handling IL 76 aircraft, which they were planning to acquire. Their navy wanted to acquire submarine batteries from India so they were asked to get in touch with the ministry of defence. Their armed forces did subscribe for some courses of instruction, but then language was a hurdle as very few amongst them spoke or understood English.
During this tenure I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend three defence expositions: the Defendory in Greece, the Paris airshow and the Euro-Satory, also in Paris. It was almost unbelievable to see a Mig 29 flying barely 200 feet above us and crash in front of our eyes. The pilot was doing a cobra manoeuvre and when he pulled up there was a system failure. Luckily there were no casualties. The pilot ejected and was lucky to survive. I believe the Russians sold a lot of their ejection systems. The other thing I could not get over was a modern helicopter making a full circle. During this manoeuvre, at one stage the fuselage was on top of the rotor blades and the chopper was flying upside down!
This diplomatic assignment gave us an excellent opportunity to travel across the Maghreb, Europe and the UK. We invested in a complete set of camping equipment – tents, sleeping bags, mattresses, etc. Our most memorable outing in Algeria was a week-long camping tour in the wilderness of the great Sahara desert. We drove all over Europe, and enjoyed a vacation every summer, camping wherever we found a nice camping site. Interestingly, we slept out in the open one night in Switzerland, nicely snuggled in our sleeping bags besides our Peugeot 405, in a parking space on the side of the road! The thought that such an action was against the rules never occurred to me. Besides, we were dog-tired after travelling for the whole day, and all camping grounds had closed for the day. We woke up early in the morning and drove on.
We were able to visit many countries in this gypsy mode, as it was a very inexpensive way to travel. We travelled to Morocco, Spain, France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, erstwhile Czechoslovakia, erstwhile East and West Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. A day or two after the Berlin Wall fell, we happened to drive into Berlin. There was chaos and confusion all over. The police, customs or border control personnel were nowhere to be seen. Like everyone else, we also tried to chip away a piece of the famous wall. We succeeded in doing that and preserved that piece for many years, till one of our orderlies threw it away thinking it was junk!
I recall a discussion between my son Vivek and me in a camp in Spain. He said he wanted to join the army and continue the family tradition. I said it was a fine idea, but he needed to bear in mind that as he rose higher, he would lose out on the age factor by a year or two, because of changing so many schools and having moved to Algeria. He could lay the blame squarely on me for that. Besides, I said, ‘there aren’t going to be wars in the future, only low-intensity conflicts. It might be a century where economic wars are going to be fought. So, why don’t you consider being an economic warrior for the country?’ That is what he is doing today.
We happened to be in Algeria when Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq’s plane crashed mysteriously on 17 August 1988. On that day there was a children’s party and my son and daughter were at the house of a friend whose father was an ambassador. All of a sudden, there was commotion there. My son found out the cause and informed me. In turn, I apprised our ambassador of Zia-ul-Haq’s death. This was about two hours before the BBC broke the story. Our ambassador was very impressed with my networking. Only this time I didn’t reveal my source! Vivek got a nice treat from me for his alertness and presence of mind.
Another memorable event at the end of our stay in Algiers was an exhibition of paintings by Rohini. The theme was the people of Algeria. The ambassador, C.P. Ravindranathan, was not only kind enough to inaugurate the exhibition, but also included it as one of the activities of the mission for the year. The Algerians were warm to us – they loved India because of our moral and diplomatic support to them during their freedom struggle; they also loved our food, music and films. The Algerians would do anything to acquire an audio or videocassette of a Bollywood film. Besides that, quite often, the people would ask me, ‘Are you from India?’ When I nodded, they would effusively continue, ‘Le pays de Gandhi! Quel grand homme et quel magnifique pays!’ (The country of Gandhi! What a great man and what a magnificent country!) This is indeed a true reflection of India’s soft power.
At the end of my stay of three years in Algeria, I received orders to take over 79 Mountain Brigade on promotion to the rank of brigadier. This brigade was in the Kashmir valley. Our son had already joined the university in Le Havre, a port town near the coast of Normandy, to do a masters programme in commerce. And our daughter had returned to India a little earlier, to join the Army Public School in Delhi. We flew back to India after a few days’ stay at London and Paris, where our military attaché, Brigadier (later lieutenant general) Raj Kadyan, and his wife, Anita, hosted us warmly.
Towards the end of our stay in Algeria, we saw changes taking place in its society. People were getting under the influence of fundamentalists and new mosques were being built with funds reportedly coming from Saudi Arabia and other sources. One day our daughter’s Algerian friend told her that she couldn’t move out of her house anymore without wearing a hijab (head scarf) and that she would have to be escorted by her brother. Soon after we left in December 1990, Algeria went through a vicious cycle of religious extremism and terrorism. The situation became so bad that for some time we had to close down our mission in Algiers. All the hard work done by us to build bridges and enhance cooperation in the political, diplomatic and military fields was undone.