Diplomacy from the outside in

This is a compelling and lucidly written memoir of a distinguished academic who established himself as a diplomat and special envoy, turfusually reserved for career diplomats. SD Muni was appointed by Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral as India's ambassador to Laos in 1997.

In 2005, he became India's special envoy and was involved in the complex diplomatic parleys of the faction-ridden domestic politics of India's two key neighbours, Nepal and Sri Lanka. He describes meeting presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and other high-level

stakeholders in these negotiations, including rival leaders of political factions, with some understatement, as "dabbling".

How did a school teacher become a special envoy? He compresses this trajectory into one introductory chapter that ascribes his rise not just to passion and tenacity but also good luck. After obtaining an MSc degree he taught science in school in his home state of Rajasthan, sat privately for a Master's in political science and subsequently made a career teaching political science and the geopolitics of south Asia at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Professor Muni arguably is one of India's most authoritative Indian scholars on Nepal and India-Nepal relations. He was able to leverage his scholarship to the cause of diplomacy, which he describes in the second and the third chapters titled "Nepal: Struggle for Democracy" and "Nepal's Mainstreaming of Maoists". These chapters shed light on Nepal's complex