It’s only after talking to Kalarickal Pranchu Fabian that one can appreciate the nuances of overseeing the biggest civil evacuation in history more than three decades ago.
In 1990, more than 100,000 Indians were rescued in a little over two months. The war had been triggered by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to take control of the latter’s oil reserves.
That Gulf operation appears in sharp contrast to
what’s happening to thousands of Indian students who are currently stranded in various parts of war-torn Ukraine, with bombs going around them. If handled and coordinated well, an evacuation is eminently doable.
When Fabian, a former career diplomat who then headed the Gulf Division of the ministry of external affairs, was appointed secretary to the sub-committee headed by foreign minister IK Gujral in 1990 to evacuate Indians stranded in the Gulf, he could have scarcely divined that the biggest ever airlift in aviation history was beginning to unfold.
“The sub-committee itself had representatives from all ministries, including finance and railways. There was complete synergy between the Central government, state governments and the civil society and we looked up at the issues as they came up and tackled them in quick time, which, if ignored, can become big problems,” Fabian told Moneycontrol.
In all, 170,000 Indians were brought out of Kuwait by road. They proceeded overland through Iraq into Amman in Jordan, from where they were airlifted.
Local fix
India’s diplomatic machinery was quick to respond and the then national airline created history with the support it provided. Air India, acquired by Tata Sons in 2022, entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people evacuated by a civil airliner in aviation history.
“In these two months of the Gulf operation, we did not have more than five to six meetings of the sub-committee,” said Fabian, who did all he could to fix problems locally, without sounding out New Delhi for everything and elongating the lines, making decision-making difficult and arduous.
“When I had the Air India manager visiting me with a long face, I asked him what the problem was. He said the staff was rebelling against the long hours of duty. I called up the local authorities, the Indian embassy staff, their families, and persuaded the local correspondent of The Hindu to write a story of how Air India was doing a fine job and before we knew it, the morale had begun to get better, with a smiling Air India chief at my breakfast table,” recalled Fabian.
In the case of Ukraine, Fabian said, there have been serious errors of judgement.
“If the sky is cloudy, it is best to prepare. The first advisory issued to Indians living in Ukraine itself was wishy-washy. It asked the students to clear out from the country. An advisory in an emergency does not necessarily imply getting students back to India but to countries in the neighbourhood – may be to Hungary, Poland or Slovakia, where they could have been safe. There was no contingency planning. There may not be many Indians in those parts but there are Indian companies in that region, which could have been asked to help,” he pointed out.
In his view, Indian students have been caught in no-man’s land because both Russia and Ukraine are not willing to commit to their safe exit or passage. Neither is Fabian enamoured by the idea of sending Union ministers to these countries.
“What is needed is to strengthen the embassies with more officers and staff having necessary language skills. By sending a minister, you are not solving a problem. Yes, he can call on his counterparts, but the ambassadors too can do this. This is being done with headlines in mind. We did not do this during the Kuwait evacuation. There were no cell phones even back then,” the former Indian diplomat reminisced.
Maybe it’s time for some Delhi mandarins to have a quick word with Fabian.
