The Vice-Presidency of India is a curious institution. It seconds a job which, for all its significance as the constitutional head of State, is still a largely ceremonial position. The President of India can occasionally refuse to give his assent to bills, but this is rare enough; the Vice-President doesn’t even have the option. His job has been unkindly referred to as being that of cutting those ribbons that aren’t important enough for the President to cut. But the ancillary job of presiding over the Rajya Sabha has grown in importance, and that alone calls for a Vice-President of integrity, intellectual gifts and a mature temperament. India is lucky to have found all three in our new Vice-President, Mohammed Hamid Ansari.

Extraordinary diplomat

Hamid Ansari has held many a key position since he joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1961 at the age of 24. He has served as Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and High Commissioner to Australia; as Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and Visiting Professor at the Centre for West Asian and African Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University and at the Academy for Third World Studies in Jamia Millia Islamia; and most recently as Chairman of the National Minorities Commission. I knew him in only one of his posts — when he was India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York in the early 1990s. But the three years I knew him were more than enough to confirm my admiration for this extraordinary diplomat and statesman.

Engaging manner

Perhaps the most striking thing about Hamid Ansari is his manner — one of such deeply ingrained courtesy and civility that it reduces the most aggressive interlocutor to abashed politeness. Hamid-bhai, as I came to call him, was no brash diplomat; he spoke in softly measured tones, always willing to hear the other person out, always quiet and engaging in his own responses. In his dealings with others, even the most difficult ones, he was capable of a restraint that others found difficult to understand. Sometimes he could be almost other-worldly in his decency: once, when subject to racist abuse by a New York City policeman, he refused to respond, but mentioned the matter to a high city official he met at a diplomatic event. He immediately received a visit from the blue-uniformed officers of “New York City’s finest”, notebooks at the ready to take down his complaint. Hamid-bhai refused to make one. “It is enough that you are aware that this happened,” he said quietly. “What you do with your knowledge is up to you.”

“But we can’t take action without an official complaint,” they protested.

“That is not my concern,” he replied. “I have told you what happened. That is all.”

And he sent them on their way.

It is a technique that may or may not work with the more obstreperous members of our Rajya Sabha, but they will be left in no doubt that their Chairman knows exactly where he stands and what he expects of them. His own standards of decorum and conduct might yet shame the more unruly of them into being worthy of their presiding officer.

Outspoken in his writings

Hamid-bhai’s other strength is undoubtedly his intellect. A man of deep learning and refinement, he has not been shy, after retiring from the diplomatic service, to express his views on international questions — which have not always been in consonance with those of the Government that nominated him. His columns have always been well-thought out, logically reasoned and lucid; in writing he permits himself an outspokenness that one does not often hear in person. This is not to imply that he has hidden his convictions; he has always been staunchly secular, and I admired both the passion and the restraint with which he reacted to the news of the Babri Masjid demolition when he was Ambassador in New York. His politics are to the left of centre, but he is no ideologue. The firebrand in the family is undoubtedly his strong and courageous wife Salma, a civil society activist with a mind of her own who complemented Hamid-bhai so marvellously well in New York. With her in the Vice-Presidential mansion, there is no danger of its occupants ever getting out of touch with the people.

A special place

Hamid Ansari’s position as the scion of an exceptionally distinguished Muslim family will also be a valuable asset for the Indian State. His years of service in

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