Orange Revolution was the one that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, when one of the presidential candidates, Yushchenko, who had mass support, adopted orange as the colour of his election campaign. When the mass protests grew and especially, when they brought about political change in the country, the term Orange Revolution came to represent the entire series of events.

The other revolution, Rose Revolution, which happened in Georgia in 2003, when president Eduard Shevardnadze, who was earlier the foreign minister of the erstwhile USSR, was displaced in a bloodless revolution. The opposition supporters led by Saakashvili with roses in their hands seized the parliament building, interrupting a speech of president Shevardnadze and forcing him to escape with his bodyguards. Later Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation, in a meeting arranged by none other than Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov. After the meeting, the president announced his resignation.

Srinivasan rightly titled his diary entries during the period 1989-1992 The Jamdani Revolution because, as he says, “It was only the second such turning point in the whole of Asia after the upsurge which overthrew Marcos in the Philippines in 1986. Hence the title of the book, which echoes the Velvet Revolution, the Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution.” At another time he writes, “What made this period truly fascinating was that it was the first time in Asia that a president was forced to resign due to intense pressure. What made it even more fascinating was the fact that the political events were mobilised by students.”

Srinivasan’s diary records the customary frustrations of the Indian envoys with the headquarters as they are forced to take on the onerous task of representing their country in the absence of any clear-cut direction. About India’s relationship with her neighbours during this period, Srivasan writes that the government in New Delhi was “knee-deep in the morass they have created for themselves in Sri Lanka, quite apart from Nepal where the problems of trade and transit seem intractable.”

The mood at the Ministry of External Affairs ( MEA) during those days is palpable. The prime ministers in that era were simply not interested to know anything about a country as insignificant as Bangladesh. To begin with, Rajiv Gandhi did not want to “waste any personal time on Bangladesh,” whilst VP Singh was preoccupied with his own political survival and Chandrashekhar was heading “a miserable bunch of ministers.” On the other hand, Narasimha Rao, who could have been a better foreign minister than Madhavsinh Solanki, “is a pessimist about neighbouring countries and follows Rajiv Gandhi in that attitude, though without Rajiv Gandhi’s aggression or activism.”

Of all his profiling in the book, the one on Narasimha Rao stands out. “Narasimha Rao crouched on the sofa set in the conversational area, his lower lip hanging lose, a short cotton scarf round his neck, looking distant and preoccupied. It was impossible to tell if he was happy or unhappy, optimistic or pessimistic....”

The book deals with various Indo-Bangladesh issues like Chakma refugees, illegal infiltration, river water sharing, the Tin Bigha corridor and the state of minorities in Bangladesh. The lack of understanding and leadership qualities displayed by the main actors both from the Bangladesh or Indian side is appalling. If one looks at the state of the Indo-Bangladesh relationship at this point in time, Srinivasan is right when he wonders, “It remains a matter of curiosity how little has fundamentally changed. ”

Srinivasan rightly cautions that Bangladesh with its large destitute population is a time bomb in the northeast of India, which is tribal, under-populated, under-developed and seething with various forms of discontent. Srinivasan’s prophesy comes to the fore when you read a news item published by The Hindu as recently as August 10 called, ’Decline in Assamese-speaking population in 7 districts’ highlighting the population of Assamese speaking people in seven districts of the Brahmaputra Valley in Assam declined while that of Bengali speakers increased over a ten-year period from 1991 to 2001. What is striking is his argument about the problem of illegal immigration from the Bangladeshi side. He questions, “What measures any government can or will take in a country, which is overpopulated and has a miserable standard of living compared to Indian standards.”

Srinivasan’s diary account comes to the conclusion that Bangladeshis are either inimical to India or afraid to identify with it. While Bangladesh does not loom large in the minds of Indians, except negatively, India looms too large in the minds of the Bangladeshis, also by and large negatively as an insensitive big brother!