Ramchundur Goburdhun

Ramchundur Goburdhun (15 August 1911 – 29 November 1992) was an Indo-Mauritian diplomat best known for his role in the "Maneli Affair" of 1963, an attempt to end the Vietnam war.

Goburdhun was born in a middle class Indo-Mauritian family in the Rivière du Rempart District of the Mauritius, an island archipelago in the Indian Ocean where French is widely spoken.

At the time of his birth, Mauritius was a British colony.

Goburdhun's grandfather had arrived in the Mauritius as an indentured laborer from India and rose up to become a schoolmaster.

Goburdhun was educated in Port Louis at the Royal College Port Louis and the Institut français du Royaume-Uni.

As a child, he was considered to be "naughty and rebellious, through intelligent", and was known as "Tipu the Rebel".

His father was a stern, authoritarian man who often beat his son with a rod for his rebellious streak.

An outstanding student, in spite of being frequently caned by his teachers, Goburdhun also excelled as an athlete.

As the Mauritius had no universities under British colonial rule, Goburdhun left to attend university in Britain, but while on his way, passed through France, and decided to attend university there instead.

Goburdhun had a lifelong love affair with Paris, which was always his favorite city.

His brother Hurrylall Goburdhun became a Judge of the Supreme Court of Mauritius.

Goburdhun was educated in France and remained a lifelong Francophile.

It was as Goburdhun's service in China was winding down that relations between New Delhi and Beijing began to sour as India maintained its claim to the McMahon Line that had been laid down by the British in 1914 as the Sino-Indian frontier, a claim that China rejected.

While attending the University of Lille in France in the 1930s, Goburdhun befriended a young Vietnamese Catholic student named Ngô Đình Nhu, who remained a lifelong friend.

Afterwards, he obtained a law degree at the Middle Temple in London.

Goburdhun worked as a lawyer in Port Louis.

From 1939 to 1944, he served as a judicial officer of the Supreme Court of the Mauritius.

In 1943, Goburdhun was made a Civil member of the Order of the British Empire for his work as a civil servant in the Mauritius.

In 1945-1946, he served as a judge at a labour court in Port Louis.

Following the failure of his political career, Goburdhun moved to India, which became independent in 1947 to pursue a career in diplomacy.

In the 1948 elections for the Legislative Council of Mauritius, he ran for office, winning 405 votes in the Pamplemousses District.

Goburdhun served as the charge d'affairs at the Indian embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1952.

As India had stationed no ambassador in Prague, Goburdhun was in charge of the embassy.

Once he organised a diplomatic reception to be attended by all of the other ambassadors in Prague, causing his wife to be extremely upset when she learned the British ambassador would be attending, requiring him to explain that India was now independent and he was the equal of the British ambassador.

In 1949, he married Kamala Sinha, by whom he had one daughter, Anuradha Goburdhun Bakhshi.

In 1951 his name briefly hit the headlines when the Czechoslovak police arrested and charged with espionage an American journalist, William N. Oatis.

At Oatis's trial in Prague, Oatis confessed to espionage and named Goburdhun as one of the diplomats he was alleged to have spied for.

After Oatis was released in 1953, he retracted his confession as being induced by torture, and stated he merely sometimes cross-checked information with Goburdhun, engaging in standard journalistic practice, before writing a story.

In January–February 1953, he served as the deputy secretary at the Indian foreign ministry.

Goburdhun subsequently served as the counselor at the Indian embassy in Beijing in 1953-55.

Before a dispute over where the precise Sino-Indian border was high up in the Himalayas spoiled Indo-Chinese relations, the relationship between the two nations were warm and friendly, and Goburdhun enjoyed being stationed in Beijing, where he was treated with respect as a diplomat from a friendly nation.

From 1955 to 1957, he worked as a counselor at the Indian embassy in Paris, France.

Of all his diplomatic postings, Goburdhun enjoyed the one in Paris the most, being described by his daughter as being "overjoyed" to be living in his beloved Paris.

In March–December 1958, Goburdhun worked as the head of public relations department at the Foreign Ministry in New Delhi.

In December 1958, Goburdhun arrived at the Dar al-Makhzen in Rabat, Morocco to present his credentials as India's ambassador to King Mohammed V.

During his time in Morocco, Goburdhun came close to adopting the daughter of an Italian diplomat after her parents were drowned at sea.

He became chairman of the International Control Commission in October 1962 assigned to supervise the Geneva accords of 1954.

Goburdhun was well suited for this role as a honest broker, establishing cordial relations with the leaders of both North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

As Goburdhun was fluent in French, a language widely spoken by Vietnamese elites, he had no difficulty in communicating with Vietnamese elites.

The American historian Ellen Hammer called Goburdhun an "exuberant and assertive" man with a strong interest in finding a way to end the Vietnam war.