Bimla Bissell, Diplomatic Assistant and Community Center in India, Dies at 92

Bimla Bissell, the important and well-connected social secretary of the four American embassies in India and who was a kind of unofficial ambassador herself, an astute local guide to the culture and complexity of a growing country, died on January 9 at her home in Delhi. He was 92 years old.

The cause was complications from diabetes, said his daughter, Monsoon Bissell.

Ms. Bissell’s first ambassador was John Kenneth Galbraith, a brilliant economist who developed a close relationship with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India. He was succeeded by Chester Bowles, an adman turned civil rights champion.

Both were appointed by John F. Kennedy, and it was Ms. Bissell organized, among many diplomatic affairs, Jacqueline Kennedy’s nine-day trip to India in 1962, an event that was widely publicized. “Mrs. Kennedy Receives Ceremonial Welcome on Arrival in India” read the headline on the front page of the New York Times when the first lady arrived, accompanied by her sister, Lee Radziwill.

It also fell to Ms. Bissell gently informs Mrs. Kennedy that the gifts his Indian hosts had brought him – leather picture frames stamped with the words “100% American Beef” – would not be appropriate.

When Richard Celeste was hired to be Mr. Bowles and the ambassador’s chief of protocol in 1963, he was disturbed by the latest job description. So Ms. Bissell took him by the hand.

“He handled my education with ease and kindness,” said Mr. Celeste, who would go on to become director of the Peace Corps, governor of Ohio and President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to India. He also brought her dinner every night until his wife and their newborn child arrived.

By all accounts, Ms. Bissell was a one-woman network, a brilliant saloniste who seemed to know everyone of any importance in every field.

He was smart and soft-spoken, friends and colleagues said. He was curious, playful and friendly. He read 14 newspapers every morning. He was politically astute, and in his later years often predicted local elections down to the number of votes. He had a preternatural power of sympathy and friendship, and of fostering and maintaining that friendship.

He counts among his followers – and they were heroes – heads of state, diplomats, policy makers, NGO leaders, journalists, movie directors, writers, artists, musicians and students, all of whom gathered for lunch and dinner in his stucco-filled house. in the leafy development of South Delhi, which was chockablock with handicrafts and textiles, art and antiques.

She and her husband, John Bissell, were a Delhi institution. He was a poor, Connecticut-born Yale graduate who in 1958 went to India on a Ford Foundation grant and never left, loving the country and his future wife. He founded a company to export Indian handicrafts to foreign countries, then he had a school to teach artisans.

Their family was a kind of North Star, said Marie Brenner, one of the many reporters Ms. Bissell drew into her circle. Some call it the Grand Central East for its open door policy. “It was always full of remarkable people,” said Ms. Brenner. “The power of action was at this very high level of political and intellectual expression.”

Mr. Celeste said: “John was a dreamer and Bim was a doer. He had a lot of knowledge, and his intuition was very well founded.”

At one time, Mr. Celeste saw that Mrs. Bissell was busy with two jobs. In the mid-1950s he had founded the Playhouse, Delhi’s first progressive school, which would become a place of introduction for generations of Indian and foreign children.

“Over time, I realized that the Playhouse School has acted as a magnet for hard-working Indian families,” said Mr. Celeste. “Bim built powerful relationships that, as social secretary, gave him a unique Rolodex.”

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a family friend, described Ms. Bissell as “an extraordinary citizen scholar of India.” (He was born in India; his father, Douglas Bennet, was an aide to Ambassador Bowles.)

He added, in an email, “To the generations of newcomers he welcomed in Delhi – especially young people, whom he loved and entertained with stories of his amazing life – he was a guiding light.”

Bimla Nanda, known as Bim, was born on Oct. 12, 1932, in Quetta, now part of Pakistan. She was the eldest of three daughters of Sita (Sibal) Nanda and Pran Nath Nanda, a veterinary surgeon who became independent India’s first agriculture commissioner. He was also a table tennis champion who invented a unique way of holding the paddle, known as the “Nanda grip,” according to Ms. Bissell.

Bim grew up in Lahore, in the Punjab region, until shortly after partition, in 1947, when the family moved to Delhi. She graduated in English from Miranda House College for Women, University of Delhi.

His first marriage, an arranged marriage to a government assistant from a well-to-do family, was short and unhappy. Divorce was unthinkable at the time, but Bim left her husband, and India, to attend the University of Michigan, where she earned a master’s degree in education in 1958. When he returned home, he was ostracized, banned from the local gym, social organization. the club that was left of the Raj.

“He broke every convention,” said his daughter, “but he did it without trying to make a point.” He did it because this was the life he had to live.”

Bim Nanda was working for a government organization promoting traditional handicrafts when Mr. Bissell arrives with his Ford Foundation grant. He was immediately beaten with him; he thought he was beaten by his country. In any case, they became good friends while Mr. Bissell pleaded with him with fervor and great discipline. For the next five years, as he would say, he sent her a note and a red rose every day.

At one time the mother of Mr. Bissell intervened. “I want to know your feelings about my son,” he told Bim. “He’s in love with you.”

“You are in love with an Indian,” replied Bim.

“I know my son,” said Mrs. Bissell, “and it’s time to fish or cut bait.”

They got married in 1963 at Mr. Bowles.

With the help of his wife and communication, Mr. Bissell founded a company, Fabindia, to sell products – home furnishings, clothing and jewelry – made by Indian artisans using traditional techniques. At first it worked in a room in the apartment he rented. Over the decades it has grown into a household name in India, with a thriving export business and hundreds of retail outlets across the country.

After the end of the appointment of Mr. Bowles in 1969, Ms. Bissell served on her successors, Ambassadors Kenneth B. Keating and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose terms expired in 1975.

He then joined the World Bank as an external affairs officer in India, essentially acting as the bank’s cultural ambassador and arbiter of all things, helping bankers outside the bank get houses and schools for their children, shopping for their wives, even. to set up their telephone lines. She has worked with a number of non-governmental organizations – and founded one, Udyogini, with the mission of promoting women entrepreneurs in India.

Besides her daughter, Ms. Bissell is survived by her son, William, who runs Fabindia, two grandchildren, and her sister, Meena Singh. Mr. Bissell died in 1998.

After leaving the World Bank in 1996, Ms. Bissell worked as a consultant for many organizations and continued to be at the center of the social whirlwind. He sold his school, the Playhouse, in 2005. His house remained the home of many politicians, artists and literary figures who, until his death, relied on him for his political wisdom and were encouraged by his friendship.

Eric Garcetti, former mayor of Los Angeles and US ambassador to India, was taken along with Ms. Bissell as his predecessors did.

“You’re Indian,” he told her. “And India is you.”