[Letter To Mr Yaskov Morris]

Summary

A brief typewritten note of 29 March 1971 from M. R. Masani to Mr. Yaskov Morris, the Israeli Consul in Bombay, acknowledging Morris’s letter of 17 March and the expression of solidarity it carried. Masani apologises that whatever modest work he had been able to do in Parliament to strengthen friendship between India and Israel may no longer be possible, but promises that he will certainly continue to do whatever he can outside the legislature. The letter is signed off cordially, thanking Morris for having taken the trouble to write.

Key points

• One-page personal letter dated 29 March 1971, addressed from Masani to Yaskov Morris, Consul for Israel, at ‘Kailas’, 50 Pedder Road, Bombay 26.
• Masani acknowledges receipt of Morris’s letter of 17 March and the ‘expression of solidarity’ it conveyed.
• He signals that his parliamentary vehicle for India–Israel friendship may soon be unavailable to him — implicitly referencing the 1971 general election in which the Swatantra Party lost heavily and he lost his Rajkot seat.
• Despite that constraint, Masani commits to continuing advocacy for India–Israel ties ‘outside’ Parliament.
• The letter is a small artefact of Masani’s long-standing, and at the time politically unusual, personal advocacy for closer Indo-Israeli relations.