Telling stories about institutions is about shoring up their foundations and building on their edifices.’

From the uprising of 1857 and the freedom movement to duels on the cricket pitch, India and the United Kingdom have been on opposing sides on numerous occasions. A relatively unknown instance when this dynamic played out was the 2017 election for a seat at the International Court of Justice, one of the main organs of the United Nations.

Unwilling at first, India was prompted to enter the ring in the wake of the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, which proved the importance of having an Indian judge at the court. The contest that followed proved to be a ‘second war of Independence’, in the words of then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj—and a David-and-Goliath fight against the permanent members of the Security Council, who all put their might behind the UK.

The book presents a compelling behind-the-scenes account of India’s coming-of-age in world affairs through the prism of this momentous election, and a fascinating view of the inner workings of the United Nations.

Some of the defining pictures from the epoch-making episode are given here

The first picture is the most defining.

This meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan on 9 June 2017 in Astana (now known as Nur Sultan), Kazakhstan, on the fringes of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, led to the first pledge of support for Judge Bhandari’s ICJ candidature.