HarperCollins is proud to announce Hostility: A Diplomat’s Diary on Pakistan-India Relations by ABDUL BASIT

Hostility is former Pakistan high commissioner to India Abdul Basit’s memoir of his tenure in New Delhi, from 2014 to 2017. The book takes us through perhaps the most difficult era in India-Pakistan relations in recent years. While Narendra Modi’s first prime ministership began with a new hope of normalising relations between Pakistan and India, subsequent events unfortunately proved otherwise.

In his account, Abdul Basit takes us through the highs and lows of what is easily among the most difficult diplomatic postings anywhere in the world. Written with honesty, lucidity, and filled with explosive nuggets about what goes on behind the scenes between India and Pakistan, Hostility provides a rare insight into what is possibly the most damaged bilateral relationship in the world.

“Hostility is a remarkably honest account by Amb. Abdul Basit of his tenure as high commissioner of Pakistan in India (2014-17). It provides an insider’s perspective on one of the most antagonistic bilateral relationships in the world. Anyone who has ever wondered how the highly fraught diplomatic space between the two countries is negotiated should definitely read this book.”. – Swati Chopra,  Executive Editor- HarperCollins India

About the author:

Ambassador Abdul Basit joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1982. During his thirty-five years of diplomatic career he served in several Pakistan missions abroad including in Moscow, New York, Sana’a, Geneva and London. He also remained a spokesperson of the Pakistan Foreign Office for over three years before leaving for Germany in 2012 to take over as Pakistan ambassador in Berlin. His last assignment was as Pakistan High Commissioner to India from 2014 to 2017. He served as president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) from 2017-2018 and is presently heading the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS).

About HarperCollins Publishers India:

HarperCollins Publishers India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian Subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across 10 imprints. Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India has been awarded the Publisher of the Year Award three times: at Publishing Next in 2015, and at Tata Literature Live! in 2016 and 2018.

HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Egmont, Oneworld, Harvard University Press, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet.

For more information please write to

jaseya.fazili@harpercollins.co.in