In Memoriam
Bimla Nanda “Bim” Bissell (1932-2025)
Bim Bissell, who died in January at age 92 at her home in Delhi, India, was, according to a glowing New York Times obituary, “…a one-woman social network, a deft saloniste who seemed to know everybody of any significance in every field.”
Bank retiree Huda Kraske recalls that hiring Bim as social affairs officer in the Delhi office was one of the first decisions her late husband Jochen made as Bank country office head in 1975. She brought impressive experience to the task, having served previously as social secretary to four American ambassadors to India, including Harvard economics professor John Kenneth Galbraith.
Bim stayed 21 years, serving as an effective ambassador and all-around fixer for the Bank.
“Bim and her family (including her uncle Krishan), adopted us and the entire World Bank expatriate families,” Huda recalled. “She introduced us to high Government officials as well as the beautiful people in Delhi’s social scene. She found us housing and helped us decorate them, organized our parties, planned our trips throughout the country.”
Bank retiree Ridley Nelson and wife Laila remember Bim “…as an absolute gem. She was amazing at connecting with musicians and journalists and so many other fascinating people, including doctors and hospitals which we used on several occasions.”
From Mozambique, another Bank retiree Michael Baxter writes: “Bim was superstitious. Early in my Delhi stay, she was rushing out the office door as I was entering. I asked where she was going in such a hurry. She spun back into the building, saying my question was bad luck. I kept silent as she exited a second time but I wondered what jinx was at work. Later, when John F. Kennedy, jr. (the late President’s son) visited India, Bim, through her connections, arranged for John junior to join us on a Bank agriculture mission to Tamil Nadu.”
Bimla “Bim” Nanda was born in Quetta, now part of Pakistan, the oldest of three daughters. She majored in English at the University of Delhi and later got a master’s degree in education from the University of Michigan. A mutual love of Indian crafts helped bring Bim together with her future husband, John Bissell, an American on a Ford Foundation grant. They married in 1963 and built a small, one-room crafts company into a powerhouse –Fabindia, which sells a wide variety of products made by Indian artisans using traditional techniques. John Bissell died in 1998.
Bim is survived by a son William, who heads Fabindia, a daughter, Monsoon, two grandchildren and a sister, Meena Singh.
She was, as the Times put it, truly a “Delhi institution.”
Huda and Jochen Kraske served in India from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1988-1991. Ridley and Laila Nelson were there from 1992 to 1996 when he was head of the Bank agriculture unit. Michael Baxter was a rural development specialist in the Bank agriculture unit from 1980 to 1985 and chief of the agriculture unit from 1987 to 1992.
Submitted by Huda Kraske, Ridley and Laila Nelson and Michael Baxter.
