Kausikan's father, P.S. Raman, was a Tamil Brahmin from Tamil Nadu, India. He settled in Singapore after the Partition of India and married Lim Eng Neo, a Peranakan Chinese. They had a son, Kausikan, and two daughters, Kalyani and Kamala. In June 1968, Raman was appointed Singapore's Ambassador to Indonesia in the wake of the Konfrontasi. After recovering from a heart attack during his tenure in Jakarta, he was reassigned to be Singapore's High Commissioner to Australia and served in that capacity for a year and a half. In 1971, he became Singapore's first Ambassador to the Soviet Union and served until he died of a heart attack in Moscow on 15 December 1976.
Early life
P.S. Raman gave his son an unconventional name: Bilahari Kim Hee Papanasam Setlur Kausikan. "Bilahari" is the name of a raga; "Kausikan" is a form of the Vedic surname Kaushik; "Setlur" also spelt Sethalur, and "Papanasam" are villages in Tamil Nadu. "Kim Hee" is the Chinese name given to Kausikan by his mother. Kausikan studied political science at the University of Singapore and received a scholarship from the Public Service Commission to pursue a Ph.D in international relations at Columbia University, with the aim of becoming an academic. During this time, he would secretly submit articles to The Straits Times under the pseudonym "Bee Kim Hee". Part way into his dissertation, he decided to drop out from the course and return to Singapore, where he was posted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He ultimately graduated with a M.A. degree from Columbia University.
Career
Kausikan first joined the civil service in 1981 as a Foreign Service Officer, and was absorbed into the Administrative Service in 1983. Kausikan was appointed Singapore's Ambassador to the newly formed Russian Federation in 1994, with concurrent accreditation as Ambassador to Finland. Kausikan was Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 1998, with concurrent accreditation as High Commissioner to Canada and Ambassador to Mexico. In 1998, Kausikan was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was appointed Second Permanent Secretaryin 2001, and was elevated to Permanent Secretary on 1 September 2010. In July 2017, Kausikan publicly criticised an opinion-editorial by Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore, for advocating "subordination as a norm of Singapore foreign policy". His criticism was echoed by Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam and fellow Ambassador-at-Large Ong Keng Yong.
