6 - Peace and War, 1936–1939

Summary

Nehru’s commitment to peace and anti-fascism were hallmarks of his political activities in the run-up to the Second World War and ones grounded in his anti-imperialist ideas dating back to the late 1920s. This chapter considers three specific cases in which Nehru amalgamated anti-imperialism with anti-fascism and peace in ways that reaffirmed his existing ideas about the world, but also produced significant contradictions. First, it examines Nehru’s involvement in the International Peace Campaign and the ways that the peace movement’s primary objectives stood in contradiction to anti-imperialist internationalism. Second, it traces Nehru’s activism on behalf of Republican Spain in which he advocated military intervention and force on behalf of Republican Spain but in the name of peace. Finally, the chapter examines Nehru’s travels to both Egypt (1938) and China (1939). These diplomatic interfaces for the most part reinforced his core belief in similarities and solidarities with China and Egypt, although Nehru often had to overlook and ignore conflicting evidence and realities on the ground in order to fit these places into a his existing anti-imperialist worldview.