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Indian Foreign Policy: The Age of Nehru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Paul F. Power
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Extract

Among the foreign policies of the new states which have emerged from the Western colonial empires, that of India occupies a leading place. The first non-Western nation to become a member of the British Commonwealth, India became a symbol and catalyst of self-determination for several nationalist movements. India proceeded on an “independent” path in world politics and had numerous emulators in the world. Where India's role in the state-making revolution has met with considerable approval, its strategy of nonalignment has been debated in the West, and even in India since the open appearance in 1959 of the Sino-Indian dispute. The criticism has included questions about the wisdom of nonalignment, doubts as to its feasibility, and charges that its application has shown preference for the communist states during periods of the Cold War. The Indian defense includes assertions that nonalignment serves India's welfare and often the world's, answers about its workability, and claims that application has been consistent with professed ideals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , April 1964 , pp. 257 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1964

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References

1 The independent foreign policies of the new states have been examined in Scalapino, Robert A., “Neutralism in Asia”, American Political Science Review, XLVIII (03, 1954), 49–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations (Chicago, 1958), Ch. 10Google Scholar; Martin, Laurence W., ed., Neutralism and Nonalignment (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, with essays by C.B. Marshall, Francis O. Wilcox and Arnold Wolfers, among others; Brecher, Michael, “Neutralism: An Analysis,” International Journal, XVII (Summer, 1962), 224–236CrossRefGoogle Scholar; London, Kurt, ed., New Nations in a Divided World (New York, 1963)Google Scholar, especially valuable for papers on Sino-Soviet views of nonaligned countries; and Rossi, Mario, The Third World (New York, 1963)Google Scholar. For the origins of “neutralism” in Western thought, see Lyon, Peter, “Neutrality and the Emergence of the Concept of Neutralism,” The Review of Politics, XXII (04, 1960), 255–268CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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3 Sympathetic explanations or defenses of Indian nonalignment are Appadorai, A., “India's Foreign Policy,” International Affairs, XXV (01, 1949), 37–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sheean, Vincent, “The Case For India,” Foreign Affairs, XXX (10, 1951), 77–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “P” [Panikkar, K. M.], “Middle Ground Between America and Russia: An Indian View,” Foreign Affairs, XXXII (01, 1954), 259–270Google Scholar; and Nehru, B. K., “Ambassador Nehru on India's Policy of Non-Alignment,” India News, I (04 27, 1962), 8Google Scholar.

4 The religious, geographical and legal sources of the Kashmir problem are described in Korbel, Josef, Danger In Kashmir (Princeton, 1954)Google Scholar, and Birdwood, Lord, Two Nations and Kashmir (London, 1956)Google Scholar. The Security Council has met without success over 100 times on the Kashmir issue since India took the question to the United Nations in 1948. At Pakistan's request the Security Council is again considering the problem in early 1964 with signs of mounting tensions owing to Pakistan's new friendship with Communist China and India's response to this development.

5 For the Asian Relations Conference in 1947, see Asian Relations: A Report of the Proceedings and Documentation of the First Asian Relations Conference (New Delhi, 1948)Google Scholar. A study group of the Indian Council of World Affairs reports on Indian activities in the world organization in India and the United Nations (New York, 1957)Google Scholar. India's role in the 1955 meeting of Asian and African states may be followed in Kahin, George McT., The Asian-African Conference (Ithaca, 1956)Google Scholar. Nehru's address to the Belgrade Conference of 1961 is published in The Conference of Heads of State or Government of Nonaligned Countries (Belgrade, 1961), pp. 107–117Google Scholar.

6 The Five Principles are mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. See the first White Paper on the Sino-Indian frontier issue, Notes, Memorandum and Letters Exchanged and Agreements Signed Between the Governments of India and China: 1954–1959 (New Delhi, 1959) p. 98Google Scholar. For Nehru's account of their origin, see Fifield, Russell H., The Diplomacy of Southeast Asia: 1954–1958 (New York, 1958), pp. 510–511Google Scholar. See also Rajan, M. S., “Indian Foreign Policy in Action: 1954–56,” Indian Quarterly, XVII (07–09, 1960), 224Google Scholar.

7 The deep impact of the Sino-Indian dispute on Indian foreign policy has caused an experienced observer to conduct obsequies for the nation's nonalignment strategy. See Levi, Werner, “Necrology on Indian Neutralism,” Eastern World, XVII (02, 1963), 9–11Google Scholar.

8 Shils, Edward, The Intellectual Between Tradition and Modernity: The Indian Situation (The Hague, 1961), p. 95Google Scholar.

9 Nehru's recollections of his beginnings are found chiefly in his autobiography, Toward Freedom (New York, 1941), pp. 16–47Google Scholar. Biographical studies of note are Nanda, B. R., The Nehrus: Motilal and Jawaharlal (New York, 1963), esp. pp. 17–105Google Scholar; Brecher, Michael, Nehru: A Political Biography (London, 1959), pp. 1–57Google Scholar; and Moraes, Frank, Jawaharlal Nehru (New York, 1956), pp. 15–43Google Scholar. See also Mende, Tibor, Nehru: Conversations on India and World Affairs (New York, 1956), pp. 9–18Google Scholar.

10 Nehru adapted Gandhi's principles and applied them to international relations, according to Range, Willard, Jawaharlal Nehru's World View (Athens, Georgia; 1961)Google Scholar, a thesis I find unconvincing. See my Gandhi On World Affairs (Washington, 1960)Google Scholar.

11 For Nehru's sense of obligation, see Fisher, Margaret W., “Nehru: The Hero As Responsible Leader,” in Leadership and Political Institutions in India, Park, Richard L. and Tinker, Irene, eds. (Princeton, 1959), esp. p. 50Google Scholar.

12 Nehru, , Toward Freedom, p. 124Google Scholar.

13 Quoted in Brecher, , op. cit., p. 113Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., pp. 111–12.

15 Nehru's views of Russia were published in Indian newspapers and collected in Nehru, Jawaharlal, Soviet Russia (Bombay, 1929)Google Scholar. The elder Nehru's impressions of Soviet Russia were also favorable and he expressed them in the Legislative Assembly where he was Leader of the Opposition. See Panikkar, K. M. and Pershad, A., eds., The Voice of Freedom: The Speeches of Pandit Motilal Nehru (New York, 1961), pp. 372–392Google Scholar.

16 Without naming Nehru, one writer suggests 1927 as the start of a previously unknown sympathy for world communism among some Indian nationalsts. See Prasad, Bimla, The Origins of Indian Foreign Policy: The Indian National Congress and World Affairs, 1885–1947 (Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 1958), p. 72Google Scholar.

17 The letters, written between October, 1930, and August, 1933, are collected with a “Rambling Account of History for Young People” in Nehru, Jawaharlal, Glimpses of World History (New York, 1942)Google Scholar.

18 Das, Mammath Nath, The Political Philosophy of Jawaharlal Nehru (New York, 1961), pp. 45–69Google Scholar.

19 The Mahatma's theory of nonviolence is explored in my article “Toward a Reevaluation of Gandhi's Political Thought,” The Western Political Quarterly, XVI (03, 1963), 99–108Google Scholar.

20 Nehru, , Toward Freedom, p. 126Google Scholar.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 398, from Nehru's Presidential Address at the 49th session of the Congress Party in Lucknow.

23 Compare another view of what Nehru discovered: “In his younger days he read Marx thoroughly and found the Marxian analysis of imperialism a useful tool during the long struggle against the British.” Bowles, Chester, Ambassador's Report (New York, 1954), p. 106Google Scholar.

24 The leader of the national Moslems in the independence struggle wrote of Nehru: “I may also mention that Jawaharlal has always been more moved by international considerations than most Indians. He has looked at all questions from an international rather than a national point of view.” Azad, Abul Kalam, India Wins Freedom (Calcutta, 1959), p. 65Google Scholar.

25 Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Unity of India (New York, 1942), pp. 268–277Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., p. 302.

27 Nehru, Jawaharlal, A Bunch of Old Letters (Bombay, 1958), p. 430Google Scholar.

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29 Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Discovery of India (London, 1956)Google Scholar.

30 Smith, Donald E., Nehru and Democracy (Bombay, 1958), p. 34Google Scholar.

31 See Nehru, Jawaharlal, Visit to America (New York, 1958), pp. 29–30Google Scholar; and Poplai, S. L., ed., Select Documents on Asian Affairs: India 1947–1950, II (Bombay, 1959), 21–24Google Scholar.

32 For the national interest view, see, for example, Appadorai, op. cit.; and Hause, E. Malcom, “India: Noncommitted and Nonaligned,” XIII Western Political Quarterly (03 1960)Google Scholar. Quincy Wright has taken “peace” as India's main concern, although Michael Brecher and Norman D. Palmer stress national self-interest in the report of the Conference on India and the United States in 1959, found in Harrison, Selig S., India and the United States (New York, 1961), pp. 38–43Google Scholar. A history for the Indian Council of World Affairs uses principle and interest to explain the sources of India's foreign policy. See Karunakaran, K. P., India In World Affairs, I (Calcutta, 1952), pp. 21–57Google Scholar.

33 Kundra, J. C., Indian Foreign Policy, 1947–1954: A Study of Relations with the Western Bloc (Groningen, 1955), p. 43Google Scholar. Resolutions of the Indian National Congress party from 1885 to 1952 dealing with external affairs are compiled in The Background of India's Foreign Policy, Rajkumar, N. V., ed. (New Delhi, 1952)Google Scholar.

84 The Conference of Heads of State or Government of Nonaligned Countries, p. 116. Opposition to war and military pacts is also important in Congress statements. See All India Congress Committee, Resolutions on Foreign Policy: 1947–1957 (New Delhi, n.d.), pp. 11, 14–15, 33, 51–52Google Scholar.

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37 Changes in often negative Russian directives and their sometimes incorrect interpretation by the Indian Communists from 1945 to 1954 are studied in Kautsky, John H., Moscow and the Communist Party of India (Cambridge and New York, 1956)Google Scholar.

38 A stringent Moscow line on neutrality-neutralism lasted from the war years to early 1952, giving way to a softer view looking to benefits for international communism in Europe, where neutrality-neutralism might weaken Western security plans, and in former colonial areas where it might serve as a transitional phase. See Ginsburgs, George, “Neutrality and Neutralism and the Tactics of Soviet Diplomacy,” American Slavic and East European Review, XIX (12, 1960), 531–560CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Representative of the views of Nehru's articulate followers is the statement of the Bengali journalist and novelist, Chanakya Sen, that “it was during the Korean war that nonalignment as an international force made its first impact on a world crisis. Asian sentiment had already been outraged by the dropping of the first atomic bombs on Japan, an Asian country, and by the nuclear tests carried out in areas adjacent to Asian lands. Now Asians realized that the Western powers and their rivals had chosen another Asian battlefront to fight Europe's war which had nothing to do with the national interests of the non-Communist Asian countries. They bent their diplomatic energy for quick containment of the Korean War and for its early end.” Sen, Chanakya, Against the Cold War (New York, 1962), pp. 248–249Google Scholar.

40 Cousins, Norman, Talks With Nehru (New York, 1951, PP. 55–57Google Scholar.

41 A/C. 3/SR. 53 (23 November, 1953).

42 A biographer speaks of Wahlverwandtsehaft, a rare linking of minds. See Lengyel, Emil, Krishna Menon (New York, 1962), p. 99Google Scholar. Harold J. Laski was Krishna Menon's guru in his formative years when he drew his political ideas from sources familiar to Nehru.

43 Brecher, , Nehru, p. 573Google Scholar.

44 Gorwalla, A. D., “Perils of Panch Shila,” in A Study of Nehru, Zakaria, Rafiq, ed. (Bombay, 1959), p. 257Google Scholar.

45 Nehru, Jawaharlal, India's Foreign Policy (New Delhi, 1961), pp. 557–560Google Scholar. About the execution of Imre Nagy, Nehru said, “Those who are dead are dead, but I earnestly hope that this process will not continue,” Ibid., p. 563.

46 Shortly after the Bandung Conference Nehru told the Lok Sabha that to nonaligned states colonialism meant Western imperialism, and to include the East European states in the category amounted to Cold War projections into Asian affairs. Ibid., p. 276. Later he conceded while visiting sensitive West Germany that East Europe is under a “certain domination,” but this is not colonialism. New York Times, July 16, 1956. Indian nationalists tend to see communists who fight imperialism as genuine nationalists, for example, Ho Chi-minh. See Palmer, Norman D., “Indian Attitudes Toward Colonialism,” in The Idea of Colonialism, Strausz-Hupé, Robert and Hazard, Harry W., eds. (New York, 1958), p. 295Google Scholar. For the thesis that opposition to Western imperialism is the touchstone of New Delhi's external policy, see Fontera, R. M., “Anti-Colonialism As a Basic Indian Foreign Policy,” Western Political Quarterly, XIII (06 1960), 421–432Google Scholar.

47 See Bulganin, N. A. and Khrushchev, N. S., Speeches During Sojourn in India, Burma and Afghanistan (New Delhi, 1956), pp. 7–31, 101–105Google Scholar.

48 Dulles, John Foster, quoted in Department of State Bulletin, XXXIV (06 18, 1956), 999–1000Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., XXXV (July 23, 1956), 147–148.

50 Cf. Talbot, Phillips and Poplai, S. L., India and America (New York, 1958), p. 41Google Scholar.

51 A penetrating study published toward the close of the 1951–58 phase which stresses the Marxian origins of Nehru's ideas about the world is Bozeman, op. cit.

52 See Almond, Gabriel A., The Appeals of Communism (Princeton, 1954), p. 377CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Nehru, Jawaharlal, “The Basic Approach,” in Sheean, Vincent, Nehru: The Years of Power (New York, 1960), Appendix, pp. 291–298Google Scholar. For the response of the Soviet envoy to Peking, gently criticizing Nehru's objections to violence and describing India as semi-feudalistic, see Yudin, M., “Can We Accept Pandit Nehru's Approach?” World Marxist Review, I (12, 1958), 38–56Google Scholar.

54 Liska, George, Nations In Alliance (Baltimore, 1962), p. 252Google Scholar.

55 A sizable literature exists on the Sino-Indian dispute. For the official Indian publications, see especially the relevant White Papers, now numbering five, the first of which is cited at n. 6. See also Report of the Officials of the Governments of India and the People's Republic of China on the Boundary Question (New Delhi, 1961)Google Scholar. A competent, pro-Indian account is Chakravarti, P. G., India's China Policy (Bloomington, 1961)Google Scholar. The Western literature includes Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “Thoughts Along the China Border,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVIII (01, 1960), 238–59Google Scholar; Karan, P. P., “The India- China Boundary Dispute,” Journal of Geography, LVIIII (01, 1960), 16–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Green, L. C., “Legal Aspects of the Sino-Indian Dispute,” The China Quarterly, No. 3 (07–09, 1960), 42–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rose, Leo E., “Sino- Indian Rivalry and the Himalayan Border States” Orbis, V (Summer, 1961),199–215Google Scholar. Peking's account may be followed in its correspondence in the Indian White Papers, and in Documents On the Sino-Indian Boundary Question (peking, 1960)Google Scholar; Selected Documents on Sino-Indian Relations (Peking, 1962)Google Scholar; and The Sino-Indian Boundary Question, 2nd ed. (Peking, 1962)Google Scholar.

56 A former President of the Congress who in 1951 moved into the opposition, Kripalani believes that nonalignment is desirable but that Nehru applied it incorrectly to Tibet and China. See Kripalani, J. B., “For Principled Neutrality,” Foreign Afftdrs, XXXVIII (10, 1959), 46–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In 1962 Krishna Menon defeated Kripalani in North Bombay for a parliamentary seat, but in 1963 Kripalani won in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, largely on the China issue, over a Cabinet Minister, Hafiz Ibrahim, whom Nehru endorsed.

57 The Indian leader's efforts to salvage his China policy between March, 1959, and April, 1960, may be followed in Nehru, , Indian Foreign Policy, pp. 313–385Google Scholar.

58 For the Indian and communist scene in 1959, see Gelman, Harry, “The Communist Party of India: Sino-Soviet Battleground,” in Communist Strategies in Asia, Barnett, A. Doak, ed. (New York, 1963), pp. 107–113Google Scholar.

59 Good, Robert C., “The Congo Crisis: A Study of Postcolonial Politics,” in Martin, op. cit., p. 60Google Scholar.

60 The Hindu, March 27, 1962.

61 Pringsheim, Klaus H., “China, India and Their Himalayan Border (1961–63),” Asian Survey, III (10, 1963), 483–484Google Scholar.

62 Ibid., 490.

63 In effect the Colombo Proposals recommend a Chinese withdrawal of 12.43 miles in Ladakh, with no Indian withdrawal, followed by a temporary and joint civil administration of the vacated area which is to be demilitarized; maintenance of the status quo in the middle sector; adoption of the “line of actual control” in the Northeast as a cease-fire line, with both sides allowed to keep forces on their respective sides of the MacMahon line, except in two areas held by the Chinese, Chedong and Longju; and the resumption of Sino- Indian negotiations. The chief reason for Indian satisfaction with the proposals is their close approximation to India's demand for the restoration of the military picture as of September 8, 1962. See the Asian Recorder, IX (02 19–25, 1963), 5051–5052Google Scholar.

64 Nehru, Jawaharlal, “Changing India,” Foreign Affairs, XLI (04, 1963), 460–461Google Scholar.

65 For this telling point with respect to neutralism in general, see Johnstone, William C., Burma's Foreign Policy (Cambridge, Mass.; 1963), pp. 299–300Google Scholar.